Innovation Blog

 Innovator: Think Small! Think Fast! Think Bootstrap! The Story of “Joulies”

By Shlomo Maital

   Joulies…

We management educators encourage creative innovators to think big.  Sometimes, it’s best to think small, think fast – and think ‘bootstrap’ (how can I do this without investors?).  Here is a case study, based on Jenna Wortham’s piece in the New York Times (April 22/2011, p. 15):

   Dave Petrillo and David Jackson are friends, and mechanical engineers, from Pennington, NJ.  They had an idea. Ever find that your Starbucks coffee was too hot to drink? Or worse, you drank it and burned your lips?  Well, they did.  But, what’s the solution? Steam is hot, and you need steam to force through the coffee grounds.   How about bean-shaped stainless steel shells, called Joulies (a joule is a unit of energy, named after a British physicist),  filled with a heat-absorbing gel, that go into the coffee cup and cool the coffee just enough, but not too much, and can be reused.  The two friends scraped together $3,000, built 100 prototypes by hand in Petrillo’s parents’ basement.  They found a helpful process on You-Tube, on a silverware factory in upstate NY: apparently making knife handles is similar to making Joulies. 

   How did they scale up their imaginative idea?  Instead of spending frustrating months courting arrogant VC’s, they went to Kickstarter, a NY startup that lets people present sales pitches to ordinary people who might invest small sums in a creative startup.  They created a 3-minute video for Kickstarter, offering five Coffee Joulies to anyone who gave them $40.  They raised…$177,000, in just a few weeks, and the total is rising. 

        What can we learn from this little story?  At least five lessons:

1. Think small.  No need is too small to build a business on, provided you can satisfy it well, feasibly, efficiently, and creatively.  Often your own need is a great place to start. Unless you are totally unique, others probably have the same want and need.

2. Build prototypes.  Until you do, you cannot test the market.

3. Think fast!  If you dally, others will beat you to the punch.  Imagine Yankee Stadium full of inventors trying to come up with the same thing you are. 

4. Bootstrap. There is a major scarcity of venture capital these days.  Use the tiniest amount of cash you can, and be creative about finding ‘angel’ investors, who are not VC’s.  Use the 2008  Obama election campaign approach – raise small sums from many investors.  Make a You-Tube video, a short one. 

5. Democratize! According to the NYT article, “shoppers are increasingly looking for a more intimate connection to the creators and the sources of the things they buy”.   Get your fans and potential buyers to help finance your ideas. 

  Social Websites are making innovation a lot easier and faster, especially for those who think fast, small and bootstrap.  Why not try it?