That Smith

One of the best things about business and human nature is that when we take the time to observe what goes on around us, we can learn from the mistakes of others.

This is what I’ve been doing the past year at my now part-time job, where I assist small business owners and entrepreneurs with their start up ideas. As I mentioned in my post from last month, over the past year I’ve been able to witness several compelling business concepts take root, while at the same time watching others plunge into obscurity.

One of which I saw do the latter was a business centered (and patented) around a unique idea. Unfortunately for the founder and his investors however, the idea and product they created was something no one really needed.

After my last post I wrote a lengthy article about his business and what they did wrong (some of you may have read it and therefore know what it was about), but since the idea is patented and, in some form, still trying to exist, I decided to remove the article.

My point with the first article, and the one about his business was that even though you may have a brilliant or unique idea, that in itself is not enough of a foundation for a successful business.

Rather than just having an idea or product that someone has never done before, you need to ensure the idea or product is marketable, desirable, and – unless you are in business for charity – profitable.

His business, and patented idea, was pushed hard simply because no one had done such a thing before. His business was to sell an existing product that was redesigned for a specific segment of people. This segment was small however and because of the group of individuals that made it up, it never would have been profitable either.

I am unsure about what exactly made his business fail, but am aware there were several legal issues facing them because in recreating the product, they infringed on other people’s artwork, and simultaneously were not able to compete on price with suppliers of the existing brand. That, and his business seemed to have three CEOs (none of whom were qualified to run a business) with no one actually artistic enough to make the product in house.

If you are curious about what his business was, I am probably safe to talk about it via e-mail, but for his sake I will not mention it on here.