Looking for new product ideas is really an exercise in simplification, not complication.
Take OxiClean for example. Brought to fame by the late Billy Mays, OxiClean is billed as a breakthrough cleaner that can get out any stain through the "power of oxygen”.
So how complicated is the formula for OxiClean? Well, it contains sodium percarbonate, soda ash, and a few other common ingredients. That’s it. Nothing was invented to create this breakthrough cleaner. Sodium Percarbonate has been used for cleaning for many, many years, so it’s not like they even discovered a new use for something in creating this product. It was just a simple formula, well marketed, and marked up quite heavily I’m sure, that drove the phenomenon. Simple.
3M is still making a fortune on Post-It notes, created when a 3M employee needed a glue that was “less sticky” to use on the pages of his church hymn book. A piece of paper and a less sticky glue. Simple.
It’s tempting in the age of gadgets to look to complexities to drive product innovation, but there’s a huge opportunity for people who can think simple thoughts and make connections that aren’t obvious to others.
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