Now that l have finished my this frustrating month and a half l have come to a conclusion. Innovation is extremely difficult. Yes, l am aware that this is not a groundbreaking discovery. But this process helped me understand the genius that happens around me on a daily basis. When looking at a website like kickstarter.com, every day hundreds of people post their own work of innovation. While some of them may be less innovative than others, they all take many hours of thought and months maybe years of hard work to get going. This product l created may not be the groundbreaking invention that helps millions of lives, but what it is…is a start.

One thing that Peter Thiel mentioned in Zero to One was that “startups operate on the principle that you need to work with others to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough that you actually can.” One thing that l was struggling with was manufacturing, so l decided to reach out and try to see if anyone could help. 15 different manufacturing companies would not even talk to me about getting my product into their factories. But on my 16th call, l met someone who will be able to help me get a step in the right direction. Peter Russo, the Director of growth and innovation at MassMEP, and he gave me amazing advice on what to do about my problems with my startup. He said, “Instead of trying to pay a company to make your product, l highly suggest to try and make it yourself. Professional prototypes can cost thousands while a 3D print is very cheap”. And after a few more minutes of brainstorming we were able to work on a solution to the problems with the 3D printer as well. Peter was able to supply me with a stiffer type of plastic for the printer which allows me to print a stiffer more functionable product. This business connection l created will help me far beyond this one project.

The most contentious question in business is whether success comes from luck or skill, says thiel. Being a high school kid trying to start a company, my buisness skill is pretty close to 0. That’s why it did not come to a surprise to me when my company hit a massive bump in the road when it came to the design portion. Looking at this through Thiels eyes, l either need to get some someone with skill, or pray that l get lucky.

My problem started when l tried to make my whole product by myself. I went to the 3D printer in our school and just started trying stuff. But this fell through once l realized that the material the printer uses will not work and the printer will be inefficient if l want to begin to mass produce. My potential solution to this problem is to hire a manufacturing company to make me a prototype.

Starting the process of creating a product is a very big step. Trial and error is huge. So far progress has been mostly hypothetical, but that step to physical progress is very close. For professionals and big companies, the way to get something made is very easy. But for a small startup, it is very difficult.

That’s why l have to first produce on an extremely small scale before l make it out of plastic. My 3D print will not be exact dimensions, but close enough to understand the concept. This is why i decided my first product should be very simple because i would not be able to create something with a lot of moving complex parts. 

My product is a circle that will go over the home button that will stop the user from pressing the home button while driving. When plotting out all of my dimensions, l realized that this would have to be extremely precise if l want it to actually work. After many ideas and days of looking through apple patents and thinking about how l can make this fully functional, l finally came up with a design

Yes l understand that it just looks like a plastic circle. But this plastic circle took days to get the dimensions and even longer to figure out how l can get it to stay over the home button. At this moment l realized that my simple piece of plastic will take much longer than l thought. 

This idea started while watching a texting and driving ad. l thought about how the next generation of drivers will be the drivers most likely to text and drive. That’s why l thought this product would be an ideal product to not only sell to the cell phone generation, but to save lives. It is a known fact that humans are physically incapable of multitasking. My product would stop you from pressing the home button, therefore stopping you from unlocking your device.

My company is not going to be a “no texting and driving” prevention company. My company’s sole purpose is to make the world an easier and safer place. The products that l make will not be correlated. It will be flexible and malleable. This means that it will be able to adapt when new ideas are created. This business plan will be an idea that has never been tried before but l am excited to try it out.

Being an innovator does not mean that you will be a billionaire. Thiel talked about The size of the market is critical in being able to decide if your product will take off or not. For example, If you make a revolutionary new technology for disarming bombs, while it may save many lives, it will not be as profitable as Google or PayPal because they have billions of people using them every day. Thiel said that the perfect startup company is able to start by selling to a niche market but can also be used to reach millions of people later.

Competition kills and the automotive corporations are competing like crazy. Not only will a small startup not thrive in these conditions, it will not even be able to get off the ground. That’s why l need to pick a sellable niche market that l will be able to expand from a niche to a network. My plan: Sell to the driver’s education companies and focus on the kid audience or their parents or even better, include my product into their overall cost guaranteeing buyers.

When choosing to make my blog about creating something innovative, l knew it would not be easy. l could have easily created my blog about cleaning my room or learning something new, but l decided to do something that millions of people do as a job their whole life and still may not be able to accomplish it. Why? Because if l can create an entire basis for a company in less than one month, l would have done what most thought was impossible.

l am normally someone who does care about what others say about me, so when l started this project l began to doubt my own vision when l was told that l should try a less ambitious idea. But then when reading Zero to One, one thing Peter Thiel said really struck a chord: “Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.” At that point l realized that if l truly want my idea to become a reality, l have to disregard every shred of doubt that l had in myself.