Always wanted to become an inventor?

Start innovating today with these three easy steps

People look at innovation like some mysterious force behind people who are good at it. It seems like they create new things out of thin air and have this unbelievable intelligence, but actually, it’s just like any other skill, you can learn it. It’s simple, and usually, it’s just the process of combining two things never connected before. I remember listening to one lecture from scientist Miroslav Radman. I am going to paraphrase this because this happened a long time ago. During one Q&A after his speech, somebody asked him what the secret of his success is? He said: Being proud of your innovations is like walking around with a cup of your urine bragging how great kidneys you have. If you consume enough knowledge, eventually your brain will produce something, it’s his function.
So, how do we become good at innovation?

1. Learn and explore, make acquiring new knowledge your passion.

Always learn, always look for something new. When I say learn, people get annoyed right away; they imagine themselves crouching over the book and trying to pour as many facts as possible into their stubborn head. No, I mean listening to podcasts, reading subjects for dummies, learning from people, and listening to TED talks. Open yourself to new hobbies; try to cook, garden, make furniture. Each of these will make you learn something new and will make your creative juices flow.

2. Combine knowledge, products, ideas, and create a new one.

Combine the knowledge you have and make something new out of it. Look at anything in this world and ask; what if I combine these two together?

Everyone can do this, it’s just the matter of finding the feature from one thing and combining it with another. Let’s do this together.

Let’s combine a chair with a mobile phone.

• Can the chair have a display, speakers, a microphone?
• Can it have a sensor for weight so it tracks and warns me on my weight?
• Can it track my sitting and give me statistics on how much I sit compared to others?
• Can I put vibration in the chair so I can get a massage while I learn?
• Can I connect my chair to the Internet?
• Can I use AI with my chair so it can recommend my sitting patterns?
• Can I put some cameras or other sensors so it can see if I don’t sit correctly?
• Can I play games with my chair?
• Can my chair augment my digital experience, to rock, recline and vibrate while I play games?
• Can it have electric motors so it can move while playing games?
• Can it have actuators so I can feel not only vibrations but punches?

This can go on forever, you start with a mobile phone, but then it expands. This was done on the go, in 3 minutes and I never edited this after I’ve done it. I want to show you the brain process of how it happened. Now imagine doing this question with your job, with your problems, your life.

3. Release your creation into the world and see how the world responds.

Once you have your idea, you need to turn it into reality, and this is where almost everybody gets stuck. You think you need a large team; developers, designers, technology experts, lawyers, money… Well, actually, it’s not true.

How to test your idea and turn it into reality?

To launch your idea, you need 3 easy steps. I know, again with 3 steps, what can I say, I love the 3 easy steps approach.

1. Create a web page from a template

Pick WIX, WordPress, or any platform that will allow you to easily create a web page. Choose the template you like, replace text and graphics, and voila, you have your webpage.

2. Create a campaign for your product

Pick Google advertising, Facebook advertising, buy banners, whatever works for you, but create a small ad with main points on your product, let it out in the world and see if people click. If you start to generate traffic on your website, it makes sense to explore your idea further.

3. Collect leads and learn from them

Collect feedback from interested leads, in return, promise them a significant discount when your idea becomes live. It will allow you to adjust the product and create it even better than imagined.

The mistake that most people make is going large, right away. They create the product, invest thousands in development, design, marketing, and don’t see any reaction from the market. Or worse yet, most people don’t even start. This simple approach will allow you to test early, adopt often, try different methods, and change your product. Usually, a product will inevitably change during development, it can even become something completely different, but the later on you are in the development phase, the more expensive it is to make changes. So, test early and test often.

What if it doesn’t work, nobody is interested in your idea? Well, the worst thing that happened is that you spent a small amount of money and time, but look at what you got: the experience of creating, the fun of developing, and the gift of innovation, that sounds like a fair trade, doesn’t it!