Have you ever watched the TV show Shark Tank? It’s the TV show where regular people pitch their ideas and show their products to a select group of millionaire judges, hoping they can get the millionaires to partner with them and invest in their business. It's a fun show to watch because it demonstrates the American Dream. The Dream of a Nobody who dreams big, who with a lot of blood sweat & tears, creates the product that will put him or her on the map. The ideas that attract the most attention from the Sharks are those that break ground in a unique way and solve actual problems. I don't always understand the financial jargon, or the investment percentages, or the royalties in perpetuity. But I enjoy the show. I like to see the ideas that people have, the problems that they try to solve, and the products that they invent.
Many different kinds of products and businesses and services make their way onto Shark Tank. I think the show is a big success because it taps into that universal feeling that any one of us could come up with the Next Great Idea. All it takes is common sense, analytical skills, creativity, perseverance, people who believe in you, and a little luck. Or a lot of luck.
Have you ever wondered if you could come up with the Next Great Idea? An idea that everyone would rally around? An idea that made perfect sense? An idea that would turn you into a successful entrepreneur? Ever feel like that?
Here’s a story of What Coulda Been. If only.
My first child was born in 1990. It took me a minute to get used to my new responsibilities of working full-time and taking care of our son. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day. Like thousands of parents, I struggled to balance my work life and my home life. One of the most frustrating things for me was the overwhelming number of errands that seemed to crop up day after day. I found myself constantly swinging by stores or other places of business after dropping my son off at daycare, or before picking him up. To ease some of the stress, I started going to the grocery store during my work lunch hour, stuffing the office breakroom refrigerator with my bags of milk, cheese, yogurt and other perishables. Despite all my strategic planning, I constantly found myself dragging my son in his car seat around town doing this and that over and over again. If you have never run errands with a baby, then maybe you won’t understand. All I can say is NOT FUN.
Even though I had lived in that city for a number of years, I found myself going places that I had never been before. To find my way around town, I Let My Fingers Do The Walking. Which means: I pulled out the Southern Bell telephone book and scanned through the Yellow Page advertisements to locate businesses and find their addresses. Then I wrote them down on a piece of paper. If necessary, I studied a paper map of city streets to calculate my route, again, writing down whatever driving directions I needed. It was tricky business. I would look for the address of something that I knew, such as a movie theater, then compare it to the new address to see if the location was near the theater. Also, if, say, I was looking for a bakery, there might be many bakeries in the phone book to choose from. I could not always tell which ones were close and which were further away. I did a lot of guesswork, hoping I would find the places that I was looking for.
As I strategized my daily routines with baby in tow, I came to realize that I was not running errands efficiently. I decided that I needed a tool to help me figure out the fastest route to get from one place to another, organizing locations that were close together so that I could get the most done in the least amount of time. With the proper tool, I might be able to regroup so that I could go pick up birthday cards on the same day that I went to the bank, because those businesses were on the same side of town. Likewise, I could wait until the next day to go to the garden center, because it was near the pharmacy where prescription refills would be ready. You get what I’m talking about? Some of those decisions I could make on my own, but others, I wasn’t as sure, because I didn’t always know how roads connected together.
Being in the computer industry (as a computer programmer), I deduced that I needed access to a database of businesses and addresses.
And, that’s where The Biz Map came in. I imagined a device which I could mount in my car. This device would provide a database of all addresses in a given town. It would provide a map which was updated depending upon my location. It would also provide information about businesses, such as, “florists” or “shoe stores”, listing all of them and showing where they were on the map. It would calculate a driving route for me and tell me how long it would take to get from here to there. It would help me plan multiple stops on a trip. That was the tool that I needed. I dubbed it The Biz Map. The Biz Map would be the perfect tool to help me chart a course to a variety of destinations, get estimated driving times, quickest routes, and more.
I understood the mechanics of the database. I knew how the programs would be designed to provide the information that I wanted. I knew a thing or two about computer programming. I knew how to organize and manipulate data. What I didn’t know was the mechanics of the device. I didn’t know squat about building electronics or working with hardware or display screens or constructing a prototype. I had no idea how someone could actually build this device. I didn’t know how someone would maintain the database and access real-time location information. I didn’t know what systems it would need to connect to, or how to maintain those connections. I had a crazy notion that to properly complete all of the information, someone would have to drive around town with a camera mounted on the car to film street level views of the businesses. That would supply a true representation of streets in town. For the system to work, pictures would have to be taken of every street in every city. Nah, I thought, that’s ridiculous. That would be way too hard to do. That could never happen.
I knew how I wanted The Biz Map to work, what problems I wanted it to solve. I just didn’t know how to begin, how to realize the dream. It was my Great Idea, but it never got off the ground.
That was 1990.
According to the article “The History of GPS for Vehicle Navigation” at transfinder.com,
“GPS navigation for vehicles began officially in 2001 from private companies due to the growing technology and shrinking receiver size."
While the GPS technology had previously been used for the military and for aircraft, it was 11 years after my Biz Map idea before the technology found its way into my life. Actually, longer than that, as I did not get my hands on a GPS device until several years after they hit the market. Now I’m not pretending that I was the only person in the world who recognized the value of creating a personal device for location and direction. I know that brilliant minds were hard at work behind the scenes well before we saw the first GPS device for sale. I know that I didn’t invent the concept.
But, still……. I wonder…….what if I had tried to flesh out my idea? Tried to gather the right people to put a plan in place. Tried to tackle the task. Dreamed big…..........….I wonder.
Have you ever seen a Google Maps car driving around? I have. According to telecrunch.com, the Street View feature of Google Maps launched in 2007. Working off some experiments at Stanford University, the Google Maps folks strapped a camera onto one of their cars and started filming the streets of San Francisco. Many years and many miles later, Google Maps has filmed streets in 87 countries, according to Reader’s Digest, rd.com. Whether you are a fan of Google Street View or not, you have to admit that is pretty impressive. See, some ideas aren’t so far-fetched after all.
Well, looks like you’re not going to see me as a contestant on Shark Tank any time soon, I’m sorry to say.
Unless…………Hold on…………….I might be on the verge of another idea……..OK, wait........Gotta go………I think I’m getting an inspiration.
Cross your fingers for me!!!