Page 35 - 597 Business Ideas You can Start from Home - doing what you LOVE! (Beginner Internet Marketing Series)
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24 Your Idea, I nc.
The Microplane is the perfect example of using an already exist
ing product in a totally new way. At a spa-themed trade show,
I exhibited next to a company that sold a product called the Micro
plane, which scrapes the dry, dead skin away from your heels.
The Microplanes were selling like hotcakes. The product had been
around for more than ten years already, but used in two different
markets-woodworking and kitchen tools-for two distinctly dif
ferent purposes. When it was first invented, it was a tool sold in
hardware stores for use with woodworking projects. It was popular
within that industry, both for commercial projects and weekend
warrior home-improvement projects. The Microplane had a special
patented design that would very finely slice wood instead of shred
ding or tearing, like most of the other slicing instruments.
One day, a hardware store owner's wife was making a cake and
needed to zest some orange peel for the recipe. She noticed the new
tool and thought it would be perfect for the job. It was perfect-it
finely sliced the orange's skin like no other kitchen tool she'd seen.
She had her husband add that function to their store catalog and it
was the beginning of the Microplane becoming a household name
in the kitchen industry, too.
Then, the third marketplace use came about later as someone
figured out that the same tool also worked well to gently skim
dead skin off dry heels. So, this tool is popular in the toolshed, the
kitchen, and now the bathroom. What's next for the Microplane?
Play Devil's Advocate
Once you've completed the Biz Brainstorm: Write It Down, Make
It Real, you may feel a renewed sense of excitement for your idea.
Now it's time to channel that energy back into your idea-but this
time to critique it.
Put the workbook down and clear your head. Take a walk, listen
to music, run some errands. When you've had enough time away
from it, go back and review what you wrote. Take a completely fresh
look, as if it is someone else's idea. Critique it. Look for holes in
