The following speach was giving at the Maine Association of Manufacturers when ComposiMold was nominated as the Innovator of the Year.
Experiment. It’s not just a bubble gum flavor. Business is about
experimenting. Nothing? Get it? Spearmint flavored bubble gum…experiment? That
failed. You rarely know what’s going to
be successful until you try it. Experimenting is key. Try this, try that,
double down on what works, move past what doesn’t. Every chance you get, you
need to experiment with ideas with strategies and ideas.
So where do you start? You start with an idea. And here’s a
secret for coming up with ideas. Just keep asking “wouldn’t it be great if…”and
answer that. In 30 minutes you can come up with 100’s of ideas. In a month you’ll come up with 100’s of good
ideas. I have a notebook, now a computer document, filled with ideas ranging
from launching a rocket off the side of a mountain to reduce the fuel needed
get moving to an automobile that could be customized using different outer
shells and body components. But of course, those ideas aren’t reality. I don’t
even know if they’re any good. It’s only through learning and experimenting that
we can see what ideas are good, bad, or somewhere in between.
ComposiMold was my experiment because I needed a tool to
help me make my ideas into real parts and pieces. I started with one product in
the ComposiMold business: a reusable heat and pour mold making material. And it
was a one page business plan experiment summarized in a statement “I like it,
let’s see if others will like it too.” I started with a little cooker in my
basement. After the first successes, I doubled my production by going to 2
cookers. After the 3rd cooker, it was time to get out of the house
and scale-up to real production levels. And thus the trek continued. It’s been
10 years now and I’m still learning and we’re still experimenting.
And with
ComposiMold you can make awesome stuff into real materials. You can make ideas,
change ideas, re-make shapes, parts, pieces, and more. And see what happens.
You can make awesome. I know because I get to see what our customers make every
week.
Robot parts, chocolate birthday shapes, Action Figures,
jewelry, reusable molds for vacuum forming inserts. Whole businesses based around a mold making
and casting material where you don’t have to keep on buying the mold making
material. In the molding industry, this is a paradigm shift. Custom mold making
where you can customize your molds, or as an admirer once said once “This is a
3D printer for the rest of us.” And you’re not limited in material options.
And it is through experimenting, you can make awesome. ComposiMold
is your tool for mold making and casting. You can compare it to a hammer or saw
for carpentry. Or a paint brush for painting. When you want to duplicate
something, ComposiMold products are there.
But to be awesome takes experimenting. It takes learning.
It takes skill. You don’t learn calculus before you know algebra. You can’t
paint the Mona Lisa before you learn to draw. Start simple and grow. And when
it comes to tools for mold making, you can’t beat the convenience and ease of
ComposiMold’s mold making materials.
The ComposiMold experiment started with ComposiMold. This
product came out of me making a lot of mistakes. Seems to be the Story of my life.
The basics is this: I like crashing model airplanes for a hobby. And when you
crash a lot you have to build a lot. And at the time I was building a model
airplane that required a whole bunch of spars for the wings. And I didn’t want
to make them all by hand. So mold making was a great idea, but in reality it
was hard to do, the options were smelly, toxic, and hard to use. There was no tools, just materials that you
bought. At first my shapes floated, I had bubbles in the molds, I had holes in
the molds. So there’s that idea question from the beginning “wouldn’t it be
great if…” I could learn how to make molds without wasting all this money. That
used a non-toxic molding material so I could use it in my kitchen without
worry, and wouldn’t it be great if I was able to make dozens of molds with the
same mold making material…ya, that would be great.
And since you can’t get a hit unless you swing the bat, I
put the product out there to see what happens. First selling on Ebay, then a
website, then resellers. The first reseller was the University of Montana. I
also had great advice from the people at Artist & Craftsman. I had no idea
what to do! But we got it done! And then we added distributors and
international sales. We now have over 100 different products based around our
two main mold making materials: ComposiMold, a heat and pour molding material
and ImPRESSive Putty and heat and press, press…get it. Yes, the name is
obnoxious, but the product really is an impressive tool. These molding
materials are your tools for mold making and casting anything from plastics, composites,
to chocolate, clay, soap, candles, and so much more. You can do it with
ComposiMold. And you can start simple and go to as complex as you want. All
with the same mold making materials.
We are now available in over 600 stores and online, through
Europe, North America, and Australia and every week we are continuing to look
at new products and business experiments
We have casting materials including ComposiCast Resins,
colorants, and ComposiStone, We have multiple instructional books, ebooks, over
200 video tutorials, and we keep on experimenting. Our newest product experiment
is an eco friendly biodegradable soft bait lure making kit that lets anglers
make the soft bait lures like they make their own flies. We put out a simple
version of this kit last year just to see what happens, and it’s been very
popular. So we’re making a better version of this kit for this year.
I can’t wait to see what happens next on this amazing, no
sorry, ImPRESSive Bubble Gum Flavored Experiment. Thank you.
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