April 5, 2024 • 50 mins
Discover the hidden charm of simplicity that's revolutionizing the way we approach life and innovation. Together with my co-host Caitlin Mode, we embark on a nostalgic yet futuristic journey through the entwined paths of tradition and technology. From the beginnings of New Balance, inspired by the anatomy of chicken feet, to the smart design of Smart Cups, we promise a fresh appreciation for the basics that are making a grand comeback in our hyper-advanced world.
Prepare to have your mind opened to the subtleties of design that make everyday objects extraordinary. We delight in the serendipitous creation of Post-it notes, admire the straightforward charm of Apple devices, and engage in thought-provoking conversation about the thin line between simplicity and over-engineered complexity. Our episode is a testament to the philosophy that sometimes, less really is more, and how a focus on the user experience leads to innovation that reshapes our interaction with the digital and physical world.
Wrapping up our exploration, we turn our attention to the practical magic of 3D printing in personal innovation and how platforms like Canva are democratizing creativity. We share tales of marketing victories, like the surprise hit of Stanley's thermoses, and discuss how the simplest of changes can lead to significant improvements in design. Join us for this celebration of the beauty and efficiency of simplicity.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And I'm joined as always by my co-host, caitlin
Mode.
How are you doing today?
Good, welcome, welcome.
So I want to talk today aboutthe subtle genius of simple.
When you look around, you see atechnology-dominated landscape.
You see this rise of kind, ofthe rise of the machine, if you
(00:22):
will, but it seems to be intoday's market.
It's the simple that's drawingus back, and I use the example
of what you've always heardgrowing up is trends are
cyclical, things come backaround and so you think of you
know when you think of that, youthink of clothing, you think of
you know some of the basics,but several hundred years later,
(00:43):
we're seeing callbacks to diettrends.
We're making technologicalinnovations with physical things
that are really just bringingus back to our roots, right?
So you think of the paleo diet,you think of the barefoot shoe,
this rise of the barefoot shoe,where it gives you enough space
(01:03):
for your toes to stay open andnatural, so it's not kind of
crowding your toes, and a lot ofyour advertising right now in
the shoe market is dialed intothat, and so I think back to
well, where did this come from?
So let's, we'll use the shoe asour example, and for as long as
(01:24):
shoes have existed.
You've had these, you know,shoes that are protecting your
feet and the origins of them, Ibelieve like bubble.
It was like almost like abubble gum or a rubber compound
that that people would put ontheir feet to purchase to
protect them from sharp objectsand rocks and things.
They created like a rubber theywould dip their feet in.
That would last for a few days,that would allow them to
(01:45):
protect their feet from harshenvironments.
And then we kind oftransitioned into shoes that
covered your feet and kept youwarm and kind of started
building on the shoe from there.
And then you're talking aboutNew Balance and Nike and all
these companies that are comingout with these more and more
innovative shoes, and so you'regoing to kind of take a look
back to the origins of NewBalance.
(02:06):
We'll start there where thefounder of New Balance, which
was originally an orthoticscompany, an insole company,
where he looked at the feet ofthis chicken on his farm and he
said, wow, they have these kindof three points of contact.
I wonder if I made an archsupport insole that would
support your foot kind of in asimilar way, with kind of three
structure points.
(02:26):
And you've got people who arewearing shoes with no arch
support, especially runners, whostart using these shoes and
saying, man, this arch supportlets me run faster and farther
and allows me to make greateradvancements in my running
fitness and goals, as runningbecame kind of a very
popularized form of exercise inthe country.
(02:49):
And so you've got these peoplewith strong arches and strong
feet that you're now giving somerest to and allow them to go
farther and do more.
So, naturally, as we do, we lookat this and say, wow, this is
going to make us better, this isgoing to make our ability to
perform stronger and you fastforward.
(03:09):
You know 50, 60, 70 years,whatever it's been.
Now you've got Nike that's got34,000 patents on shoes, because
shoe technology has come so far, and the innovation now has
gone the other direction.
The innovation is how can wemake this as basic as possible?
Let's focus on grounding.
(03:29):
Let's focus on keepingourselves grounded to the earth.
People are cutting the bottomsoff of their shoes so they can
be barefoot, because barefoot'shealthier.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And all the technology's in the bottom of
the shoe.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Exactly right.
So we're almost cutting thetechnology off the shoe now and
saying, oh, the best thing youcan do is let your toes do what
they're supposed to do, andthat's like this innovative
concept.
And so, if that's theinnovative concept, where's the
innovation?
You almost think to yourselfwe're just going back to what
shoes were forever ago.
And I think the cyclical pieceis we go high science, we go
(04:04):
high technology, and then we goback to traditional right,
similar to the rise of yourclear spirits like vodka and
tequila, and then we go back totraditional and the whiskey
becomes really, really popular.
Now we're starting to seewhiskey taper off.
So in the consumables market,technology is starting to take
off again, where now we'resaying oh, you don't have to
(04:27):
drink something with alcohol tofeel that buzz, here's a
chemical plant-based compoundout of a mushroom or something
that gives you that similar vibe.
Lots of no alcohol things.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
There's a tipping point, I think, is what causes
the cyclicalness to continue,right, like take the food
industry we innovate food andhow it's made, how it's produced
, the supply chain, why?
To solve a problem of foodsafety, supply and demand, but
then we keep innovating andinnovating.
(05:00):
Now we're trying to optimizeour food.
Then we get protein shakes andbars and highly processed
products that are supposed to benutrient dense, the perfect.
It's essentially space food,right, like, it's exactly what
your body needs, it's all thenutrients you could ever want in
this package.
And then it's like we've gonetoo far and people start saying
we should really be just eatingthe rainbow, eating real food,
(05:22):
fruits and veggies, whole fooddiet, and around and around we
go, we go back to organic andhomegrown and then diseases pop
up and oh, we need to have foodsafety.
And then innovation, innovation, innovation, optimization, and
then go back around.
So I think it's like that whenis that tipping point of we are
no longer solving the problemand now we're just optimizing?
(05:45):
In the shoe example, we're nowno longer protecting our feet
from being chewed up when wewalk around, from pain and
discomfort, to optimizing howfar we can run.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, and there's a lot of science out there now
that's saying, hey, listen, thatwas a great innovation of its
time, but now it's creatingother foot problems.
You're starting to develop overyears and years and years of
use, of lifetimes, of usingthese orthotics that are
supposed to help you.
Your foot's becoming reliable,relying on those and you're
getting shin splints and you'regetting arch problems and people
(06:19):
growing flat footed and allthis kind of stuff.
And so, yeah, there is thattipping point.
There is that moment where westart to look back and start to
go more toward traditional views.
Which is one of the things Ilove about innovation is that
innovation can adapt to thosethings.
(06:39):
You can have a wildlyinnovative idea.
That's just going back to thebasics, and there's a couple
things that I think are goodexamples of that, and one of
them is the post-it note.
And with the post-it note,you've got this person who is
trying to come up with a superadhesive and he basically makes
(07:03):
some miscalculation and comes upwith this kind of reusable
techie substance and what youend up with is kind of going
back to one of the moreprimitive forms, which turns out
to be incredibly enticing andbecomes one of the most
profitable items in the companyis the ability just to write a
small note, a scrap paper, right, instead of instead of a folder
(07:26):
or instead of a binder or somekind of organizational calendar.
It's just like hey, here's,here's a piece of scrap paper
you can stick to your monitor,right.
And the simplicity of that,that design, the simplicity of
that, of that option, I think,skyrocketed to wild popularity.
Because now I'm not rippingpaper, I'm doing, you know, I'm
not writing a formal letter andputting it in an envelope and
(07:47):
giving it to somebody, I'm justlike walking up and popping a
sticky note on their monitor,right, it gives you some
simplicity.
That brings you back to thebasics of human communication
small shorthand.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So you said scrap paper and I just have to
interject because it's sointeresting to me how the
post-it note became that canaryyellow, you know.
It's like that's like thetrademark post-it note color.
It was not selected, it wasn'tlike there was no focus group,
there was no boardroom meetingon the color of the post-it note
(08:22):
.
Really, Really, they literallywent to the manufacturer who was
going to print these and it wasthe only color paper they had
available and they were justlike okay, that's fine Yellow
works.
It was literally scrap paperfrom the manufacturer, that's
all they had left in stock andnow it's the signature color and
(08:44):
I just love that.
It's just like they just rangwith what they had.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Which is interesting, right, because when you think
about kind of technology today,right, you think of, you know,
oh, man, focus groups and allthis stuff where people are
trying to figure out what's thebest way to do this.
And, oh, apple designed it itmust have thousands of hours.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
There must be a reason.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and it could just be because, like, oh, my
grandma used to do it that way,so I did Right.
And even again, going back tosimplicity, you think of Apple
and you think of Android and thephone and AirPods and watches
and all these things that aredesigned to distract us from
every day, and you've got thisalmost military grade incredible
(09:24):
distraction devices that'sbuilt into your pocket at all
times.
And Apple's newest innovationis like hey, maybe you want to
look up while this is happening.
So let's think of sub displays,and the Vision Pro is now this
thing that wants to be in theroom with you, right, which is
kind of a way to almost distractyou more, but they want you
back in the room because peopleare interested in being back in
(09:47):
the room.
And there's all these devicesand I know you have one in your
desk there's all these devicesthat are designed to kind of
simplify the process.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Oh yeah, You're talking about my Remarkable
tablet Remarkable.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, no, that's a really interesting one to bring
up in this conversation becauseit is exactly exactly what
you're talking about.
Going back to the purity of thetask.
So the remarkable for anyonewho hasn't seen one which I bet
is a lot of people becausewhenever I bring this thing out
and I don't get out very much itturns heads and people ask me
(10:22):
questions about it.
So I don't think it's supermainstream, but essentially it's
a writing tablet.
It's the first ever papertablet that looks, feels and
even sounds like paper.
So they've built enoughresistance into the tablet.
When you write on it with thepen, it feels like you're
(10:43):
writing on a piece of paper witha pencil.
So it's the first of its kindwhen it comes to how it looks,
how it feels, how it writes.
And the beauty of it is it's notconnected to anything.
I mean, okay, let me back up.
It's connected to the cloud viaWi-Fi just to store your
(11:04):
documents, right, your notepads,essentially.
But outside of that you can'taccess the internet.
There are no applications thatcan distract you from whatever
you're working on.
So it's back to that purity ofreading and writing and
sketching, of just picking up apad and a pen or pencil and
(11:27):
getting to work or picking up adocument Well, I say document,
but picking up the paper or ajournal and just reading without
getting distracted by anything.
I mean, how often do you openyour smartphone to check an
email and you end up on freakingreddit or instagram and you're
(11:49):
just like how did I get here?
Did I do?
What was I?
Oh yeah, I was gonna check myemail.
And how often did you actuallycheck the email first?
Or do you just open your phoneand, like your brain takes over
and you just go into thosepathways that we've constructed
and it's like locked in.
I did that all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Oh yeah, well, especially and I think back to,
I think of meetings.
Right, I'm sitting in a meetingand somebody asked me a
question and I go to look for adocument, or a lot of times what
I'll do in meetings is somebodywill ask a question and I'll
pop my phone open.
I'll kind of Google that realquick.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And then you're gone.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Just to get an idea of kind of make sure we're all
on the same page, yeah, and thensix pages later I'm just on my
phone, right, which I think asmillennials we feel that's super
disrespectful, because we grewup with phones and so we kind of
have a focus on not trying notto do that or a reckless abandon
, and just say, hey, listen,phone's part of life.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, no.
And the inventor of theremarkable, I believe he's a
millennial and he's a Harvardgrad and when he was going to
school he was dealing with thatthe distraction of having his
devices in the classroom.
So he decided to make aconscious decision to work
exclusively with pen and paperthroughout his pursuit of his
(13:07):
degree, and so he would leaveall his devices in his room and
he would only take a notepad ora notebook.
And he said he was way morefocused, but lugging around
these books was cumbersome.
So that's like what?
What fueled the idea forRemarkable?
Like he decided, I want to.
I want to infuse the simplicityof pen and paper with the ease
(13:32):
of a tablet and and that's howthe Remarkable was born.
I just love that.
He was like, he recognized thedistraction.
I mean, we're all aware of thedistraction, but we kind of just
let it infiltrate us and, likeyou say, almost like a casual
abandonment of yeah, I know, Iknow, oh, man, I got stuck in
Instagram again, oops.
(13:53):
But he made this very consciousdecision to just not let that
impact his studies and from thatdeveloped this tool, which I
mean, like I said, I have it andI think it's.
I'm a pen and paper girl and Ihave abandoned pen and paper
because of this tool, which Imean, like I said, I have it and
I think it's.
I'm a pen and paper girl and Ihave abandoned pen and paper
because of this device which isso freeing, because it's no
longer.
Where's that note, where's thatsticky, where's that piece of
(14:16):
paper I was scribbling on duringthe meeting and wasn't able to
organize my thoughts properly?
You know, now it's all in oneplace, which is amazing, but I
think it's just.
You know, the realization thatthere's a problem is what then
takes us back to the purity ofwhatever it is that we're trying
to do, whether that's going fora walk or sketching something
(14:38):
on a notepad.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, and I think that overwhelmingly the best way
to test kind of that theory andI've noticed it in my meetings
or just being with other peopleis if you look down at your
smartwatch or your phone whilesomebody's talking.
A lot of times the answer is,oh, do you need to take that?
(15:01):
Because their immediate thoughtis like you're sucked in,
you're distracted, and theydon't mean it like in a
disrespectful way.
They mean it in a you look downlike is it something important?
Because we've trained our mindsto say, oh, whatever's on that
phone is probably more importantthan what's happening in this
room and kind of deprioritizebeing in the moment, which I
(15:22):
think is what makes Remarkableso interesting, because I've
been in meetings where there'stwo or three people with
Remarkables and there's two orthree people with cell phones.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh, so you found the other three Remarkable users.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Now there's a lot of Remarkables out there.
I've seen a fair amount,especially recently.
I think it's kind of grown inpopularity.
But when you're in a meetingwith with remarkable or paper
users, in a meeting versuspeople who are using their cell
phones for everything, or theirlaptop.
Or their laptop, which is verydistracting.
Yeah, it's.
You do notice a palpabledifference.
And and we talk about goingback to simplicity, the, the,
(15:57):
the subtle genius of simple,right?
It's something like you know, anine volt battery, right?
Do you have any idea what'sinside of a nine volt battery?
Small, it's something like a9-volt battery.
Do you have any?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
idea what's inside of a 9-volt battery?
Smaller batteries.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Right, yeah, so exactly, there are six
quadruple-A batteries that makeup a 9-volt battery.
They're just stacked in asquare and they wrapped a square
frame around it and attachedall the six batteries together
and rolled from there.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yes, pigs in a blanket.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Pigs in a blanket.
Right, they could have easilycome up with a coil and made it
like a nine-volt powered battery.
But why reinvent the wheel?
Right?
The subtle genius of simplicity.
And had they not gone with thatpackage, you might not have
both contacts on one side and beable to kind of lick it and
give yourself that little buzzbutton vibe, right.
So the simplicity of Now.
(16:47):
There's a difference betweensimplicity and if it ain't broke
, don't fix it right, becausethere's often a mentality of
well, my shoes work just fine,why would I do something else?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I think that goes back to the tipping point.
Right, let's look at theremarkable.
How many years of tabletinnovation did we go through to
get to the point where it's likethis is distracting.
Now this is the new problem.
Now it makes sense to go backright.
For a long time it was just itwasn't as distracting.
Technology wasn't there yet, wedidn't have all these apps that
(17:17):
were designed to hijack ourbrains, and so until that
happened brains, and so untilthat happened.
You know, I think if remarkablecame on the scene six years ago
, 10 years ago, it'd be like whyI have?
I have this tablet, it does allof that.
I can write on here, I can, youknow, send an email and it's
all right here.
Why would I need that?
(17:38):
It doesn't do anything, it'sjust paper, but it's because the
technology wasn't as distractedyet.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah Well, and I mean , it took almost 10 years of
tablet technology to realizethey wanted a pencil right.
The whole idea of a tablet.
When they think back to whentablet computers first came out,
you were almost like you werealmost a dinosaur if you had a
stylus right.
And they and and when theyrealized and this is the
marketing twist to it, right,because there's innovation and
there's simplifying things andthen there's the idea of
(18:09):
creating, kind of creating aproblem or creating a solution
to something you know wasalready a problem, and then kind
of selling your solution.
There's a difference there,right?
So when they start bringingstyluses back, we don't call
them styluses, it's the ApplePencil, right.
We bring them back, we don'tcall them styluses, it's the
Apple pencil right.
We bring them back because werealize, actually on a
functional level, that makes themost sense.
(18:30):
So let's bring it back, let'sgive it some features, but let's
call it the Apple pencil, right.
And now you're enticing the userto start writing, start
handwriting, start sketching,start drawing and all these
things.
And you give them brush strokesand a bright screen and all
these things.
And you give them brushstrokesand a bright screen and all
these things.
And then enters a moment ofwell, if I'm already using a
(18:51):
pencil on a tablet and right,why not go back to a pencil?
And for people like you, wherethere's a nostalgia to the
feeling of the pencil and thepaper, it draws you in, it
focuses your mind, gives you afeeling that you're truly
writing.
And what Remarkable did that Ithink is brilliant is they have
(19:13):
those tips that slowly wear down.
There's actually friction onthe tip.
It's actually creating apaper-like friction feel.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, the nibs wear out, and they wear out quick.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, I think you use it very aggressively.
I push, hard, I push down hardand you also use it all the time
.
I don't think I've ever seenyou without it recently since
you got it, and I think there'sa difference between simplicity
and adding a feature, orsimplicity and solving a problem
that didn't exist yet, right.
(19:44):
So, because there's a steve jobmantra of they don't know what
they don't they need yet, I'mgoing to show them what they
need and in its success, thatmantra success, apple success,
doing that is kind of whatgenerated this.
Well, let's sell them what theydon't need yet, and I think
that's how you get to Nike with34,000 patents.
(20:06):
Right, some of those patentsare used for competition, to
just keep people out of thespace they want them to be in.
Some of those patents are newtechnologies.
But I'll tell you what if Ispent millions of dollars
developing patents for the knittop shoe and I patented every
conceivable knit pattern I couldthink of to keep people away
(20:27):
from the knit top shoe, even iflater I find out that it's bad
for people's toes, I got to sella lot of knit top shoes to
justify that expense first.
So I may, as a business, make abusiness decision to push
forward with an inferior productto make sure I can sell it, and
I think that's one of thereasons.
(20:47):
I think that the art ofsimplicity, the subtle genius of
simplicity, is that there'sthings that you use every day
that you don't think aboutBaking soda.
Baking soda has been rebrandeda thousand times.
It's the simplest product I canpossibly think of, but it's for
deodorizing your fridge, it'sfor brushing your teeth, it's
(21:08):
for adding to food, it's for allthese things they found to do
with one simple product.
The genius there isn't in theproduct.
The genius there is in.
How do you continue to finduses for it?
And I promise you a couple ofthose uses are probably not A
stretch.
They're a stretch, right.
But that leads me into what Ithink is going to be a new
(21:29):
segment, if you're ready for it,I'm up for it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
That sounded not enthusiastic at all, but I am.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So I think what I want to start doing is talking
through some of these ideas thatI've seen.
So every week I think I'm goingto bring a new item or two that
I've seen this week that Ithink are really neat,
innovative ideas, and we'll talkthrough them and I'll get your
feedback on them as well.
So the first one is a companycalled Smart Cups.
Now, anytime you've been at alarge event so think of it's
(22:00):
wintertime you're going to go toa company event and have hot
chocolate.
What does that look like?
What does that setup look like?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
An eight-foot table with a thermos type of reservoir
with the hot chocolate insideof it, with a spigot on the
bottom, styrofoam cups and maybea cute little bowl of
marshmallows in it.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Maybe some cookies.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
What does it look like if there's a thousand
people?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
There's going to be ten eight-foot tables.
They're just going to havemultiple stations, or they're
going to have someone behind thetable making the hot chocolate
and handing it over to you, soyou're not bogging down a line.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How early do you think that team got there to
prepare that hot chocolate?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Okay, so you're assuming it's made on site?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Or how long in advance do you think you had to
plan for that?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
A couple weeks a month.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
If it's just hot chocolate.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, it's just hot chocolate right, like in the
lobby.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, a couple weeks.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Now, let's say that you're a major marathon and
you're the team that's hostingthe marathon and you want to
hand out cups of Gatorade to therunners as they go by.
Right, there's the same, verysimilar logistics to the
beverages as what we just talkedabout.
Right, You're mixing Gatorade.
(23:31):
There's like some kind ofcarafe that's producing Gatorade
.
It's a very similar process.
Now, this gentleman I don'tremember his name, I'll look it
up, I'll post it on ourInstagram but there's a
gentleman that made a companycalled Smart Cups and what he's
done and this is to me, the mostbrilliant thing of the week,
and he's been around for acouple of years he has 3D
(23:53):
printed hot chocolate,electrolyte beverages, like
sparkling flavors for sparklingdrinks inside of the cups.
So he's got these disposablecups, these paper cups, and he's
3D printed the flavoring orwhatever is going to be produced
when you add the water or milkto this beverage inside the cup.
(24:13):
So they stack like regular cupsand you can just transport the
cups.
So inside the cup there's alittle like almost a hexagon, 3d
printed.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Like terrifying.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
So when you think of 3d printing, which is kind of
the brilliance of it, 99% of thebeverages that we consume on a
mass scale are powder.
So for 3d printing, I'm justtaking that powder and I'm just
I'm heating it up so it stickstogether, right, the sugars, and
they kind of solidifies it abit, and then I'm just drawing
on the inside of the cup.
So it's no different than whatyou find in a packet, it's just
they change slightly, change theformat, so it it sticks to the
(24:43):
inside of the cup.
But now all I have to do ispour hot water.
Now, if I'm going to an event,I just need to bring 5,000 cups
and a bunch of hot water.
I can get hot water fromanywhere.
I can just have carafts in hotwater, pop, you know, fill up
each cup, or cold water if it's,if it's an electrolyte beverage
, right.
So I, he's, he's created this.
There's a way that you cantransport the logistical
nightmare of of getting all thispowdered stuff into a big jug
(25:07):
and mixing it up and all thisstuff and he's turned it into
just these cups.
And he does a lot actually forwith, like the homeless, where
he goes and hands outelectrolyte beverages to the
homeless.
She walks around around citystreets.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
And he's handing out the cups empty and they can fill
them up.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
He's handing them a cup and a bottle of water.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Right, so I can put a bottle of water kind of in the
cup, hand them that and say, ifyou pour it inside, you'll make
Gatorade, right, or a version ofGatorade.
I was probably not sponsored,because Powerade, powerade, yes,
whoever sponsored him or hisown proprietary blend, right,
but it's brilliant becauseyou've taken something that
someone's already comfortablewith.
(25:42):
And it's the subtle genius ofsimplicity.
If I just bring those cups andI don't tell you, you go, oh,
look disposable cups stacked up,as they always are, if I don't
tell you, you see what you'reused to seeing.
Right, and it's my.
This's the same argument I havewith hydrogen fuels as a, as an
option over EVs.
Right, hydrogen fuels.
(26:03):
I can take existing gasstations.
I can just change the tank andI can put hydrogen, compressed
hydrogens, on the tanks and youfill it up like you would fill
up any other car.
The nozzle changes a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, it's higher adoption.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It's a higher adoption right.
I's no long wait times, there'sno reworking the entire
electrical grid to be able toplug in these cars, there's no
just sitting in a Wawa right.
So the adoption rate ofhydrogen would be higher.
It's less efficient, it costsmore or whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
There are downsides to hydrogen, but the adoption
rate would be high.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
The adoption rate of hydrogen would be higher.
Noble gas joke.
So Smart Cups is my first one.
First things first.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I think I don't understand 3D printing.
So when you first said it I waslike that's disgusting, I don't
understand.
But then when you described howit was done, I think I'm okay
with it and I would drink it,yeah, so it makes me a little,
I'm a little.
I would love to see it inaction, because what I thought
of originally was you know,those hot chocolate eggs or
(27:09):
characters that you get forchristmas and you like pour the
hot milk over and they'resupposed to like melt, all cute
and release the, the littlemarshmallows.
They never work and they tastelike trash and like you have to
stir them for an hour.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So like wax coated hot chocolate.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah so like I would love to see in action, to see
like, does it just like?
Does it release really slowly,like if I'm a runner and you
just put water in my cup as Icame around the corner, I
grabbed it am Am I going to getmostly water with a finish of
really concentrated power ray,but most of it's stuck to the
cup and going to go in the trash.
I would love to see that workin real life, but I think it's
(27:47):
interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So so, so one of the things that we're going to do
with these and that's why Iasked what you think is.
I want to talk through the.
Do we think this is going tosurvive?
What's the viability of thisoption?
And when I tell you the next,my next-.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
How much does it cost ?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Oh, they're a dollar, you know, like less than a
dollar a cup.
They're not very expensive, sotheir cost is relatively low All
things considered.
Now, what you put in it woulddictate the cost a little bit.
But I'll post it on ourInstagram of smart cups in
action so you can kind of get anidea of what that looks like in
our X profile as well.
So I'll post those things sothat you and the viewers can go
(28:25):
look at the smart cups and seethe interview with the guy who
made them.
And I think, personally, theviability of it seems like a
long-term thing.
I think it's a great idea.
I think it has a large use case.
I think almost anyone can useit.
Anyone can benefit from it.
If you have a church or aschool or something, you need to
(28:46):
make a lot of beverages, it's alot faster and easier to make
those beverages.
So I like the product, I likethe direction.
I think it's a brilliant idea.
And it's a very simple idea,right, you're using existing
technology and just slightlymodifying it to meet your need.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
If they worked well, I would buy them for home use.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, well, I might buy them, especially for kids.
Yeah, I might get them forfootball games and things.
So that's the first one, thenext idea or the next thing that
I've seen this week, the nextinnovation John has seen this
week, it's called the Hydalooand it's a British company and
it's a toilet that's on a swivelhinge.
(29:27):
So if you think of a toilet,there's no tank to the back of
it, it's all built kind ofunderneath of the toilet itself,
but the toilet turns and hidesinto a vanity.
It goes like left or right andlike hides into the vanity.
So if you have a small bathroomspace or an RV or something, I
love this and you want to hidethe toilet all together when
you're not using it, and then,when you use the toilet, you
(29:50):
open the cabinet, you pull thetoilet out, you use it and you
put it back away.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I love this on so many levels.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, tell me why you love it.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Because bathrooms are away.
I love this on so many levels.
Okay, tell me why you love it?
Because bathrooms aredisgusting.
I don't care how cute yourbathroom is, I don't care how,
how home goodsy you've done it.
It's toilets are weird, like,and we they're just, they're
just centered in these rooms andwe're used to it, so it's not
that weird, but it's weird.
It's this sterile throne thateveryone I don't know.
It's the idea of hiding mytoilet away so that your
bathroom could be a little bitnicer, a little bit less what it
(30:28):
is.
I think that's brilliant.
I think that's brilliantespecially if you have a smaller
space.
I mean, if you have a bigbathroom, it's the space, isn't
draw, it's the aesthetic and theability to talk.
I mean, if you're having aparty, especially like, or if,
if, if you have kids and thattoilet's not always clean and
then you people swing by, youjust want to, you just want to
(30:50):
fold it up so they can go andthey can wash their hands, I
think that's, I would buy that.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Well, and one of the reasons I selected it is for the
idea that I first saw in myhead of it is if you on a boat,
for instance, where the bathroomis, your shower is if you can
hide that toilet.
Now you have a standup showerand you're not like kind of
around the toilet while you'reshowering.
So smaller, smaller bathrooms,boats, rvs, that kind of thing,
(31:16):
what I?
I don't know how high of anadoption rate this has, and
here's why One if I'm at a partyand I've got to go, where is
the toilet, where is your toilet, I'm standing in this room.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I'm trying not to laugh.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I'm standing in this room.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
What a great party trick.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Oh yeah, and and that's the thing is is so now,
my thought process is now Ialmost have to show every guest
when they first walk in.
By the way, here's the toilet.
This is how it comes out, right?
So now, not only am I takingsomething that we've originally
hided because we don't want tobe to be a focal point, we, a
(31:59):
focal point.
We've hidden this item Hided.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
We've hidden this item.
Now I have to go open it andshow everyone my toilet.
You just need AI in thebathroom.
So every time someone walks in,they say, do you need to use
the toilet?
And you say yes, and then itcomes out like magic.
If the bathroom asked me, Iwould need my bathroom to ask me
if I have to pee and thenproduce my toilet and if I don't
(32:21):
just keep the out of sight outof mind.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
This is what I need if my, if I walked into the
bathroom and asked me if I wasready to pee, I would start
shooting at things.
Zero percent chance I want,even if it was like an alexa
voice like, or a siri voice.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
You, you know that voice, you know it's
non-threatening, you know thatit's it's technology right, Like
well, it's John.
It could even be British,because it's called Heidelberg.
It has to be British, I wouldlove a British, a calm British
woman, to ask me if I had to pee.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Excuse me, madam, you seem like you've need to go to
the restroom.
Would you like me to pull?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
the loom.
It can also be a man.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Well, and so that's my thought process, right?
I think that it's a loweradoption rate because of the
fact that you have to almosttrain people.
I think if you have to trainsomeone how to use something,
there's a little bit of anadoption rate issue, but also so
.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, but I got to argue with you on this.
I am not an early adopter, I'ma late adopter.
I don't like chain, I don'tlike to, I don't like to disrupt
my, my work, my workflow, mypatterns, my habits.
But I would buy that out of thegate.
I would be the first person onthat list, because it is worth
explaining and laughing at ourguests and it being weird for a
(33:35):
little while until everyone inour circle knows that we have a
Hy.
That is.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
The coolest thing is that it that's the hide a little
it's not as cute as so one ofthe things I take back
everything I said.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
This product is the ugliest thing.
It does not look british at all.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
That's did ikea make it I well, I mean, it's got to
pop out from underneath,something, right?
Is it's gotta it has to pop outfrom underneath something right
, it has to pop out.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
No, that's terrifying .
Actually, if that popped out ofme, I wouldn't sit on it, I'd
take it back.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So I'll post this again.
I'll post it on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
So you can see, we'll put that on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, so you can see what it looks like.
What I just showed.
That looks like a death trap.
But yeah, I mean it's.
And while everyone's kind ofthinking like, well, how much
weight can that thing hold, howmany times can it swing before
something breaks, obviouslyyou've got a system that is very
important.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
The Heideloo in my mind was way more sophisticated
than that.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And again, I'm sure you could build it more
sophisticated than that.
Right, I'm sure you could makeit a better experience.
But it has to come with a wall.
The wall has to come with it tosome degree every single time,
or there has to be a hole for itto pop out of and the wall kind
of goes out of the way.
But the thought process to me,and why I think there's kind of
(34:53):
a lower adoption rate with it,is that there's certain things
that you want the people fixingit to understand it.
And if a plumber shows up andgoes, yeah, I'll just throw a
snake down that thing and it'sgot a flexible neck, and he rips
a hole in it, I can't think of.
And then he puts it away, andthen he puts it away.
I can't think of anything worsethan a toilet going horribly
awry, and so I think there's anadoption ratio.
So I'm interested to see wherethe Haidalu goes right.
(35:13):
I'm interested to see.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I'm so intrigued.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I right, I'm interested.
I'm so intrigued I think that'shideous.
Yeah, it's not.
It's not naturally attractive.
I'll give you that.
But I'm interested to see whereit goes right.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
But you talk about can I just explain to our
listeners what I just saw?
yes I'm gonna do my very best.
Imagine the, not the the niceoval, like high-end toilets,
cheapest, most circular toiletyou can imagine from Home Depot
and then also the cheapest whiteentryway table from Ikea and
(35:45):
just slap them together and thenhave a weird cabinet door that
opens in.
This really archaic, oldlooking toilet is like yeah,
it's way creepier than Iimagined.
I imagine it being like I don'tknow like wood panels and
really sneaky, almost likeMurphy, a Murphy wall.
(36:05):
Yeah, no, this is that'sterrifying.
I would not use that.
That looks like someone forgotto put the toilet in and we're
like let's just do this theafterthought toilet.
Oops, honey, I forgot ourtoilet.
We'll just put it under thisWell, I've got a toilet to put
in there right now.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
So I'm just going you know what?
I'll put it on a swivel.
Let's put it on a swivel baby.
Let's just put it like that.
I got a solution for you girl.
I got a solution for you girl.
Let's put it on a sw creativeidea.
And you've heard a thousandtimes I mean at least I have
that like oh, the toilet hasn'tbeen changed since they the 15th
century or whatever is when thetoilet was first kind of drawn
(36:43):
up.
It really hasn't changed awhole lot since there.
And you got people like squattypotty, who had a little you
know piece for yes, oh, hugesquatty potty fan.
So I, I support that small.
But again, the whole point ofthis episode is that it's the
subtle genius of simplicity,squatty potty fan.
So I, I support that small, butagain, the whole point of this
episode is that it's the subtlegenius of simplicity.
Squatty potty didn't try andchange the toilet.
They didn't try and put youknow petals on your toilet or
(37:05):
something.
They said, hey, how about justa piece of bamboo?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
that'd be a good idea the stirrups on your toilet you
want to talk about scaring yourguests.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Two handles and a stirrup like hold on, hold on
tight.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Here it comes, stirrup potty popping out from
underneath your vanity.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, and but like, squatty Putty didn't try and
reinvent the toilet, they justreinvented the bathroom.
That's an experience, right.
They said here how we canchange your body's shape
slightly to make it morecomfortable, and so that that's
the whole point of this episodeis the subtle, like the subtle
genius behind simplicity, thesimple designs, the remarkables,
the nine volt batteries, the,you know, the, the barefoot shoe
(37:42):
, and I think that's making acomeback, right, and you've got
you've got things that arefashionable, like Crocs, that
are they kind of come and theygo, and then you've got things
that are are kind of staplesimplicity items, right, like
your click pens and your post-itnotes and your squatty potties,
things that kind of come, andthey establish themselves as a
(38:06):
useful, helpful thing.
And I think that is what we'reseeing kind of a shift towards
simplicity in design.
And I think 3D printing is a bigpart of that.
I think 3D printing has reallyleveled the playing field for
designers, because up until 3Dprinting, if I wanted to make
one part like, I had to call upsomebody who could make me a
(38:29):
mold and they would cast it.
It would be like $60,000 to$80,000 to get my prototype part
out, or I had to make it out oflike wood or something and make
a mold based on that.
So I think 3D printing's reallyleveled the playing field Right
.
And I've got someone I knowthat he's big into flying and
(38:49):
into aircraft-based simulationsand games.
He's in the process of 3Dprinting the entire cockpit.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Oh, yeah, Matt.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Of a fighter jet, right, yeah, so he's 3D printing
the entire cockpit of a fighterjet.
Before this, like before 3Dprinters.
If he wanted to do that, hewould be on eBay every single
day looking for pieces and partsof a fighter jet and trying to
make them all together into thecockpit.
I need this button set, I needthis, this, this, this.
So 3D printing has reallyleveled that playing field of
(39:18):
innovation.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Disclaimer for the listeners this person also is
kind of an engineer.
Well, he's….
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Went to engineering school.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
He went to engineering school and he's very
smart.
Well, but even.
But.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
I just think that there's a disclaimer no, there's
a disclaimer, sure, but buteven him he doesn't make most
he's modified designs that otherpeople have made already.
He said that that's not.
He said, okay, they're makingthis design, it's not to scale.
I'm gonna make it to scale insome areas, right so, but like
the 3D printer, the open sourcenetwork of 3D printing, if I
(39:54):
want to make trash can, forinstance, and I've got a 3D
printer, I can just find a fileof somebody who's made me a
trash can, right and then modifyit from there.
So if I want to hide a trashcan that pops out of something
right, I can just take someoneelse's 3D print of a trash can,
then go to Home Depot and findthe parts.
So you can make prototypes alot faster.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
It's kind of like Canva for graphic designers.
Right Like up until reallyCanva, you had to have pretty
good knowledge of how to usePhotoshop tool.
Oh, yeah.
And I've taken classes inPhotoshop.
There's a lot there to unpack,right, right, and you can't do
(40:35):
really that much unless you knowhow to use every tool and all
the.
You know the functions, thecapabilities of those, of those
little, of those little tools,and canva has taken that and
stripped it down and there'stemplates and it's like, oh, you
want to move the background,click this button, like you used
to have to know how to use asequence of very specific tools
and it also was skill inPhotoshop, and Canvas completely
(40:59):
flipped that upside down andfor a small fee, you can design
anything you want and you don'thave to utilize these other
tools that really require a lotof training and practice.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, and Canva is another perfect example.
Right Is, the simplicity ofCanva is what makes it brilliant
, and it's not simple on theback end.
Oh no, in the case of softwares, right, the best example ever
is when people used to go, oh, Iwant a simple site like
Craigslist and people didn'trealize how incredibly complex.
Yeah, craigslist was insanelycomplex in the backend, so it
(41:37):
just looked simple, but itwasn't simple.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
The interface was simple.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, and so the simplicity was keeping it simple
for the user, making it seemvery simple, very easy to use,
and then taking all thetechnological stuff on the
backend, which at the time wasvery unique, right, like even
even the Microsoft products likeword and Excel at that time,
options, options upon options,and it click practice was, like
(42:03):
you know, type in here or clickhere and find what you're
looking for.
Here's my and let me dial youinto just your area.
So I think that that's, that'sthe the simplicity piece, right.
And then, and then there'smarketing, you know, right, so
the marketing is part of it.
So you've got something likethe stanley cup, right?
The stanley cup is a verysimple design.
There's nothing all thatcomplex about it's kind of.
(42:25):
You know that there was otherdouble insulated cups before
then, and and they capitalizedon marketing, right.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Well, did you know that?
It was an accident though thatit became so popular?
Because Stanley's been inbusiness?
I don't know, I'll look it uplater, but they've been in
business longer than Getty andall these other market leaders
for thermoses.
But their market was always menand so their product line
before, like the Stanley Cupthat everyone thinks of, was
(42:57):
like dark, undergreen, black,very utilitarian-looking
thermoses.
And they decided you know,we're going to come out with
this new color palette, whichwas the soft, like those like
soft, like pasteles andpastellis that's not a word
pastels, you know these softercolors.
(43:17):
And they decided to only run alimited amount because they
didn't think they were going tosell, because it's not their
market, that's not theiraudience and it, and they went.
People love them.
And it wasn't like, oh, they'redoing the beers thing and
they're keeping them off theshelves to drive them in, like
they literally only produced ahandful.
Because it was veryexperimental, like let's make,
(43:39):
let's totally 180 and do adifferent color palette and see
what happens.
And Housewives Everywhere lovedit.
I mean, I have one, I love it.
I think it's beautiful, it'sbig, doesn't leak as much as my
Yeti.
It does leak.
I can't say it doesn't leak asmuch as my Yeti, but yeah, I
think it's interesting that thiswhole craze was really because
(44:02):
they didn't think that it wasgoing to sell, because it went
against everything that theyhave been doing for decades.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
At the end of the day , that's the part that is the
most impressive with the simplestuff.
Right, the old montage keep itsimple, stupid, stupid.
There's a football coach thatalways says don't try to win all
your fights in the first round.
Right, it's a kind of cleverway of saying be patient, right.
(44:32):
Right, it's a kind of cleverway of saying be patient, right.
So, taking the simple idea andmoving forward with it and
saying, hey, I know it's simplebut it works right, and that it
kind of leads me to I'll kind oftease another segment that I
may do down the road, but takingevery day, like innovating the
ordinary, right, like how, howcan I, we could come up with
some innovations for everydaylife that aren't projects I'm
(44:52):
currently working on.
Something simple that I'vethought about several times is
you know, those little pop-upstrollers is like there's like
telescoping strollers that getreally small, turn into like
almost like a little umbrellasize, but they're one one.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
I think they're called umbrella strollers.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, okay, umbrella strollers Right.
You think I would know that,but I don't shop, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
It's not like your dad.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
I shop double strollers man.
I got two but the.
So the the idea of thisumbrella stroller.
But instead of being anumbrella stroller, you take kind
of a little bit of a of a dollyvibe to it and you make a clip
on.
So dolly vibe to it and youmake a clip on.
So have you seen those littleride-on panels that go on the
back of strollers for your kidsto stand on and they kind of
(45:35):
skateboard behind them.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, little kickboards.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
So something like that, but for a shopping cart at
the grocery store, so somethingyou could bring into the store
with you, because once your kidsget over two years old they
don't want to just sit in thecart a lot of times.
They want to run around, theywant to hold on to things, they
want to hang on the side of thecart, they want to do all the
kind of kid stuff I meanoutriggers for carts yeah, and
and so, yeah, exactly so youbuild like an umbrella stroller
that kind of becomes.
This little platform they canstand on, gives them a handle to
(45:58):
hold to make them feel likethey're pushing the cart, or
they can push the cart and givethem a lower center of gravity
to do so, right, so they're nothands above their head trying to
push the cart and can't see.
But it also gives them aplatform they can stand on and
that you give them the freedomto move about, but in a safe
space behind the shopping cart,as opposed to on the sides where
they're going to, you know, hitshelving and or fall off the
(46:18):
front and get run over, like allthe fears you have as a parent.
Something simple like that,where it's like it.
Arguably it would probably costyou 50 grand to make this thing
, to sell it.
I don't know how many you'deven sell, right, but it's a
very simple solution to aproblem most parents have when
they're at the store of like howdo I keep my kids engaged and
(46:41):
have them with me but not haveto kind of herd the cats as much
?
Right, give them a sense offreedom and a sense of control.
Let them push the cart from alower point and it's also clean.
You feel comfortable thatthere's not like whatever is all
over shopping carts.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh see, I was about to say I feel like it would have
to be.
In this case it'd have to be aninnovation to the cart, right?
Because think about the cart asyou know it they all come
standard with a seat in thefront for your child.
Not everyone has a child, butthey come like that.
If I have a cart that doesn'thave that little section for the
kid which I use for my purse orthe vegetables if I'm shopping
(47:20):
without a child, I'm lost.
So that is designed, but it'salso what we're used to.
So it's like if the carts couldbe redesigned to also include
little things that pop out tohelp as those kids get older,
that'd be kind of cool and I'msure people will figure out how
to use them in other ways.
(47:40):
I wouldn't buy a cartattachment personally, as a
consumer, I think it has to bethe grocery stores investing in
new carts that come with thesefeatures.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I think that you want to tune in my thought process,
at least you want to tune theidea to the problem and not
towards everyone, right?
Like if you add kind ofoutriggers to a cart, naturally
obviously durability becomes alittle bit more of a problem.
Unless you make them like super, super durable, there'll be
some kind of clip that holdsthem up.
When the carts go together andthey're designed so that that
(48:13):
seat collapses and folds up sothey can all stack, there's a
lot of moving parts anddurability to carts, I mean
shoot, the things get hit bycars and continue to do their
job very well.
So I think and we could unpackthat more later, but I don't
think that's the point the pointis to take an idea of an
everyday idea and try and makeit better.
(48:34):
So maybe we'll do a little.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Design that cart.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Design that cart in a world.
So I think I think it's it's agood place to be, I think it's a
good exercise to have.
So we'll probably include it infuture episodes, but for now
we're going to keep it simple.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Stupid.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Stupid.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
And I'm joined as always by my co-host, caitlin
Mode.
How are you doing today?
Good, welcome, welcome.
So I want to talk today aboutthe subtle genius of simple.
When you look around, you see atechnology-dominated landscape.
You see this rise of kind, ofthe rise of the machine, if you
(00:22):
will, but it seems to be intoday's market.
It's the simple that's drawingus back, and I use the example
of what you've always heardgrowing up is trends are
cyclical, things come backaround and so you think of you
know when you think of that, youthink of clothing, you think of
you know some of the basics,but several hundred years later,
(00:43):
we're seeing callbacks to diettrends.
We're making technologicalinnovations with physical things
that are really just bringingus back to our roots, right?
So you think of the paleo diet,you think of the barefoot shoe,
this rise of the barefoot shoe,where it gives you enough space
(01:03):
for your toes to stay open andnatural, so it's not kind of
crowding your toes, and a lot ofyour advertising right now in
the shoe market is dialed intothat, and so I think back to
well, where did this come from?
So let's, we'll use the shoe asour example, and for as long as
(01:24):
shoes have existed.
You've had these, you know,shoes that are protecting your
feet and the origins of them, Ibelieve like bubble.
It was like almost like abubble gum or a rubber compound
that that people would put ontheir feet to purchase to
protect them from sharp objectsand rocks and things.
They created like a rubber theywould dip their feet in.
That would last for a few days,that would allow them to
(01:45):
protect their feet from harshenvironments.
And then we kind oftransitioned into shoes that
covered your feet and kept youwarm and kind of started
building on the shoe from there.
And then you're talking aboutNew Balance and Nike and all
these companies that are comingout with these more and more
innovative shoes, and so you'regoing to kind of take a look
back to the origins of NewBalance.
(02:06):
We'll start there where thefounder of New Balance, which
was originally an orthoticscompany, an insole company,
where he looked at the feet ofthis chicken on his farm and he
said, wow, they have these kindof three points of contact.
I wonder if I made an archsupport insole that would
support your foot kind of in asimilar way, with kind of three
structure points.
(02:26):
And you've got people who arewearing shoes with no arch
support, especially runners, whostart using these shoes and
saying, man, this arch supportlets me run faster and farther
and allows me to make greateradvancements in my running
fitness and goals, as runningbecame kind of a very
popularized form of exercise inthe country.
(02:49):
And so you've got these peoplewith strong arches and strong
feet that you're now giving somerest to and allow them to go
farther and do more.
So, naturally, as we do, we lookat this and say, wow, this is
going to make us better, this isgoing to make our ability to
perform stronger and you fastforward.
(03:09):
You know 50, 60, 70 years,whatever it's been.
Now you've got Nike that's got34,000 patents on shoes, because
shoe technology has come so far, and the innovation now has
gone the other direction.
The innovation is how can wemake this as basic as possible?
Let's focus on grounding.
(03:29):
Let's focus on keepingourselves grounded to the earth.
People are cutting the bottomsoff of their shoes so they can
be barefoot, because barefoot'shealthier.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And all the technology's in the bottom of
the shoe.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Exactly right.
So we're almost cutting thetechnology off the shoe now and
saying, oh, the best thing youcan do is let your toes do what
they're supposed to do, andthat's like this innovative
concept.
And so, if that's theinnovative concept, where's the
innovation?
You almost think to yourselfwe're just going back to what
shoes were forever ago.
And I think the cyclical pieceis we go high science, we go
(04:04):
high technology, and then we goback to traditional right,
similar to the rise of yourclear spirits like vodka and
tequila, and then we go back totraditional and the whiskey
becomes really, really popular.
Now we're starting to seewhiskey taper off.
So in the consumables market,technology is starting to take
off again, where now we'resaying oh, you don't have to
(04:27):
drink something with alcohol tofeel that buzz, here's a
chemical plant-based compoundout of a mushroom or something
that gives you that similar vibe.
Lots of no alcohol things.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
There's a tipping point, I think, is what causes
the cyclicalness to continue,right, like take the food
industry we innovate food andhow it's made, how it's produced
, the supply chain, why?
To solve a problem of foodsafety, supply and demand, but
then we keep innovating andinnovating.
(05:00):
Now we're trying to optimizeour food.
Then we get protein shakes andbars and highly processed
products that are supposed to benutrient dense, the perfect.
It's essentially space food,right, like, it's exactly what
your body needs, it's all thenutrients you could ever want in
this package.
And then it's like we've gonetoo far and people start saying
we should really be just eatingthe rainbow, eating real food,
(05:22):
fruits and veggies, whole fooddiet, and around and around we
go, we go back to organic andhomegrown and then diseases pop
up and oh, we need to have foodsafety.
And then innovation, innovation, innovation, optimization, and
then go back around.
So I think it's like that whenis that tipping point of we are
no longer solving the problemand now we're just optimizing?
(05:45):
In the shoe example, we're nowno longer protecting our feet
from being chewed up when wewalk around, from pain and
discomfort, to optimizing howfar we can run.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, and there's a lot of science out there now
that's saying, hey, listen, thatwas a great innovation of its
time, but now it's creatingother foot problems.
You're starting to develop overyears and years and years of
use, of lifetimes, of usingthese orthotics that are
supposed to help you.
Your foot's becoming reliable,relying on those and you're
getting shin splints and you'regetting arch problems and people
(06:19):
growing flat footed and allthis kind of stuff.
And so, yeah, there is thattipping point.
There is that moment where westart to look back and start to
go more toward traditional views.
Which is one of the things Ilove about innovation is that
innovation can adapt to thosethings.
(06:39):
You can have a wildlyinnovative idea.
That's just going back to thebasics, and there's a couple
things that I think are goodexamples of that, and one of
them is the post-it note.
And with the post-it note,you've got this person who is
trying to come up with a superadhesive and he basically makes
(07:03):
some miscalculation and comes upwith this kind of reusable
techie substance and what youend up with is kind of going
back to one of the moreprimitive forms, which turns out
to be incredibly enticing andbecomes one of the most
profitable items in the companyis the ability just to write a
small note, a scrap paper, right, instead of instead of a folder
(07:26):
or instead of a binder or somekind of organizational calendar.
It's just like hey, here's,here's a piece of scrap paper
you can stick to your monitor,right.
And the simplicity of that,that design, the simplicity of
that, of that option, I think,skyrocketed to wild popularity.
Because now I'm not rippingpaper, I'm doing, you know, I'm
not writing a formal letter andputting it in an envelope and
(07:47):
giving it to somebody, I'm justlike walking up and popping a
sticky note on their monitor,right, it gives you some
simplicity.
That brings you back to thebasics of human communication
small shorthand.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So you said scrap paper and I just have to
interject because it's sointeresting to me how the
post-it note became that canaryyellow, you know.
It's like that's like thetrademark post-it note color.
It was not selected, it wasn'tlike there was no focus group,
there was no boardroom meetingon the color of the post-it note
(08:22):
.
Really, Really, they literallywent to the manufacturer who was
going to print these and it wasthe only color paper they had
available and they were justlike okay, that's fine Yellow
works.
It was literally scrap paperfrom the manufacturer, that's
all they had left in stock andnow it's the signature color and
(08:44):
I just love that.
It's just like they just rangwith what they had.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Which is interesting, right, because when you think
about kind of technology today,right, you think of, you know,
oh, man, focus groups and allthis stuff where people are
trying to figure out what's thebest way to do this.
And, oh, apple designed it itmust have thousands of hours.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
There must be a reason.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and it could just be because, like, oh, my
grandma used to do it that way,so I did Right.
And even again, going back tosimplicity, you think of Apple
and you think of Android and thephone and AirPods and watches
and all these things that aredesigned to distract us from
every day, and you've got thisalmost military grade incredible
(09:24):
distraction devices that'sbuilt into your pocket at all
times.
And Apple's newest innovationis like hey, maybe you want to
look up while this is happening.
So let's think of sub displays,and the Vision Pro is now this
thing that wants to be in theroom with you, right, which is
kind of a way to almost distractyou more, but they want you
back in the room because peopleare interested in being back in
(09:47):
the room.
And there's all these devicesand I know you have one in your
desk there's all these devicesthat are designed to kind of
simplify the process.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Oh yeah, You're talking about my Remarkable
tablet Remarkable.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, no, that's a really interesting one to bring
up in this conversation becauseit is exactly exactly what
you're talking about.
Going back to the purity of thetask.
So the remarkable for anyonewho hasn't seen one which I bet
is a lot of people becausewhenever I bring this thing out
and I don't get out very much itturns heads and people ask me
(10:22):
questions about it.
So I don't think it's supermainstream, but essentially it's
a writing tablet.
It's the first ever papertablet that looks, feels and
even sounds like paper.
So they've built enoughresistance into the tablet.
When you write on it with thepen, it feels like you're
(10:43):
writing on a piece of paper witha pencil.
So it's the first of its kindwhen it comes to how it looks,
how it feels, how it writes.
And the beauty of it is it's notconnected to anything.
I mean, okay, let me back up.
It's connected to the cloud viaWi-Fi just to store your
(11:04):
documents, right, your notepads,essentially.
But outside of that you can'taccess the internet.
There are no applications thatcan distract you from whatever
you're working on.
So it's back to that purity ofreading and writing and
sketching, of just picking up apad and a pen or pencil and
(11:27):
getting to work or picking up adocument Well, I say document,
but picking up the paper or ajournal and just reading without
getting distracted by anything.
I mean, how often do you openyour smartphone to check an
email and you end up on freakingreddit or instagram and you're
(11:49):
just like how did I get here?
Did I do?
What was I?
Oh yeah, I was gonna check myemail.
And how often did you actuallycheck the email first?
Or do you just open your phoneand, like your brain takes over
and you just go into thosepathways that we've constructed
and it's like locked in.
I did that all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Oh yeah, well, especially and I think back to,
I think of meetings.
Right, I'm sitting in a meetingand somebody asked me a
question and I go to look for adocument, or a lot of times what
I'll do in meetings is somebodywill ask a question and I'll
pop my phone open.
I'll kind of Google that realquick.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And then you're gone.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Just to get an idea of kind of make sure we're all
on the same page, yeah, and thensix pages later I'm just on my
phone, right, which I think asmillennials we feel that's super
disrespectful, because we grewup with phones and so we kind of
have a focus on not trying notto do that or a reckless abandon
, and just say, hey, listen,phone's part of life.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, no.
And the inventor of theremarkable, I believe he's a
millennial and he's a Harvardgrad and when he was going to
school he was dealing with thatthe distraction of having his
devices in the classroom.
So he decided to make aconscious decision to work
exclusively with pen and paperthroughout his pursuit of his
(13:07):
degree, and so he would leaveall his devices in his room and
he would only take a notepad ora notebook.
And he said he was way morefocused, but lugging around
these books was cumbersome.
So that's like what?
What fueled the idea forRemarkable?
Like he decided, I want to.
I want to infuse the simplicityof pen and paper with the ease
(13:32):
of a tablet and and that's howthe Remarkable was born.
I just love that.
He was like, he recognized thedistraction.
I mean, we're all aware of thedistraction, but we kind of just
let it infiltrate us and, likeyou say, almost like a casual
abandonment of yeah, I know, Iknow, oh, man, I got stuck in
Instagram again, oops.
(13:53):
But he made this very consciousdecision to just not let that
impact his studies and from thatdeveloped this tool, which I
mean, like I said, I have it andI think it's.
I'm a pen and paper girl and Ihave abandoned pen and paper
because of this tool, which Imean, like I said, I have it and
I think it's.
I'm a pen and paper girl and Ihave abandoned pen and paper
because of this device which isso freeing, because it's no
longer.
Where's that note, where's thatsticky, where's that piece of
(14:16):
paper I was scribbling on duringthe meeting and wasn't able to
organize my thoughts properly?
You know, now it's all in oneplace, which is amazing, but I
think it's just.
You know, the realization thatthere's a problem is what then
takes us back to the purity ofwhatever it is that we're trying
to do, whether that's going fora walk or sketching something
(14:38):
on a notepad.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, and I think that overwhelmingly the best way
to test kind of that theory andI've noticed it in my meetings
or just being with other peopleis if you look down at your
smartwatch or your phone whilesomebody's talking.
A lot of times the answer is,oh, do you need to take that?
(15:01):
Because their immediate thoughtis like you're sucked in,
you're distracted, and theydon't mean it like in a
disrespectful way.
They mean it in a you look downlike is it something important?
Because we've trained our mindsto say, oh, whatever's on that
phone is probably more importantthan what's happening in this
room and kind of deprioritizebeing in the moment, which I
(15:22):
think is what makes Remarkableso interesting, because I've
been in meetings where there'stwo or three people with
Remarkables and there's two orthree people with cell phones.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Oh, so you found the other three Remarkable users.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Now there's a lot of Remarkables out there.
I've seen a fair amount,especially recently.
I think it's kind of grown inpopularity.
But when you're in a meetingwith with remarkable or paper
users, in a meeting versuspeople who are using their cell
phones for everything, or theirlaptop.
Or their laptop, which is verydistracting.
Yeah, it's.
You do notice a palpabledifference.
And and we talk about goingback to simplicity, the, the,
(15:57):
the subtle genius of simple,right?
It's something like you know, anine volt battery, right?
Do you have any idea what'sinside of a nine volt battery?
Small, it's something like a9-volt battery.
Do you have any?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
idea what's inside of a 9-volt battery?
Smaller batteries.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Right, yeah, so exactly, there are six
quadruple-A batteries that makeup a 9-volt battery.
They're just stacked in asquare and they wrapped a square
frame around it and attachedall the six batteries together
and rolled from there.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yes, pigs in a blanket.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Pigs in a blanket.
Right, they could have easilycome up with a coil and made it
like a nine-volt powered battery.
But why reinvent the wheel?
Right?
The subtle genius of simplicity.
And had they not gone with thatpackage, you might not have
both contacts on one side and beable to kind of lick it and
give yourself that little buzzbutton vibe, right.
So the simplicity of Now.
(16:47):
There's a difference betweensimplicity and if it ain't broke
, don't fix it right, becausethere's often a mentality of
well, my shoes work just fine,why would I do something else?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I think that goes back to the tipping point.
Right, let's look at theremarkable.
How many years of tabletinnovation did we go through to
get to the point where it's likethis is distracting.
Now this is the new problem.
Now it makes sense to go backright.
For a long time it was just itwasn't as distracting.
Technology wasn't there yet, wedidn't have all these apps that
(17:17):
were designed to hijack ourbrains, and so until that
happened brains, and so untilthat happened.
You know, I think if remarkablecame on the scene six years ago
, 10 years ago, it'd be like whyI have?
I have this tablet, it does allof that.
I can write on here, I can, youknow, send an email and it's
all right here.
Why would I need that?
(17:38):
It doesn't do anything, it'sjust paper, but it's because the
technology wasn't as distractedyet.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah Well, and I mean , it took almost 10 years of
tablet technology to realizethey wanted a pencil right.
The whole idea of a tablet.
When they think back to whentablet computers first came out,
you were almost like you werealmost a dinosaur if you had a
stylus right.
And they and and when theyrealized and this is the
marketing twist to it, right,because there's innovation and
there's simplifying things andthen there's the idea of
(18:09):
creating, kind of creating aproblem or creating a solution
to something you know wasalready a problem, and then kind
of selling your solution.
There's a difference there,right?
So when they start bringingstyluses back, we don't call
them styluses, it's the ApplePencil, right.
We bring them back, we don'tcall them styluses, it's the
Apple pencil right.
We bring them back because werealize, actually on a
functional level, that makes themost sense.
(18:30):
So let's bring it back, let'sgive it some features, but let's
call it the Apple pencil, right.
And now you're enticing the userto start writing, start
handwriting, start sketching,start drawing and all these
things.
And you give them brush strokesand a bright screen and all
these things.
And you give them brushstrokesand a bright screen and all
these things.
And then enters a moment ofwell, if I'm already using a
(18:51):
pencil on a tablet and right,why not go back to a pencil?
And for people like you, wherethere's a nostalgia to the
feeling of the pencil and thepaper, it draws you in, it
focuses your mind, gives you afeeling that you're truly
writing.
And what Remarkable did that Ithink is brilliant is they have
(19:13):
those tips that slowly wear down.
There's actually friction onthe tip.
It's actually creating apaper-like friction feel.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, the nibs wear out, and they wear out quick.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, I think you use it very aggressively.
I push, hard, I push down hardand you also use it all the time
.
I don't think I've ever seenyou without it recently since
you got it, and I think there'sa difference between simplicity
and adding a feature, orsimplicity and solving a problem
that didn't exist yet, right.
(19:44):
So, because there's a steve jobmantra of they don't know what
they don't they need yet, I'mgoing to show them what they
need and in its success, thatmantra success, apple success,
doing that is kind of whatgenerated this.
Well, let's sell them what theydon't need yet, and I think
that's how you get to Nike with34,000 patents.
(20:06):
Right, some of those patentsare used for competition, to
just keep people out of thespace they want them to be in.
Some of those patents are newtechnologies.
But I'll tell you what if Ispent millions of dollars
developing patents for the knittop shoe and I patented every
conceivable knit pattern I couldthink of to keep people away
(20:27):
from the knit top shoe, even iflater I find out that it's bad
for people's toes, I got to sella lot of knit top shoes to
justify that expense first.
So I may, as a business, make abusiness decision to push
forward with an inferior productto make sure I can sell it, and
I think that's one of thereasons.
(20:47):
I think that the art ofsimplicity, the subtle genius of
simplicity, is that there'sthings that you use every day
that you don't think aboutBaking soda.
Baking soda has been rebrandeda thousand times.
It's the simplest product I canpossibly think of, but it's for
deodorizing your fridge, it'sfor brushing your teeth, it's
(21:08):
for adding to food, it's for allthese things they found to do
with one simple product.
The genius there isn't in theproduct.
The genius there is in.
How do you continue to finduses for it?
And I promise you a couple ofthose uses are probably not A
stretch.
They're a stretch, right.
But that leads me into what Ithink is going to be a new
(21:29):
segment, if you're ready for it,I'm up for it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
That sounded not enthusiastic at all, but I am.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So I think what I want to start doing is talking
through some of these ideas thatI've seen.
So every week I think I'm goingto bring a new item or two that
I've seen this week that Ithink are really neat,
innovative ideas, and we'll talkthrough them and I'll get your
feedback on them as well.
So the first one is a companycalled Smart Cups.
Now, anytime you've been at alarge event so think of it's
(22:00):
wintertime you're going to go toa company event and have hot
chocolate.
What does that look like?
What does that setup look like?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
An eight-foot table with a thermos type of reservoir
with the hot chocolate insideof it, with a spigot on the
bottom, styrofoam cups and maybea cute little bowl of
marshmallows in it.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Maybe some cookies.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
What does it look like if there's a thousand
people?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
There's going to be ten eight-foot tables.
They're just going to havemultiple stations, or they're
going to have someone behind thetable making the hot chocolate
and handing it over to you, soyou're not bogging down a line.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How early do you think that team got there to
prepare that hot chocolate?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Okay, so you're assuming it's made on site?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Or how long in advance do you think you had to
plan for that?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
A couple weeks a month.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
If it's just hot chocolate.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, it's just hot chocolate right, like in the
lobby.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, a couple weeks.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Now, let's say that you're a major marathon and
you're the team that's hostingthe marathon and you want to
hand out cups of Gatorade to therunners as they go by.
Right, there's the same, verysimilar logistics to the
beverages as what we just talkedabout.
Right, You're mixing Gatorade.
(23:31):
There's like some kind ofcarafe that's producing Gatorade
.
It's a very similar process.
Now, this gentleman I don'tremember his name, I'll look it
up, I'll post it on ourInstagram but there's a
gentleman that made a companycalled Smart Cups and what he's
done and this is to me, the mostbrilliant thing of the week,
and he's been around for acouple of years he has 3D
(23:53):
printed hot chocolate,electrolyte beverages, like
sparkling flavors for sparklingdrinks inside of the cups.
So he's got these disposablecups, these paper cups, and he's
3D printed the flavoring orwhatever is going to be produced
when you add the water or milkto this beverage inside the cup.
(24:13):
So they stack like regular cupsand you can just transport the
cups.
So inside the cup there's alittle like almost a hexagon, 3d
printed.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Like terrifying.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
So when you think of 3d printing, which is kind of
the brilliance of it, 99% of thebeverages that we consume on a
mass scale are powder.
So for 3d printing, I'm justtaking that powder and I'm just
I'm heating it up so it stickstogether, right, the sugars, and
they kind of solidifies it abit, and then I'm just drawing
on the inside of the cup.
So it's no different than whatyou find in a packet, it's just
they change slightly, change theformat, so it it sticks to the
(24:43):
inside of the cup.
But now all I have to do ispour hot water.
Now, if I'm going to an event,I just need to bring 5,000 cups
and a bunch of hot water.
I can get hot water fromanywhere.
I can just have carafts in hotwater, pop, you know, fill up
each cup, or cold water if it's,if it's an electrolyte beverage
, right.
So I, he's, he's created this.
There's a way that you cantransport the logistical
nightmare of of getting all thispowdered stuff into a big jug
(25:07):
and mixing it up and all thisstuff and he's turned it into
just these cups.
And he does a lot actually forwith, like the homeless, where
he goes and hands outelectrolyte beverages to the
homeless.
She walks around around citystreets.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
And he's handing out the cups empty and they can fill
them up.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
He's handing them a cup and a bottle of water.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Right, so I can put a bottle of water kind of in the
cup, hand them that and say, ifyou pour it inside, you'll make
Gatorade, right, or a version ofGatorade.
I was probably not sponsored,because Powerade, powerade, yes,
whoever sponsored him or hisown proprietary blend, right,
but it's brilliant becauseyou've taken something that
someone's already comfortablewith.
(25:42):
And it's the subtle genius ofsimplicity.
If I just bring those cups andI don't tell you, you go, oh,
look disposable cups stacked up,as they always are, if I don't
tell you, you see what you'reused to seeing.
Right, and it's my.
This's the same argument I havewith hydrogen fuels as a, as an
option over EVs.
Right, hydrogen fuels.
(26:03):
I can take existing gasstations.
I can just change the tank andI can put hydrogen, compressed
hydrogens, on the tanks and youfill it up like you would fill
up any other car.
The nozzle changes a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, it's higher adoption.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It's a higher adoption right.
I's no long wait times, there'sno reworking the entire
electrical grid to be able toplug in these cars, there's no
just sitting in a Wawa right.
So the adoption rate ofhydrogen would be higher.
It's less efficient, it costsmore or whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
There are downsides to hydrogen, but the adoption
rate would be high.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
The adoption rate of hydrogen would be higher.
Noble gas joke.
So Smart Cups is my first one.
First things first.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I think I don't understand 3D printing.
So when you first said it I waslike that's disgusting, I don't
understand.
But then when you described howit was done, I think I'm okay
with it and I would drink it,yeah, so it makes me a little,
I'm a little.
I would love to see it inaction, because what I thought
of originally was you know,those hot chocolate eggs or
(27:09):
characters that you get forchristmas and you like pour the
hot milk over and they'resupposed to like melt, all cute
and release the, the littlemarshmallows.
They never work and they tastelike trash and like you have to
stir them for an hour.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So like wax coated hot chocolate.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah so like I would love to see in action, to see
like, does it just like?
Does it release really slowly,like if I'm a runner and you
just put water in my cup as Icame around the corner, I
grabbed it am Am I going to getmostly water with a finish of
really concentrated power ray,but most of it's stuck to the
cup and going to go in the trash.
I would love to see that workin real life, but I think it's
(27:47):
interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So so, so one of the things that we're going to do
with these and that's why Iasked what you think is.
I want to talk through the.
Do we think this is going tosurvive?
What's the viability of thisoption?
And when I tell you the next,my next-.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
How much does it cost ?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Oh, they're a dollar, you know, like less than a
dollar a cup.
They're not very expensive, sotheir cost is relatively low All
things considered.
Now, what you put in it woulddictate the cost a little bit.
But I'll post it on ourInstagram of smart cups in
action so you can kind of get anidea of what that looks like in
our X profile as well.
So I'll post those things sothat you and the viewers can go
(28:25):
look at the smart cups and seethe interview with the guy who
made them.
And I think, personally, theviability of it seems like a
long-term thing.
I think it's a great idea.
I think it has a large use case.
I think almost anyone can useit.
Anyone can benefit from it.
If you have a church or aschool or something, you need to
(28:46):
make a lot of beverages, it's alot faster and easier to make
those beverages.
So I like the product, I likethe direction.
I think it's a brilliant idea.
And it's a very simple idea,right, you're using existing
technology and just slightlymodifying it to meet your need.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
If they worked well, I would buy them for home use.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, well, I might buy them, especially for kids.
Yeah, I might get them forfootball games and things.
So that's the first one, thenext idea or the next thing that
I've seen this week, the nextinnovation John has seen this
week, it's called the Hydalooand it's a British company and
it's a toilet that's on a swivelhinge.
(29:27):
So if you think of a toilet,there's no tank to the back of
it, it's all built kind ofunderneath of the toilet itself,
but the toilet turns and hidesinto a vanity.
It goes like left or right andlike hides into the vanity.
So if you have a small bathroomspace or an RV or something, I
love this and you want to hidethe toilet all together when
you're not using it, and then,when you use the toilet, you
(29:50):
open the cabinet, you pull thetoilet out, you use it and you
put it back away.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I love this on so many levels.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, tell me why you love it.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Because bathrooms are away.
I love this on so many levels.
Okay, tell me why you love it?
Because bathrooms aredisgusting.
I don't care how cute yourbathroom is, I don't care how,
how home goodsy you've done it.
It's toilets are weird, like,and we they're just, they're
just centered in these rooms andwe're used to it, so it's not
that weird, but it's weird.
It's this sterile throne thateveryone I don't know.
It's the idea of hiding mytoilet away so that your
bathroom could be a little bitnicer, a little bit less what it
(30:28):
is.
I think that's brilliant.
I think that's brilliantespecially if you have a smaller
space.
I mean, if you have a bigbathroom, it's the space, isn't
draw, it's the aesthetic and theability to talk.
I mean, if you're having aparty, especially like, or if,
if, if you have kids and thattoilet's not always clean and
then you people swing by, youjust want to, you just want to
(30:50):
fold it up so they can go andthey can wash their hands, I
think that's, I would buy that.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Well, and one of the reasons I selected it is for the
idea that I first saw in myhead of it is if you on a boat,
for instance, where the bathroomis, your shower is if you can
hide that toilet.
Now you have a standup showerand you're not like kind of
around the toilet while you'reshowering.
So smaller, smaller bathrooms,boats, rvs, that kind of thing,
(31:16):
what I?
I don't know how high of anadoption rate this has, and
here's why One if I'm at a partyand I've got to go, where is
the toilet, where is your toilet, I'm standing in this room.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I'm trying not to laugh.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I'm standing in this room.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
What a great party trick.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Oh yeah, and and that's the thing is is so now,
my thought process is now Ialmost have to show every guest
when they first walk in.
By the way, here's the toilet.
This is how it comes out, right?
So now, not only am I takingsomething that we've originally
hided because we don't want tobe to be a focal point, we, a
(31:59):
focal point.
We've hidden this item Hided.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
We've hidden this item.
Now I have to go open it andshow everyone my toilet.
You just need AI in thebathroom.
So every time someone walks in,they say, do you need to use
the toilet?
And you say yes, and then itcomes out like magic.
If the bathroom asked me, Iwould need my bathroom to ask me
if I have to pee and thenproduce my toilet and if I don't
(32:21):
just keep the out of sight outof mind.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
This is what I need if my, if I walked into the
bathroom and asked me if I wasready to pee, I would start
shooting at things.
Zero percent chance I want,even if it was like an alexa
voice like, or a siri voice.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
You, you know that voice, you know it's
non-threatening, you know thatit's it's technology right, Like
well, it's John.
It could even be British,because it's called Heidelberg.
It has to be British, I wouldlove a British, a calm British
woman, to ask me if I had to pee.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Excuse me, madam, you seem like you've need to go to
the restroom.
Would you like me to pull?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
the loom.
It can also be a man.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Well, and so that's my thought process, right?
I think that it's a loweradoption rate because of the
fact that you have to almosttrain people.
I think if you have to trainsomeone how to use something,
there's a little bit of anadoption rate issue, but also so
.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, but I got to argue with you on this.
I am not an early adopter, I'ma late adopter.
I don't like chain, I don'tlike to, I don't like to disrupt
my, my work, my workflow, mypatterns, my habits.
But I would buy that out of thegate.
I would be the first person onthat list, because it is worth
explaining and laughing at ourguests and it being weird for a
(33:35):
little while until everyone inour circle knows that we have a
Hy.
That is.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
The coolest thing is that it that's the hide a little
it's not as cute as so one ofthe things I take back
everything I said.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
This product is the ugliest thing.
It does not look british at all.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
That's did ikea make it I well, I mean, it's got to
pop out from underneath,something, right?
Is it's gotta it has to pop outfrom underneath something right
, it has to pop out.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
No, that's terrifying .
Actually, if that popped out ofme, I wouldn't sit on it, I'd
take it back.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So I'll post this again.
I'll post it on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
So you can see, we'll put that on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, so you can see what it looks like.
What I just showed.
That looks like a death trap.
But yeah, I mean it's.
And while everyone's kind ofthinking like, well, how much
weight can that thing hold, howmany times can it swing before
something breaks, obviouslyyou've got a system that is very
important.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
The Heideloo in my mind was way more sophisticated
than that.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And again, I'm sure you could build it more
sophisticated than that.
Right, I'm sure you could makeit a better experience.
But it has to come with a wall.
The wall has to come with it tosome degree every single time,
or there has to be a hole for itto pop out of and the wall kind
of goes out of the way.
But the thought process to me,and why I think there's kind of
(34:53):
a lower adoption rate with it,is that there's certain things
that you want the people fixingit to understand it.
And if a plumber shows up andgoes, yeah, I'll just throw a
snake down that thing and it'sgot a flexible neck, and he rips
a hole in it, I can't think of.
And then he puts it away, andthen he puts it away.
I can't think of anything worsethan a toilet going horribly
awry, and so I think there's anadoption ratio.
So I'm interested to see wherethe Haidalu goes right.
(35:13):
I'm interested to see.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I'm so intrigued.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I right, I'm interested.
I'm so intrigued I think that'shideous.
Yeah, it's not.
It's not naturally attractive.
I'll give you that.
But I'm interested to see whereit goes right.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
But you talk about can I just explain to our
listeners what I just saw?
yes I'm gonna do my very best.
Imagine the, not the the niceoval, like high-end toilets,
cheapest, most circular toiletyou can imagine from Home Depot
and then also the cheapest whiteentryway table from Ikea and
(35:45):
just slap them together and thenhave a weird cabinet door that
opens in.
This really archaic, oldlooking toilet is like yeah,
it's way creepier than Iimagined.
I imagine it being like I don'tknow like wood panels and
really sneaky, almost likeMurphy, a Murphy wall.
(36:05):
Yeah, no, this is that'sterrifying.
I would not use that.
That looks like someone forgotto put the toilet in and we're
like let's just do this theafterthought toilet.
Oops, honey, I forgot ourtoilet.
We'll just put it under thisWell, I've got a toilet to put
in there right now.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
So I'm just going you know what?
I'll put it on a swivel.
Let's put it on a swivel baby.
Let's just put it like that.
I got a solution for you girl.
I got a solution for you girl.
Let's put it on a sw creativeidea.
And you've heard a thousandtimes I mean at least I have
that like oh, the toilet hasn'tbeen changed since they the 15th
century or whatever is when thetoilet was first kind of drawn
(36:43):
up.
It really hasn't changed awhole lot since there.
And you got people like squattypotty, who had a little you
know piece for yes, oh, hugesquatty potty fan.
So I, I support that small.
But again, the whole point ofthis episode is that it's the
subtle genius of simplicity,squatty potty fan.
So I, I support that small, butagain, the whole point of this
episode is that it's the subtlegenius of simplicity.
Squatty potty didn't try andchange the toilet.
They didn't try and put youknow petals on your toilet or
(37:05):
something.
They said, hey, how about justa piece of bamboo?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
that'd be a good idea the stirrups on your toilet you
want to talk about scaring yourguests.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Two handles and a stirrup like hold on, hold on
tight.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Here it comes, stirrup potty popping out from
underneath your vanity.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, and but like, squatty Putty didn't try and
reinvent the toilet, they justreinvented the bathroom.
That's an experience, right.
They said here how we canchange your body's shape
slightly to make it morecomfortable, and so that that's
the whole point of this episodeis the subtle, like the subtle
genius behind simplicity, thesimple designs, the remarkables,
the nine volt batteries, the,you know, the, the barefoot shoe
(37:42):
, and I think that's making acomeback, right, and you've got
you've got things that arefashionable, like Crocs, that
are they kind of come and theygo, and then you've got things
that are are kind of staplesimplicity items, right, like
your click pens and your post-itnotes and your squatty potties,
things that kind of come, andthey establish themselves as a
(38:06):
useful, helpful thing.
And I think that is what we'reseeing kind of a shift towards
simplicity in design.
And I think 3D printing is a bigpart of that.
I think 3D printing has reallyleveled the playing field for
designers, because up until 3Dprinting, if I wanted to make
one part like, I had to call upsomebody who could make me a
(38:29):
mold and they would cast it.
It would be like $60,000 to$80,000 to get my prototype part
out, or I had to make it out oflike wood or something and make
a mold based on that.
So I think 3D printing's reallyleveled the playing field Right
.
And I've got someone I knowthat he's big into flying and
(38:49):
into aircraft-based simulationsand games.
He's in the process of 3Dprinting the entire cockpit.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Oh, yeah, Matt.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Of a fighter jet, right, yeah, so he's 3D printing
the entire cockpit of a fighterjet.
Before this, like before 3Dprinters.
If he wanted to do that, hewould be on eBay every single
day looking for pieces and partsof a fighter jet and trying to
make them all together into thecockpit.
I need this button set, I needthis, this, this, this.
So 3D printing has reallyleveled that playing field of
(39:18):
innovation.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Disclaimer for the listeners this person also is
kind of an engineer.
Well, he's….
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Went to engineering school.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
He went to engineering school and he's very
smart.
Well, but even.
But.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
I just think that there's a disclaimer no, there's
a disclaimer, sure, but buteven him he doesn't make most
he's modified designs that otherpeople have made already.
He said that that's not.
He said, okay, they're makingthis design, it's not to scale.
I'm gonna make it to scale insome areas, right so, but like
the 3D printer, the open sourcenetwork of 3D printing, if I
(39:54):
want to make trash can, forinstance, and I've got a 3D
printer, I can just find a fileof somebody who's made me a
trash can, right and then modifyit from there.
So if I want to hide a trashcan that pops out of something
right, I can just take someoneelse's 3D print of a trash can,
then go to Home Depot and findthe parts.
So you can make prototypes alot faster.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
It's kind of like Canva for graphic designers.
Right Like up until reallyCanva, you had to have pretty
good knowledge of how to usePhotoshop tool.
Oh, yeah.
And I've taken classes inPhotoshop.
There's a lot there to unpack,right, right, and you can't do
(40:35):
really that much unless you knowhow to use every tool and all
the.
You know the functions, thecapabilities of those, of those
little, of those little tools,and canva has taken that and
stripped it down and there'stemplates and it's like, oh, you
want to move the background,click this button, like you used
to have to know how to use asequence of very specific tools
and it also was skill inPhotoshop, and Canvas completely
(40:59):
flipped that upside down andfor a small fee, you can design
anything you want and you don'thave to utilize these other
tools that really require a lotof training and practice.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, and Canva is another perfect example.
Right Is, the simplicity ofCanva is what makes it brilliant
, and it's not simple on theback end.
Oh no, in the case of softwares, right, the best example ever
is when people used to go, oh, Iwant a simple site like
Craigslist and people didn'trealize how incredibly complex.
Yeah, craigslist was insanelycomplex in the backend, so it
(41:37):
just looked simple, but itwasn't simple.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
The interface was simple.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, and so the simplicity was keeping it simple
for the user, making it seemvery simple, very easy to use,
and then taking all thetechnological stuff on the
backend, which at the time wasvery unique, right, like even
even the Microsoft products likeword and Excel at that time,
options, options upon options,and it click practice was, like
(42:03):
you know, type in here or clickhere and find what you're
looking for.
Here's my and let me dial youinto just your area.
So I think that that's, that'sthe the simplicity piece, right.
And then, and then there'smarketing, you know, right, so
the marketing is part of it.
So you've got something likethe stanley cup, right?
The stanley cup is a verysimple design.
There's nothing all thatcomplex about it's kind of.
(42:25):
You know that there was otherdouble insulated cups before
then, and and they capitalizedon marketing, right.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Well, did you know that?
It was an accident though thatit became so popular?
Because Stanley's been inbusiness?
I don't know, I'll look it uplater, but they've been in
business longer than Getty andall these other market leaders
for thermoses.
But their market was always menand so their product line
before, like the Stanley Cupthat everyone thinks of, was
(42:57):
like dark, undergreen, black,very utilitarian-looking
thermoses.
And they decided you know,we're going to come out with
this new color palette, whichwas the soft, like those like
soft, like pasteles andpastellis that's not a word
pastels, you know these softercolors.
(43:17):
And they decided to only run alimited amount because they
didn't think they were going tosell, because it's not their
market, that's not theiraudience and it, and they went.
People love them.
And it wasn't like, oh, they'redoing the beers thing and
they're keeping them off theshelves to drive them in, like
they literally only produced ahandful.
Because it was veryexperimental, like let's make,
(43:39):
let's totally 180 and do adifferent color palette and see
what happens.
And Housewives Everywhere lovedit.
I mean, I have one, I love it.
I think it's beautiful, it'sbig, doesn't leak as much as my
Yeti.
It does leak.
I can't say it doesn't leak asmuch as my Yeti, but yeah, I
think it's interesting that thiswhole craze was really because
(44:02):
they didn't think that it wasgoing to sell, because it went
against everything that theyhave been doing for decades.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
At the end of the day , that's the part that is the
most impressive with the simplestuff.
Right, the old montage keep itsimple, stupid, stupid.
There's a football coach thatalways says don't try to win all
your fights in the first round.
Right, it's a kind of cleverway of saying be patient, right.
(44:32):
Right, it's a kind of cleverway of saying be patient, right.
So, taking the simple idea andmoving forward with it and
saying, hey, I know it's simplebut it works right, and that it
kind of leads me to I'll kind oftease another segment that I
may do down the road, but takingevery day, like innovating the
ordinary, right, like how, howcan I, we could come up with
some innovations for everydaylife that aren't projects I'm
(44:52):
currently working on.
Something simple that I'vethought about several times is
you know, those little pop-upstrollers is like there's like
telescoping strollers that getreally small, turn into like
almost like a little umbrellasize, but they're one one.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
I think they're called umbrella strollers.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, okay, umbrella strollers Right.
You think I would know that,but I don't shop, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
It's not like your dad.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
I shop double strollers man.
I got two but the.
So the the idea of thisumbrella stroller.
But instead of being anumbrella stroller, you take kind
of a little bit of a of a dollyvibe to it and you make a clip
on.
So dolly vibe to it and youmake a clip on.
So have you seen those littleride-on panels that go on the
back of strollers for your kidsto stand on and they kind of
(45:35):
skateboard behind them.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, little kickboards.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
So something like that, but for a shopping cart at
the grocery store, so somethingyou could bring into the store
with you, because once your kidsget over two years old they
don't want to just sit in thecart a lot of times.
They want to run around, theywant to hold on to things, they
want to hang on the side of thecart, they want to do all the
kind of kid stuff I meanoutriggers for carts yeah, and
and so, yeah, exactly so youbuild like an umbrella stroller
that kind of becomes.
This little platform they canstand on, gives them a handle to
(45:58):
hold to make them feel likethey're pushing the cart, or
they can push the cart and givethem a lower center of gravity
to do so, right, so they're nothands above their head trying to
push the cart and can't see.
But it also gives them aplatform they can stand on and
that you give them the freedomto move about, but in a safe
space behind the shopping cart,as opposed to on the sides where
they're going to, you know, hitshelving and or fall off the
(46:18):
front and get run over, like allthe fears you have as a parent.
Something simple like that,where it's like it.
Arguably it would probably costyou 50 grand to make this thing
, to sell it.
I don't know how many you'deven sell, right, but it's a
very simple solution to aproblem most parents have when
they're at the store of like howdo I keep my kids engaged and
(46:41):
have them with me but not haveto kind of herd the cats as much
?
Right, give them a sense offreedom and a sense of control.
Let them push the cart from alower point and it's also clean.
You feel comfortable thatthere's not like whatever is all
over shopping carts.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh see, I was about to say I feel like it would have
to be.
In this case it'd have to be aninnovation to the cart, right?
Because think about the cart asyou know it they all come
standard with a seat in thefront for your child.
Not everyone has a child, butthey come like that.
If I have a cart that doesn'thave that little section for the
kid which I use for my purse orthe vegetables if I'm shopping
(47:20):
without a child, I'm lost.
So that is designed, but it'salso what we're used to.
So it's like if the carts couldbe redesigned to also include
little things that pop out tohelp as those kids get older,
that'd be kind of cool and I'msure people will figure out how
to use them in other ways.
(47:40):
I wouldn't buy a cartattachment personally, as a
consumer, I think it has to bethe grocery stores investing in
new carts that come with thesefeatures.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I think that you want to tune in my thought process,
at least you want to tune theidea to the problem and not
towards everyone, right?
Like if you add kind ofoutriggers to a cart, naturally
obviously durability becomes alittle bit more of a problem.
Unless you make them like super, super durable, there'll be
some kind of clip that holdsthem up.
When the carts go together andthey're designed so that that
(48:13):
seat collapses and folds up sothey can all stack, there's a
lot of moving parts anddurability to carts, I mean
shoot, the things get hit bycars and continue to do their
job very well.
So I think and we could unpackthat more later, but I don't
think that's the point the pointis to take an idea of an
everyday idea and try and makeit better.
(48:34):
So maybe we'll do a little.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Design that cart.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Design that cart in a world.
So I think I think it's it's agood place to be, I think it's a
good exercise to have.
So we'll probably include it infuture episodes, but for now
we're going to keep it simple.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Stupid.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Stupid.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
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