Inventology

Inventology takes you through the history of how many of the world’s best inventors came across their ideas, uncovering their creative process and how you can update it for today to figure out what drives great inventions and come up with your own.

When Bernard Sadow returned from his family vacation in 1970, a lightbulb went off in his head as he struggled with carrying two big suitcases, made by the luggage company he was vice president of, through the airport. As he watched an airport employee effortlessly push a huge, heavy machine on top of a wheeled platform, he turned to his wife and said: “You know, that’s what we need for luggage!”

Upon his return to the office, he took the rolls off a big wardrobe trunk and put them on the bottom of his suitcase. After adding a leather strap to the front, he could drag his suitcase behind him, which seemed to now glide over the floor. Luggage on wheels was born (you can see Mr. Sadow’s 1972 patent with sketches here).

People had been flying commercially since early in the 20th century, but it took 60 years and the vice president of a luggage company, who was sick of carrying his own suitcases, to come up with something as seemingly simple as putting wheels on a trunk.

This is a great example of how painful a problem really needs to become to drive enough creative thinking that someone invents a 10x solution that really changes everything.

To invent something great, you need to have a strong desire to solve a problem, so the more acute the problem is for you personally, the better your chances.

People don’t like change. Even though Bernard Sadow knew his invention was the right solution for a big problem, it took him many months, calls and sales presentations until finally Macy’s ordered some and the product started taking off. That’s because the pragmatic majority lacks the vision needed to try something new and it takes time for a new way of doing things to diffuse and reach the masses. The same thing happened again when Robert Plath, an airline pilot, improved on Sadow’s design in 1987, adding just two rolls to one side of the suitcase and the telescoping handle you now see on suitcases everywhere. He had an even better understanding of the problem, because he traveled with a suitcase more often than Sadow, who just encountered the problem during vacations. Still, he first only sold his invention to flight attendants, who became the first followers of the movement. With more women traveling alone, and even the biggest machos eventually giving in to the convenience factor, luggage on wheels…