How to Connect the Dots and Come Up with the Greatest Business Idea Since Sliced Bread
Here’s a piece of United States war trivia I bet you didn’t know; sliced bread was briefly banned in the US.
On January 18, 1943 the Secretary of Agriculture put a ban on sliced bread to help conserve resources like waxed paper and steel so they could instead be put toward the war effort in Europe. (There was a little skirmish going on over there at the time.)
But, by that point US citizens were so enamoured with sliced bread that there was an outcry from the general population and the ban was rescinded on March 8, 1943, not even two months after it was enacted.
People loved their uniformly sliced loaves so much they put them above fighting Nazis.
Here’s another piece of trivia you probably didn’t know; the guy who invented (commercially sold) sliced bread had a degree in optometry, but was a jewelry maker by trade.
So, how did a jewelry maker go on to invent the thing that all other inventions are measured against?
It’s a story of dots and lines and it can help you come up with your own world-changing business ideas.
Let’s dig in and see how.
At the time of its brief temporary banning, commercially sold sliced bread had only been around for about 15 years. It’s quite the accomplishment to go from not even existing to being seen as an essential part of life in that short of time. It was basically the smartphone of its day.
The man who invented the first machine to pre-slice bread was Otto Rohwedder. As mentioned previously, Rohwedder wasn’t even involved with the baking industry when he invented the machine. He had studied optometry, but actually made his living designing and manufacturing machines to make jewelry.
So, how did this jewelry maker revolutionize bread?
He connected the dots.
The good news is that you can, too!
Connecting the Dots
To put it simply, dots are things like knowledge, experience and unsolved problems. To connect those dots, you need lines, which represent the ability to use your knowledge and experience to solve the as-yet unsolved problems.
Using Rohwedder as an example, we can map out the dots and lines he used to come up with his sliced bread business idea.
- Having pre-sliced bread would be a good thing.
- A machine would be able to uniformly slice bread.
- I invent machines to manufacture jewelry.
- I should be able to invent a machine that will uniformly slice bread.
- I can sell that machine to bakeries.
- [Light bulb turns on over head.]
For Rohwedder, his dots were his knowledge and experience with machinery and his recognition of the problem of not being able to buy uniformly pre-sliced bread. (I like to imagine that he was futilely trying to cut two slices for a sandwich when the idea hit him.)
He connected his knowledge and experience with machinery to the problem he saw and came up with the greatest business idea since … well, you know.
Not being in the baking industry also proved to be valuable for him. Up until that point, it was thought to be too difficult to keep pre-sliced bread fresh while it sold. But, Rohwedder either wasn’t aware of that or didn’t think it was that big of a problem.
If you want to start a business, but don’t have any ideas at hand, you can try connecting the dots you have (your experience and knowledge) with dots in other industries (problems that need solving) to come up with one.
A client of mine, for example, has a background in seismic engineering (earthquake proofing buildings, basically) and his grandmother has essential tremors, meaning her hands shake uncontrollably. His aunt is a doctor who specializes in treating essential tremors.
He connected his knowledge, his experience, his relationship with his aunt (which brought in her knowledge and experience) and the problem he identified with his grandmother to invent a glove that counteracts essential tremors.
He now has a business selling those gloves to people who live with hand tremors. (He also has some pretty slick landing page copy, I might add).
Your dots don’t need to be your first-hand knowledge and experience. Any type of education, training and reading will add to your available dots. Explore subjects that you’re interested in, learn about things outside your comfort zone and see if you can connect some of those dots with a problem to be solved.
You might even come up with the greatest business idea since … well, you know.
