My Very First Ideas For New Products

I have not shared these before.

When I first started trying to license my ideas, they were, well, let’s say…OK.

I’ve learned over time that when you stick with an industry long enough, your ideas do get better. 

Check out my very first sell sheets below. I was in my early 20s and living in Los Gatos, CA. I was definitely influenced by Gary Dahl, the creator of the "Pet Rock."

I was soon creating ideas for the fast-food industry. I was fascinated with cups and what I could do differently with them. This particular sample was for a lid that you could play with.

I wasn’t great in school, so playing around with pencil erasers was fun for me.

This was a paper wallet that had a booklet from a Disney movie inside, very inexpensive.

Once again, I was having fun with cups! This idea was a fun potato head mix-and-match cup.

As you can probably tell, I was fascinated with hats. This was 3-D pop-up baseball hat.

Here is another one of my early ideas for a cup lid.

I always had fun designing back-to-school items. This is a soft-sided lunchpail that you could change the image of. You could look at something different every day!

Once again, having fun with back-to-school items.

This was one of my favorites. If you turned the straw at the top, Cinderella would twirl and dance in the window below.

I love all of my ideas, but some were definitely more profitable than others.

Here’s what I learned: 

1. It takes a lot of practice to become good at anything.

2. To produce good work, you must love what you're doing.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen Key

inventRight CoFounder