Choosing an industry and creating a product, or Creating an industry and choosing a product

I get new ideas all the time for a product that a consumer can use. Say for example a product like an innovative magnetic levitation bearing. Many industries can use this mechanism in their products they design for consumers. Industries such as wind towers, skateboards, automotive, and many more. As I created it and commercialized my product, I find that it happens to be an inexpensive alternative to the competition. It is more efficient than the competition, it is easy to manufacture, and there are more consumer products than I thought that can use it. This seems simple; let me manufacture as many of these as I possibly can and sell a ton of magnetic levitation bearings.

But is that what is the most innovative thing about my product? The bearing itself?

I dont believe so.

So now we need to take a look at the first few steps of how I commercialized this product. Well... first I designed it on CAD. Then I purchased all the materials I believed would work to make a prototype. I had to keep running back to the store because the first few methods did not work exactly as planned. I felt like I was making bottle openers by the dozens. Then it dawned on me. After some trial and error, I developed a method,.. a tool more like, to create my product. My magnetic levitation bearing was good, but... the tool I created to make the bearing was something out of a rat trap game. It had leavers, pulleys, clamps, presses, heat guns, etc laying on a table. Only I could understand the madness. But it assimilated the pieces just right to build a sell-able product that I was happy with.

After much fiddling with the tool, I had perfected it. I could make my bearing and sell it, and sell it, and sell it.... or.... humm.... I could clean up my rat trap, and sell this tool for a whole lot more money. Maybe I could even license the bearing patent to get royalties off each unit my competition makes after buying my tool. This way instead of multiple competitive companies trying to build a better bearing with their own rat traps, which they would and I'm guessing quickly, I could sell them a tool and sell them the parts and the list of material suppliers they need to be competitive on the market. I might even get a kickback from my material suppliers.

This was just an example, but keep that in mind when you develop a product, maybe you not only created a new product in an existing industry, but maybe you created a whole new industry.