Starting on a New Path

“That’s not my cup!”, “That’s not my cup!”, is a nightly echo throughout our house usually before dinnertime. Cups scattered on coffee tables, kitchen counters, and computer desks but not one would be claimed for use at dinner. All the kids would scramble to get a new cup out of the cupboard. I guess the fear of accidentally getting their 6 year old brothers backwashed germs cup was too high a risk.

My goal was to change this nightly ritual chant to “That’s my cup!”, . No more fighting over the abandoned cups scattered throughout the house. No more “Which one is my cup?” And this is how my journey of discovering a new product and in turn allowing my buried self to come to the surface and discover a inner voice that I did not know I had.

My first attempts at changing this behavior involved little schemes like “cup landing zones” and “cup drying racks”. This would work part of the time but did not resolve the abandoned cups throughout the house. So then I went in search of a product on the internet. A cup that could easily be changed to identify the user of the cup, but nothing was out there. So I started to think about all the things that I would like this factious cup to have; easily changeable names and it definitely had to be dishwasher safe. No way was I going to wash cups by hand. So I started to design this cup in my head. Then I designed it using a free 3D CAD product I got off the internet called CoCreate Modeling PE. My current job involves CAD design so I just had to learn the 3D part, which was fun, hard but fun.

Not sure where I was taking this, I started researching plastic manufacturing and custom label companies. All this was new and a bit daunting but I just plodded through trying to learn this industry and not feel stupid asking questions. I sent several emails/phone calls to Australian plastic manufactures and had a hard time trying to get anyone to respond and/or follow up. Then I expanded my search to include China and Star Prototype responded immediately, which I have been dealing so far.

One of my biggest obstacles was my pessimistic husband compounded with my low self esteem. I kept hearing his words “just write names on those plastic red cups”. So I started reading books on motivation and how to influence other people. The book that helped me the most was “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself; Change Your like Forever” by Steve Chandler. It really got me motivated to the fact that I could do this.

I also started reading books on innovations, marketing and business. There is so much to learn, but I compelled to gaining more knowledge. Knowledge that is going to help me pursue this passion to resolve this family problem.

I then conducted a survey on Facebook to prove to my husband and myself that there were other people out there who thought this idea was great. I received so much positive feedback that I knew I had to keep moving forward. I go back to that list of over 70 people who responded in a 4 day window with such positive comments, it keeps me on track.

It has been almost a year since I started thinking about this product and now I have a business plan, completed innovation patent, registered a trademark, website, and produced a prototype. The test cup has been knocking around our house and my kids are fight over it when it comes out of the dishwasher.

My plan is to manufacture these personalized cups, which I've called MyColourCup in September and turn on the http://www.thepersonalizedcup.com/  site to start selling this product online in October 09.
 
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Check out this personalized product that brought occasional sanity to our family.
http://www.twistidproducts.com/