The upside-down ketchup bottle earned its inventor, Paul Brown, $13 million. With over 111 prototypes and many drained credit cards, he persisted and changed the way people consume ketchup and other condiments. He thought about the challenge from a new perspective.
Brown worked by day as the owner of a precision molding company. He had an idea that he could invent a plastic bottle closure that would have a wide enough opening that somebody could easily dispense ketchup; Brown had applied for patents under his company Liquid Molding Systems, Inc.
Brown had an employee named Tim Socier who could use a CAD machine – computer-assisted design. Together they worked on a project that allowed a shampoo bottle to be stored upside without leaking. The valve design for shampoo opened the door for solving another challenge.
“I haven’t failed. I just found 10,000 ideas that didn’t work” Edison
On the 112th try, their petal-designed valve worked for the shampoo product. From Sippy Cups to Nasa, all sorts of applications of the idea work.
Knock, Knock
Then in 1991, Heinz knocked on Brown’s door. Using his unique valve technology helps solve the problem of getting ketchup out of a bottle at just the right amount needed. Today more than 75% of all Heinz ketchup flows through Brown’s inverted device. Part of the solution was seeing the problem from an upside-down point of view.
Change Your Point of View
What happens when you change your perspective and see a problem from a fresh angle. It took Brown to create both an innovative design and to realize that gravity could be his best friend. A shift in perspective can make a big difference in creating a remarkable innovation.
Heinz created the ketchup. Brown solved the user experience problem with their original package. By using gravity and an upside-down idea, Brown revolutionized the consumer’s experience.
Are you looking at your challenges from the same perspective? Maybe it is time for a fresh point of view.
When you ask the question, WHAT IF we did this differently, you put the squeeze on innovation.
Photo by Olena Sergienko on Unsplash
Originally Published: Nov 5, 2023
