The Accidental Entrepreneur
Henk van Ess, a Dutch consultant and speaker who trains media professionals in the use of technology, says he wasn’t looking to start a business when he sent out a note to a few groups on LinkedIn trying to find a way of extending the battery life of his new iPhone.
A representative of a Chinese manufacturer answered his query with information about its battery and he bought one. He was immediately pleased with the results.
van Ess told me about how he went from being a satisfied customer to a distributor of this battery. It all started, he said, when he went back to LinkedIn and posted what he calls a “teasing” message” using the site’s “what am I doing” feature. “I wrote something like: ‘You hate the battery life of your iPhone too? Perhaps I have the cure.’” he said.
Before long, he started receiving orders from people in his network asking him to order a battery for them. “I didn’t want to do all this paperwork so I set up a little Web shop, and then the company asked me to be one of its distributors.” He says that in his first day of online sales, he took orders from 1,200 customers.
And he has already taken the business to the next stage. Working with the Chinese manufacturer he met on Linkedin, he has developed a new version of the battery, the 3GJuice, that he says is superior to the original battery.
Photo by Anita Kentie.
CoolProducts on October 17th, 2008 12:21 pm
Is it so much accidental as it is taking advantage of opportunity? The term accidental implies that any could have had this land in their laps and have it take off, where as this man recognized an opportunity and capitalized on it.
Jaclyn on October 17th, 2008 12:56 pm
I believe that sometimes thing’s do happen purely by accident. You write one article or blog not expecting to get a huge response and before you know it everyone and their brother is commenting on your writing or wanting what you have. It does not happen all the time or to very many people but it has been known to happen. I think some of the best ideas and inventions in the past have been stumbled upon by accident, and I don’t think there’s any better way to have something great come your way.
cassy on October 18th, 2008 8:07 pm
I agree, you can never know that your simple idea can brings you money and even can makes you famous.
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