| A Bright Idea |
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Future CEO Stars Magazine - August 2008 by Justin Zich  As an entrepreneur, I have often felt as though I was stumbling around in the dark. Trying to do anything for the first time is always an exciting and stressful experience. With a new business, there a lot of firsts: your first product, first customer, and first sale. It is never the daily grind. Talking to and meeting other entrepreneurs at Marketplace for Entrepreneurs was a great thing. In fact, before attending, I don't believe I would have even thought to call myself an entrepreneur. There have been plenty of bumps along the way. Running your own business doesn't just affect your work life; it affects your entire life. If you don't agree, apply for a home loan and watch the terror in your loan officer's eyes when you put "entrepreneur" down for your occupation.Problem solving is a huge part of everyone's life. Having grown up on a family farm, I have certainly done my fair share of it. I remember being amazed as a child watching my father and grandfather work on equipment and often times making or inventing things just to get the job done. One day I discovered I had a problem that needed solving. I was working nights and used my pickup a lot. I had a truck bed cover which completely blocked my factory cargo light from lighting up my pickup box. I decided I would purchase a light that mounted under the cover and would light up the box when the tailgate was open. I searched and searched, but was astonished when I was not able to find any such light. I still wanted the light so I decided to make one for myself, and the Automatic Cargo Light was born. Our product has undergone a lot of refinements since that original prototype, but the basic idea has remained the same. The light must be durable, light up the box automatically when the tailgate is opened, be able to be turned off if needed and allow for full function of the pickup. We originally looked into licensing our product to a larger company. There was some very strong interest initially, but nothing that work out the way we wanted it to. So we decided to make them ourselves. During the design process, naming our product became a huge issue. We knew how important a name is and we worked a long time to get it right. We had a huge list of names we didn't like when we realized we had been calling it the perfect one all along - the "Automatic Cargo Light." That was it! It was perfect and explained what the product did in the name. Our business name was not as clever. We have four members in our LLC, our last name starts with the letter "Z", and we make products. So we went with 4Z products. Our future plans change by the day or sometimes by the minute. Some days I dream of expanding the business, being able to open a factory in a small town, and support the local economy. Then there are other days where I hope some big company buys us out and writes us a nice fat check with royalties to follow. I have no secrets to share, no life changing advice. Just hard work, lots of help from friends and family, and the use of whatever resources are available. Like most anything worth doing, it is a struggle. Sometimes it's great and sometimes not so much. But there are very few days I would rather be working for someone else. |