Challenge Your Perspective

Sometime in September I was battling with myself over whether it was worth my time to continue putting in 15-20 hours per week on this project.  I had cut back on my consulting work and was taking a double-hit in the wallet since I was making less money and also dropping some savings on the development effort.  I was spending most of my time going over and over some technical details of the mechanisms I had convinced myself were required to make the invention work.  Each one added weight, complexity and cost to the total package.  Normally accustomed to doing my design work on a CAD program, I had resorted to paper when my ideas were changing faster than my ability to click the erase tool.  With a 2-year-old in the house, any and all loose paper tends to get scribbled on.  After a few close encounters with the crayons, I took my work to the local Panera Bread restaurant where I could work in relative peace .  I dove deeply into the technical details and felt like I was making real progress.  At least, I was making more than the usual number of drawings for the time that I had been working.  Anyway, I was starting to feel pretty good about it all when I heard a hushed giggle from a nearby table.  As I turned to look in that direction, another hushed voice scolded "Don't stare!"  There was a table with five college students who had been watching me.  When I looked back at my paper I realized that my pencil drawings were nearly invisible next to the bright crayon scribbles that dominated nearly every piece of paper in front of me.  With egg on my face, I casually slipped the paper into my bag and pulled out the laptop.

As embarrassing as that was, there was a useful lesson in it.  In focusing on the details, I had simply blocked out the larger picture which any casual observer around me could not help but notice.  The same was true of my overall design.  When I stepped away from the details and change my perspective, I was able to see some fundamental changes that dramatically simplified the device and made many of those little details unimportant.

The Idea

I think it is worth a paragraph to talk about why I came up with the original idea for this product.  Like many golfers, I generally like to just play the game without spending a lot of time practicing.  However, I do occasionally get really fired up and want to put in some real practice to take my game up a level.  My frustration (and I'm not alone here) is that it is really hard to improve without someone else watching your swing as you practice.  The best way to improve is to spend time with a professional instructor  I can't say enough about my own coach, Bob Haines.  I wish I could afford to spend more time with him than I do.  I tried using video, but it is hard to get the camera set up perfectly and it takes a while to switch between hitting balls and analyzing the video.  Most mirrors are difficult to use too because you have to turn your head away from the ball to watch the mirror.  So anyway, it's just hard for the average golfer to develop a precise swing plane.  Before dreaming up the Swing Gauge, I actually started out trying to write a tongue-in-cheek book about how hard it is to learn golf.  I was organizing my notes from ten years of trying to improve my game when I realized that most of my struggles came down to the following problem.  There is no way to practice with a full view of the swing plane without having to turn my head away from the ball.  It was then that I realized that there might be a simple engineering solution to this problem.  Let's just say that the book project is on hold for a while.

Here's a picture of the first prototype.

Blog Inspiration

I am a backyard inventor who has decided to throw caution to the wind and start up a company based on one of my ideas.  Yes, I am crazy.  I am starting this blog so other crazy people like me can follow along and learn from my mistakes and hopefully from my success.  I, for one, owe much to others who have helped me to learn and grow to the point where I have convinced myself that I might be able to make this work.  The list of people I have to thank is long and I hope to give due credit at some point along the line.  For now, please visit my new company website and let me know what you think or if you have any questions that might help you to start your own business.  I will do what I can to provide guidance, if not answers.  At the moment, I am preparing for the Orlando PGA Merchandise Show in January.  I have a whole new respect for people who handle trade show preparations for their employers.  It is just a monstrous and overwhelming task.