Consumer Products
Hidden treasures
How Ellis Yan finds innovation in the most unlikely of places
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Akron/Canton | September 2008
When Ellis Yan visited the Mirage
in Las Vegas, he wanted to take
the house — or at least its light bulbs. As founder and CEO of TCP Inc., he
wanted the hotel to switch to his company’s light bulbs, but he faced a challenge
from the manager.
He was staying on the 19th floor of the L-shaped hotel, and the manager told him to
stand outside the elevator, located where
the two seemingly endless halls converge,
and look down each hall. One was
equipped with all TCP bulbs, and the other
with the hotel’s original bulbs.
Immediately, Yan knew what the problem
was, and the manager told him if he could
fix the problem, then he’d be happy to give
him his business.
“The problem was the color,” Yan says.
“Our color just doesn’t match what we call
‘Las Vegas color.’ Las Vegas has a special
color — warm, fuzzy, it’s called ‘Get you!’
color — ‘Get you to spend the money!’ It
took me three or four months, and today,
we have a full product line called ‘Las
Vegas color.’”
Innovation like that didn’t just win over
the Mirage’s business. It’s been crucial to
growing TCP, but it’s also crucial for any
business to focus on.
“Today, because the people, the technology and the environment change so fast, you
have you to have something new constantly,” Yan says. “If we do not show people any
new stuff every quarter, all of a sudden the
perception out there is people feel that
you’re a little boring — nothing exciting —
so basically the innovation becomes the
foundation of how the business grows.”
You may think that innovation is too difficult or maybe your product is such a commodity that you don’t know how to make it
more innovative, but Yan points out that
even something as simple as a toothbrush
always manages to look different from
year to year.
“You may argue that it’s the same toothbrush, but at the same time, they look different,” he says. “Sometimes, people are
saying, ‘Oh innovation! You have to have
something absolutely new, next generation.’ Not necessarily. Something has to be
different; something interesting. ... All you
have to do is pay attention. All they have to
do is have a little daydream about something kind of crazy, something kind of out
of the ordinary.”
For example, on a business trip, Yan
learned about a product that the
Japanese paint on the sides of their
buildings. When it reacts with the sun, it
absorbs foul odors in the air, thus making the city smell nicer. He was fascinated by it, so he found out what the product was and who made it, and he tinkered with his light bulbs to create the
right setting to simulate the sun. Then he
applied the product to the bulbs, and the
result is the first odor-eliminating light
bulb.
“Just pay attention,” he says. “In your
daily life, and at the end of the day
before you go to bed, you think through
every day, all day — what you talked
about, (who) you met, what you thought
about, what people offered you — and
you’ll find a tremendous amount of
ideas.”
You also need to get your people thinking about new ideas, too, so Yan and his
team meets weekly to come up with as
many crazy ideas as they can. Out of one
of those sessions came the idea to take
their boxes and make them without any
glue so they could be turned inside out,
mailed back and recycled, which had
been an issue in the past.
But even when you have a bunch of
ideas, they’re nothing if you don’t act, so
it’s important to move on them quickly.
“Today, if you stand still, you lose,” Yan
says. “You have to move. You have to
move very fast. You have to move your
idea very fast. You have to convert your
idea into action. Sometimes, I tell people, ‘Even if you push out a stupid idea
into the market, the idea may be stupid,
but the perception is innovation.’”
And perception is reality, so you have
to keep up that appearance.
“People, the market, the customer, the
consumer looks at you not necessarily
how wonderful you come out with every
single best product,” he says. “The way
they look at you is by perception, by how
you as a company are moving forward,
so good, bad, ugly, don’t worry about it.
Just keep moving, and keep pushing it
out. If you push out something so stupid,
so ugly, people laugh about it, but
remember that laughing is good, too.”
HOW TO REACH: TCP Inc., (800) 324-1496 or www.tcpi.com
