The Next Big Product

Reflective material, such as that used in reflective technologies' illumiNITE products, is really an adaptation of reflective strips made for highway signs. Adapted products are often a great opportunity for inventors.

Another recent market that uses adapted products is the cosmetics market for preteen girls. Previously, preteens were using cosmetics designed for teenagers. Suppliers who've geared their products toward 6- to 13-year-old girls-by, for instance, making the packaging more appealing-have had great success over the past three years.

Don Debelak is a new-business marketing consultant and the author of Bringing Your Product to Market (John Wiley & Sons). Send him your invention questions at dondebelak@uswest.net.

Contact Source

• Reflective Technologies Inc., 15 Tudor St., Cambridge, MA 02139, (617) 497-6171.

This article was originally published in the October 2000 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: The Next Big Product.