The Next Big Product
That was their goal; is it yours?
Waiting for some inspiration for a great new product to strike
you? Try following the lead of three old college chums, Adam
Rizika, 38, Bob Rizika, 35, and Scott Brazina, 36. In 1989, while
students at the Sloan Management School at MIT, the three agreed to
start a business together and introduce the "next big
product." But they had one major problem: They had no idea
what that product would be.
In 1993, four years after graduating, they made their
move—quitting their jobs to start reflective technologies
Inc. and search for the right product. Later that year they created
illumiNITE, a fabric with a coating that reflects light. Unlike
traditional reflective apparel, which simply boasts several orange
strips, the partners' innovative apparel provides a full
reflective silhouette, keeping runners, cyclists, walkers,
children, etc. safe at night. From their small beginnings, the
partners have created a multimillion-dollar company with such major
clients as Land's End, Adidas, Polaris, Eddie Bauer, Honda,
L.L. Bean and even the U.S. military.
Brazina explains the original mission of the partners was
"to find a new technology that would produce high-value
benefits for consumers and be difficult to copy." They planned
on raising around $2 million—not enough to fund developing
and introducing an expensive and complex industrial product, but
sufficient for funding a decently priced consumer product. They
also wanted to be sure their invention could sell well enough to
build a reasonably large company, which in turn would be consistent
with their career goals.
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