Innovation has always been at the heart of American entrepreneurship and small business. It drives the creation of new companies every single day. One of the best examples is when the company, Hewlett Packard was founded in 1939 in a garage in Palo Alto by two innovators, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. What they started there became a multi-billion dollar company.
This year, February 11th is National Inventors’ Day. Small business owners are brave innovators.
Three years ago, Rieva Lesonsky, Mike Michalowicz and I started to the Rule Breaker Awards sponsored by Nextiva to honor the innovators that have broken the rules in pursuit of small business dreams.
Here are some of the innovators that we highlighted from the thousands of people that have been nominated for this honor:
Jody Harris’s invention, ZippedMe, solves the problem of how to zip up dresses (or boots) that close in the back (or side) when you don’t have someone to help.
Douglas Jackson, whose family created Project C.U.R.E, empowers 17,000 volunteers to engage in saving lives of people in 133 countries. His organization broke the rules by donating repurposed (or expired) medical supplies and equipment that would normally be destroyed inside the United States.
Nigel Bennett’s company, Aqua-Guard, provides state-of-the-the-art solutions to clean up oil spills all around the world.
Todd Palmer founded Diversified Industrial Staffing, which applies common white-collar headhunting recruiting tactics to blue-collar laborers in skilled trades.
Jennifer and Michael Young’s company, The Domesticated Dad, delivers fresh, healthy brown-bag lunches to students, parents and teachers at local schools who are tired of eating school lunches.
If you are looking to invent your own way, these business resources from HP may be able to help!
What innovation have you come up with in your business or how do you continue to innovate in your company everyday?
