John Boykin
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I am in the communication business. I mostly design websites for a living. Being a designer, I'm in the business of solving problems on behalf of other people. And you see problems everywhere you look and you think, gee, I could do better than that. And so one day I was painting the bedroom and thinking what a piece of crap the paint can was.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
The thing about a paint can is that it's guaranteed to make a mess every single time you use it, no matter what you do. It's painful to carry. It requires a tool to open or close. It never closes right after you use it the first time. It was invented in the mid-1860s by either Mr. Sherwin or Mr. Williams, I forget which. It has had virtually no innovation in the time since.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
If you look at the Sherwin-Williams logo with the paint can pouring paint down over the globe, if you look at their logo from 1893, it's the same paint can. And so I got thinking, how could this be better? And started just sketching out some ideas. In Silicon Valley, you're very aware that the company, they want to do things to serve their interests.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
And as a user experience designer, I'm in the business of understanding what the end user needs and wants and how we can solve their problems. And the two tend to be very different. The paint can is a great thing for the manufacturer. It's a known quantity. All of their machines and robots are designed to accommodate its size and weight and everything else.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
It's great for the retailer because it fits on a shelf just right. It's really not designed for you, the consumer. I worked on it intermittently over a period of about five years, something like that. It was all evenings and weekends while I had a day job to pay the rent and to pay the people that I was hiring to help me with it.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
It started with pencil sketches and then on to a computer program where I could do drawings. The lid is critical to the success of a paint can, and so I prototyped that with paper, and I interviewed a bunch of people. I learned everything about 3D printing. I learned about how you design for injection molding. I interviewed product designers. I talked to painters. I took a tour of a paint factory.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I interviewed the former head of a paint factory. I interviewed hardware store paint department managers, a recycling expert. One painter, the very first words out of his mouth were, who told you to reinvent the paint can? I said, well, nobody. I just felt like it needed to be done. And he said, why? It's a logical question.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Why would anybody in his right mind take on this thing that nobody asked him to do? And I never claimed to be in my right mind. So that's the answer. Yeah. I did hire mechanical engineers to help me with it. I hired a material science engineer. I hired a fluid dynamics engineer because I didn't want to be doing it all myself.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I'm a big believer that one-man bands play street corners, not concert halls. And if this thing was going to be any good, it was going to have to have more than my brain involved in it. I would get my prototype of the bucket, my prototype of the lid. I would have some prototype of a gasket in there and I would pour some liquid yogurt in, which was my surrogate paint.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I would put it in the bucket and then shake the thing up, hold it upside down, tip it this way, tip it that way. and see what happened. I would say the design worked as a whole except for the fact that it leaked. The blasted thing leaked. There would always be anywhere from a couple of drops coming out to a trickle coming out. I could not for the life of me stop it from leaking to some extent.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
And ultimately that's why I pulled the plug on the project. Given the design, I would have had to start over from scratch, and I was no longer willing to keep pouring more and more of my money into it.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Suffice it to say, you could go to Europe plenty of times. You could buy a car or two. You could do all sorts of things that anybody with a lick of sense would do instead. I have a wife and a cat. The cat didn't care. My wife, let's just say, was not a fan of this project. She's always had a lot more sense than I have.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
And she was very wary of the money that it was going to take to push this thing through. She was worried I was going to get sued. She was not a fan. It was disappointing but not terrible because the thing is that I'm the guy who tries. I worship at the temple of trying. And if you worship at the temple of trying, you have to maintain heavy denial about the odds that are stacked against you.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
And you have to know that your likelihood of failure is very, very high. and you have to go ahead and do it anyway. People with more sense probably would not. As Las Vegas and video games have taught us so well, the best way to addict somebody is intermittent reward. If you fail all the time, you'll give up and stop trying. If you win all the time, you'll get bored and stop trying.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
But intermittent reward, if you succeed just often enough, then you keep coming back, oh, this next time I'll do better.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I respect tenacity. Sometimes tenacity is directed in a non-productive direction.