The movie Joy[1] tells the story of Joy Mangano (aka, the “Queen of HSN”), a serial innovator and multimillionaire entrepreneur who is most famously known for her Miracle Mop invention.
While the movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence as its title character, is an entertaining and inspirational film, it’s not a wholly accurate representation of Mangano’s rags-to-riches life story. While the movie’s general premise closely aligns with Mangano’s life story, the accuracy of the big-screen adaptation of Mangano’s life is not what’s most relevant here. More importantly, we can glean so many lessons about business acumen and innovation from Mangano; here are four of the most acute business takeaways and innovation lessons:
1. Don’t sit on great ideas.
While working at a vet’s office as a teenager, Mangano came up with the idea of fluorescent collar for animals to wear at night to increase their visibility to cars. She didn’t act on this idea and when Hartz, a large pet supply company, brought a similar product to market a year later, Mangano made a promise to herself that the next time she had a great idea, she would bring it to market first.[2] In many categories, being first-to-market gives you a substantive advantage. While teenaged Mangano didn’t have the knowledge or financial wherewithal to get legal protection for her fluorescent collar idea, this example still serves as a lesson for today’s innovators. A key imperative for a successful innovation process is idea management. As to which, the intellectual property attorney is essential to the care, feeding, and protection of your ideas. Moreover, patents are important tools for both offensive and defensive strategy.
2. The best ideas can often be found right in front of you; necessity can sometimes breed invention.
After her 1989 divorce, Mangano was struggling to pay the bills while working two jobs as a waitress and an airline-reservation manager and living with her three kids. It was also in 1989 that her idea for the Miracle Mop was born. Mangano says she was tired of the tedious mopping process—bending down, putting her hands in dirty water, manually ringing out the dirty mop—and knew there had to be a better way. Mangano’s better way was a self-wringing mop, which later got named the Miracle Mop.
3. Sometimes it’s more than having just a great product; it’s the person that can make the product.
In 1990, Mangano borrowed money to make the Miracle Mop prototype and was fulfilling orders from her own home. That first year, she managed to sell a few thousand mops from home and then took her product to QVC. As she explained to ABC News, “At first it was demonstrated on TV without me…and it didn’t do so well. They wanted to return the mop.” But Mangano begged the QVC producers for a chance to sell it herself on air—and that chance paid off (she sold 18,000 mops in 20 minutes). “I got on stage and the phones went crazy and we sold out every last mop.”[3] Oftentimes, for an innovation to succeed, you have to realize that the power of the innovation and brand lies within you as a person. Mangano started her on-air career at QVC and then sold her company to HSN in 1999. She’s still the face of the network, hence her “Queen of HSN” nickname, and remains one of their most successful sellers.
4. Always be innovating.
While the Miracle Mop is Mangano’s most famous invention, it’s definitely neither her only invention nor her most successful one. Her biggest hit is actually Huggable Hangers, with 700 million sold to date. Impressively, she also holds more than a hundred patents to her name: some have been blockbusters and others have been failures. While all it takes is one great hit, it’s too risky to put all your eggs in one basket. As such, one should always be innovating!
[1] Note: The movie “Joy” was released in U.S. theatres on Christmas Day 2015. As of May 2016, you can rent or watch the movie on Amazon Video or iTunes. To watch the official trailer, click here.
[2] http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a36158/joy-mangano-facts/
[3] http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a36158/joy-mangano-facts/
