Korean Shaft brand AUTOpower Takes a Hands-On Approach

The more I look into the Korean golf manufacturing market, the less I find. It is unfortunate and perhaps strange, given that Korea is the 3rd largest golf market in the world trailing only the USA and Japan. According to the European Golf Statistics 2017, Europe has an estimated 4.15M registered golfers and nearly 7,000 golf courses. The numbers largely outpace the 3.3M Korean golfers and the meager 450 golf courses available here. How is it that we can be the 3rd largest consumer group for golf goods in the world, and yet, produce so little equipment of our own?

Some of you may recall my recent article on Korea’s unique single length iron manufacturer, Diawings Golf, and my wish for more Korean manufacturers to rise among the most recognized golf brands in the industry. I am not saying that Diawings is by any means ready to take over the world, but from what I’ve seen and experienced, it could be well on its way to earning a look from serious golfers as it begins exporting to the US and Vietnam in the Spring of 2019.

The same can be said for South Korea’s sole shaft manufacturer, DUMINA Inc, and its trademark pink AUTOpower shafts.

AUTOPOWER BY DUMINA

You may be familiar with the hot pink Grafalloy driver shaft used by Bubba Watson. Even on the PGA Tour, the shaft and its unusual color definitely screams “look at me!” Now imagine a shaft equally as audacious as Bubba’s magic wand, but in a country so conservative that most country clubs and golf courses still forbid wearing shorts during the summer.

Enter Korea’s very own AUTOpower shaft.

AUTOpower. Yes, I know it sounds like a name fit for an intelligent race of alien robots or at the very least the name of your local car tuning shop. I could give you a dozen examples where product names and claims get lost in translation between Asia and the American market, but this one isn’t so bad when you better understand what this shaft claims to offer. (Hint: Think Kung-Fu Panda).

AUTOpower golf shafts are fully manufactured in Korea by a small company that remains largely unknown in the golf industry, even in Korea. That changed a bit in 2016 when AUTOpower shafts started collecting wins on the LPGA tour. The bold color is an attention grabber, but it’s the even bolder guarantee of more power and better distance and accuracy off the tee that distinguishes AUTOpower. When AUTOpower says guaranteed, it means it.

Like me, this is where you probably start thinking, “Gee, we haven’t heard THAT before. Besides, the best shafts are made in Japan and the US.” First, that would be wrong. Many golf shafts, including some of the most recognized brands in the industry, are now also made in China and other parts of Asia and are assembled with the club heads around the world.

As MyGolfSpy has written many times in the past, the shaft industry lacks any form of standardization when it comes to shaft flex, torque, and performance descriptors. For example, an S-flex in one brand may translate to an R-flex in another brand and could be labeled an SR-flex in another. Often golfers settle on a trusted brand name and whether the color/paint scheme is to our liking. Frequency and torque? Swing weight? Shaft pure-ing? These days, trying to navigate through a maze of buzzwords to find a shaft that can unlock your full distance potential is harder than understanding organic chemistry was in high school. That’s tricky even when your expectations are realistic. No amount of money and fitting will make your drive 50 yards longer overnight.

SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Over the past year, I had seen the pink shafts pop up from time to time at Korean golf shows and in TV commercials with the tagline “What IS that shaft?” But it was only recently that my curiosity was piqued for two reasons. Firstly, I learned that it was manufactured in Korea by a local company using proprietary tech; and secondly, I was looking for more driver distance without straining my already aching back. After years of trying dozens of the more famous aftermarket brands and still convinced I was fit to continue playing a 6S shaft, an acquaintance confided that he had recently seen his driver distance increase by over 20 yards after switching to AUTOpower (the name still makes me shudder). I was on the phone that day to reserve a time slot for a full fitting session at the company headquarters in the outskirts of Seoul.

DUMINA Inc., the maker of the shaft, is located in a modest business complex with their office and factory next to each other. The space is clean and well organized, and a large sign adorned with Korean flags at the entrance let visitors know that this is a domestic manufacturer of world-class golf shafts. I have to admit I rolled my eyes at first. The walls are lined with pictures of well-known tour pros from the KPGA, KLPGA, LPGA, and JLPGA posing with the shafts. The wall of fame also includes local top amateurs and celebrities. It looks perfectly nice, but if that is the standard of measure, I can name many shaft brands that have won majors and countless tournaments all over the world.

My interest was in what drove the company to state it can compete and even beat some of the best shaft makers in the world. I wasn’t saying it was absolutely impossible, but it seemed improbable, especially given the lack of quantifiable evidence and data.

And most importantly, can could an AUTOpower shaft increase my distance and accuracy to help me beat my regular foursome?

Once inside DUMINA, I was greeted by Ms. Doona Jung CEO and Mr. Gumyul Park, Chairman. Both in their mid-fifties, the pair looks less the part of golf shaft developers, and more like the kind elderly neighbors next door. They too seemed a little wary of a handsome(?) younger man claiming to be interested in knowing more about their wonder product. I explained that I was not there to solicit them for marketing purposes or free sample, but that I was merely curious about the sole Korean shaft manufacturer. After some pleasantries and explaining what we do at MyGolfSpy, I dove right into the big questions:

What differentiates AUTOpower shafts from the more famous brands, and are your claims backed by facts?

For close to an hour, I politely sat through their stories of how so many well-known professionals came through their doors and left with improved results. I heard their tales of who dramatically increased their driving distance, who won where, and who used it to do what. I listened because they were passionate about their work and I wanted to show that I respected that. But when they finally wound down, I simply said, “There are many brands that can claim many more tour wins and achievements. What I would like to know is WHY and HOW your product increases distance and accuracy.”

Maybe it was the unimpressed look on my face or the bluntness of my statement that stunned both of them to a moment of silence. But after a brief pause, they slowly began to divulge what I really came to hear. And what I heard made me think that perhaps AUTOpower shaft can indeed be a game changer, not just in Korea, but everywhere.

THE SECRET IS IN THE RECIPE

Too many times I fell victim to lines like, “my friend is using it, and so is his friend. And that tour pro just won last week with it, so it must be good.” But I am not the same as my friend, and I’m certainly not a tour pro.

As I mentioned earlier, everyone’s potential for performance (in this case, driving distance) is different, and my capability is probably much lower than when I was in my 20s and 30s. So it would be wrong for me to assume I can still drive a ball 280 yards using a 7X shaft. Realistically, I would be thrilled to hit past 250 yards with my stiff back, and getting properly fitted is perhaps one the best ways to help maximize my current potential.

Over the years, I was fitted with numerous brand club heads and shafts by various fitting experts. I was quite satisfied with my gamer (the 2018 Overall Most Wanted Winner, PING G400 LST) fitted with OZIK Red Tie 6S. I averaged 240 yards total with a ball speed of ~140 MPH and a swing speed average of 94MPH. I’m not a hitter, and I typically swing using about 90% strength and prefer to stay in the fairway.

Mr. Park declared on the spot that he could increase my distance by 7-15 yards while swinging even more softly to increase consistency and accuracy. With mixed emotions of hope and disbelief, I fetched my current gamer and began to warm up hitting some ball with a Flightscope launch monitor keeping track of the data. And yes, I was caught staring as Mr. Park donned goggles and work gloves to begin crafting a new shaft for on the spot. Talk about multi-tasking.

While Chairman Park was working on unlocking what he called my “hidden distance,” CEO Jung explained that using a shaft that is not perfectly fit to one’s ideal combination of weight and frequency (CPM – cycles per minute) decreases yards and accuracy. Also, the right shaft also leads to better swing tempo and balance so that the body doesn’t have to exert unnecessary power that can cause mistakes.

In essence, the name AUTOpower was referring to the power that results naturally from a balanced shaft weight and frequency. And when these factors are matched as closely as possible to a specific individual’s swing characteristics, it will naturally create the most effective club speed for more distance and accuracy for that particular individual.

It all sounded very Zen.

DOES IT PERFORM?

To fit golfers with their most ideal matching shaft, DUMINA currently offers over 40 models, and the list is still growing. And that’s just for drivers. The company claims that its driver shaft range is one of the largest among all shaft manufacturers in the world. Offerings range from the 3R (39g, 180 CPM, 5.5 TQ) to the 7XX (76g, 285 CPM, 2.2 TQ). The range is designed to fit golfers with swing speeds from 65 MPH to 115MPH and higher.

As mentioned above, there is no single standard in the shaft industry that clearly defines a “Regular shaft.” Does a 50R shaft mean 50g or 59g? And what is the CPM range of the R shaft compared to RS and S?

An important differentiator for AUTOpower is that the frequency range between flexes is always 5-10 CPMs apart (I’ll call it CPM gapping). After checking thoroughly with the launch monitor to see what frequency range was providing the best results, I was shown to produce the best launch conditions with a frequency of 235 CPM. I was then given a variety of shafts that very closely matched my frequency needs, but with differing weights, balance points, profiles, and torque. All I was looking, for now, was to see which shaft felt the best for me in terms of weight and feel so that I could swing confidently without exerting all my strength for more distance.

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AUTOPOWER SHAFT LINE UP

I’ve done some searching on the bigger shaft brands specs information page, but most don’t post specific CPM ranges. But let’s assume most lineups cover roughly the same CPM range of 180-285 (maybe even broader), and then categorize them into the five common shaft flexes we know R, SR, S, X, L. That works out to about 21 CPM gaps between flexes.

For me, this answered the part of the question about why AUTOpower shaft believes it can unlock longer distance and accuracy. By matching the frequency and weight of the shaft much more closely to my unique swing style and needs, I was able to better able to tap into my distance potential without having to exert more energy.

Mr. Park returned to the table and offered me a Patriot Tt 5S shaft with a tip for my PING G400 LST. He says confidently that while the last shaft was producing adequate results, with a frequency of 265 CPM, it was a bit too stout for my speed and would cause me to make mistakes on the back nine – especially when I start to tire or lose focus. I agreed, as I’ve noticed I tend to get a little wild with the driver toward the end of a round. He explained the frequency of the new shaft is 30 CPMs less than my Red Tie and would allow me to swing much more easily while producing longer carry and greater accuracy. I couldn’t verify his claims right then as I had to wait for the new grip to set, so I kept my mouth shut. When I was testing the various shafts, the recommended shaft felt very whippy compared to my current shaft. I was concerned about how well I’d be able to control the ball, but more on that later.

CARBON+ NEW MATERIAL AND NANOTECH

Park noted that their shaft had incorporated various innovative carbon patterns and weaves that promote increased accuracy. The carbon is not produced in Korea, but rather is imported. In order differentiate their product, DUMINA had been relentless about testing various new materials to incorporate with their unique carbon patterns which date back to 2013. After re-investing every penny made and a lot more, in early 2016 AUTOPower developed what they believed was a game changer in shaft manufacturing technology.

They discovered that when carbon was mixed with certain proprietary materials in a certain weave pattern and ratio, it produced unique and consistent qualities for each shaft. And by controlling these variables, they were able to systematically control the CPM gapping to tighter tolerances for extremely consistent and durable shafts across a wide range of weights.

It was an emotional moment for all of us. To get here, we had endured ridicule from the golf industry and consumers alike, faced two near bankruptcies and hundreds of failures in research. But that day was one of redemption, finally proving that the result of our ideas and endeavors could compete with the best names in the business. All of our team, everyone here, had tears in our eyes mixed with gratitude for the kind words and support from those who believed in us. Our company name DUMINA in Korean literally means “let the two of us forge ahead regardless.”

“People who are told the meaning chuckle at the corny idea behind it, but our beliefs and resolve were all that was pushing us forward. We had faith that we could make this work and compete with the best shafts in the world, and we set out to prove that it could be done right here in Korea with our own hands and technology.” – Doona Jung, CEO, DUMINA INC.

TOUR VALIDATION

Success, or at least the beginnings of it, started knocking on DUMINA’s doors soon after. That year, LPGA professional Ji Eun-Hee was struggling with a lack of driver distance compared to the long-hitters and was considering retirement. Having heard about the new “miracle” distance shafts, Ji and her father decided to visit DUMINA in Korea. Ji told Jung that if the new shaft can add 10 more yards to her driving stats, she wouldn’t struggle as much on the LPGA tour. To make a long story short, with the new shaft in her driver, Ji went from averaging 238 yards (near the bottom of the tour driving distance) to averaging over 250 yards in next year. The 2009 US Women’s Open champion promptly ended her 7-year winless streak in October at the LPGA Swinging Skirts Championship in Taiwan followed by another victory at the KIA Classic championship in March 2018.

Jenny Shin, Ji’s friend, and fellow LPGA member, visited DUMINA with Ji in early 2016 to change her driver shaft. She too went onto to win her very first LPGA event in May 2016 at the Volunteers of America Texas Shootout.

Unsurprisingly, both are now firm believers in AUTOpower.

The unknown shaft with little or no past accreditations went onto accrue more victories in the JLPGA (Ji-yai Shin, former No.1 in the world) and the KPGA. The validation DUMINA so desperately sought after was achieved in less than a year, and at some of the world’s highest levels of professional golf.

I could go on with many other notable Korean amateur champions, along with official KSPO (Korea Sports Promotion Foundation) test reports showing results favoring AUTOpower over two other industry leading brands. But hey, I’m not a pro, and those guys (or swing robots) could probably hit a 30-year old persimmon driver better than me and my high-tech driver any day.

ME AND MY AUTOPOWER

The next day, I took the newly fitted driver to a hitting bay with a trackman and a professional fitter. After warming up with a few swings, I was ready to be surprised. The new Patriot Tt 5S pink shaft still felt whippier than my previous one, but the impact with the ball felt solid. It took several swings to get used to the lighter, smoother shaft, but the results were a definite improvement.

The data showed that my average launch angle increased to 13 degrees (up from 8 degrees), and ball speed rose to average between 145-150 MPH (swing speed up +3MPH to 97MPH average). I found that I was swinging smoother and easier than before, but the peak height was slightly higher and my average distance increased by a little more than 6 yards to 247 yards. By any measure, my driving statistics improved as the shaft allowed me to swing easier while conserving strength for the back-nine stretch.

I was now officially impressed. And a few rounds on some tough tracks on some very windy days convinced me further that it was the real deal.

DUMINA went even further to assure me of the quality of AUTOpower and its performance with a guarantee I have never seen before.

WOULD YOU TRY IT?

For the first time in the industry (as far as I know), DUMINA is offering a one year risk-free, pay-as-you-go system to try out and keep any of their 40-plus driver shafts in your driver.

Here is how it works:

• DUMINA will custom fit your driver head into a brand new AUTOpower shaft using Flightscope launch monitor and fitting process that guarantees an increase of 3-33 yards in distance. With no up-front charge at the time of purchase beyond a small fitting fee of less than $45 (includes the launch monitor fitting session and new golf grip), you can take home a new $450 AUTOpower shaft.
• The price of the new shaft will be divided into 12 automatic monthly payments with no interest. You can opt to stop usage and payment on the shaft at any time with no penalty fee by simply returning the shaft. After 12 payment installments, the shaft is yours to keep.
• The best feature is that for the first 90 days, you can have your new shaft re-fit and/or changed free of charge with any other AUTOpower shaft. This is especially good news for shaft tinkerers, who tear up every time they buy and cut a new premium shaft, only to find they are stuck with a shaft they don’t like. So for about $35 per month or less, the average golfer can also experience what Jason Day or Dustin Johnson get with their tour van fittings, and a chance to really optimize a premium shaft specifically for my own swing without worrying about cost.

Unfortunately, this never-before-held promotion is currently limited to Korea, but DUMINA plans to soon launch its products in the US through select shops and fitting experts. Hopefully, this kind of promotion will also be available in North America so that more consumers will be able to experience a new market offering without the usual risks.

I went back to DUMINA twice to have the shaft tinkered with, and now have the AUTOpower Patriot Tt9 5S in my driver, and the same model in 5X in my 3 and 5-woods. Iron shafts from DUMINA are also available to professionals and brand ambassadors currently, and you can bet I will be eyeing those when available to the general public.

For more information on DUMINA’s AUTOpower shaft and specs in English, visit autopowergolf.com.

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Buying a Business

There are some benefits to buying an existing business if you’re not as interested in starting from scratch.

For one thing, when you purchase an existing company, someone else has probably already done a lot of the startup legwork, like verifying that there’s a market for your product or service, establishing a customer base, hiring employees, and negotiating a lease.

The key to buying a business is doing the right research so that you can be confident that what you see is what you’re going to get.

Decide what type of business you want to buy

The kind of business you should buy depends on the types of work you’ve done in your life, classes you’ve taken, or perhaps special skills you’ve developed through a hobby.

It’s almost always a mistake to buy a business you know little about, no matter how good it looks. Not only will you have to struggle up a big learning curve after you buy it, but you might not know enough about the industry to determine whether a particular company is a good value or if it has the potential for high growth.

Beyond choosing something that you know and understand, even better if you can land on something that you love. It’s less difficult—and a lot more fun—to succeed in business when you enjoy the work you’re doing.

Find the company you want to purchase or ask a business broker for help

After you’ve decided what type of business you want to buy, you’re ready to begin your hunt for the perfect company.

Consider starting your search locally—close to home. For instance, if you’re currently employed by a small business you like, find out about the present owner’s circumstances and whether she would consider selling the company.

Or, ask business associates and friends for leads on similar businesses that may be on the market. Many of the best business opportunities surface by word of mouth—and are snapped up before their owners ever list them for sale. Other avenues to explore include newspaper ads, trade associations, real estate brokers, and business suppliers.

Finally, there are business brokers—people who earn a commission from business owners who need help finding buyers. It’s fine to use a broker to help locate a business opportunity, but it’s foolish to rely on a broker—who doesn’t make a commission unless he makes a sale—for advice about the quality of a business or the fairness of its selling price. You’ll need to do your own due diligence.

Do due diligence on the business’s history and finances

When you find a company you’re interested in, you’re going to want to find out as much as you can about it well before you make an offer.

Request and thoroughly review copies of the business’s certified financial records, including:

• Cash flow statements
• Balance sheets
• Accounts payable and accounts receivable
• Employee files, including benefits and any employee contracts
• Major contracts and leases
• Current or past lawsuits or debts, and other relevant information

This review (lawyers call it doing “due diligence”) will tell you a lot about the company you’re buying and will alert you to any potential problems. For instance, if a major contract doesn’t allow the current owner to assign it to you without the other party’s permission, you should enlist the owner to help you obtain the other party’s consent.

Most importantly: Don’t be shy about asking for information about the business.

Questions to ask if you’re interested in buying a business:

• Who holds the title to company assets?
• Is there any potential or ongoing litigation?
• Have there been any workers’ compensation claims or unemployment claims made by company employees?
• Has the company consistently paid its taxes and any potential tax liabilities?
• Can any commercial leases and major contracts be assigned to the new owner?
• Is there an up-to-date business plan? How do the company’s actuals stack up against their financial forecasts?
• Has the company given any warranties and guarantees to its customers?
• Does the company own trade secrets, patents, or other intellectual property? How does it protect those assets?
• Does the company hold registered trademarks?
• Are business licenses or tax registration certificates transferable?
• Is the business in compliance with local zoning laws?
• Is there any toxic waste or environmental problems on company property?
• If the business is a franchise, what will it take to get the necessary franchisor approval of the sale?

This isn’t an exhaustive list; you should review any business records that will provide you with information to help you decide whether the business is a smart purchase.

If the seller refuses to supply any of this information, or if you find any misinformation, this may be a sign that you should look elsewhere for the right business to buy.

If you’ve never run a business before, this is a great time to use your network. Talk to people you know who work in similar industries. If you don’t know anyone in your prospective industry, look for networking opportunities through trade associations, or even a business mentor through an organization like SCORE.

Close the deal: Write up a sales agreement

If you’ve thoroughly investigated a company and wish to go ahead with a purchase, there are a few more steps you’ll have to take.

First, you and the owner will have to agree on a fair purchase price. A good way to do this is to hire an experienced appraiser who can estimate the company’s fair market value.

If you’re newer to negotiating business deals, read up a bit on how to be an effective negotiator—“Negotiating for Advantage” by Richard Shell is a good place to start. It’s also a good idea to brush up on the key elements of business valuation, so you’re in a better negotiating position. Price and value points will certainly be different based on whether you’re looking to purchase an underperforming business, or one that’s already demonstrated a steep growth trajectory.

If all goes well, you and the business owner will agree on a fair price as well as other aspects of the purchase, such as which assets you will buy and the terms of payment—often, businesses are purchased on an installment plan with a sizable down payment.

After you have outlined the terms on which you and the seller agree, you’ll need to create a written sales agreement and possibly have a lawyer review it before you sign on the dotted line.

For information on how to create a business plan for a business that you’ve purchased, check out Tim Berry’s article, Planning for Purchasing a Business.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2007. It was revised in 2018.

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Hey Siri, Did Arccos Just Get a Whole Lot Better? Hell Yes, it did.

It’s damn near 2019. If you’re not using some sort of advanced stat/shot tracking system, you’re doing it wrong. At the very least, you’re doing your game a disservice. You can be sure that PGA Tour Pros and their coaches are heavily leveraging Shotlink data to identify weaknesses in their games. Claude Harmon III asks of all his students to use Arccos because the system, along with the accessory Coaching Portal, allows him (and other instructors) to see what the golfer is doing outside the typical coaching environment.

Even without professional help, Arccos will help average golfers identify weaknesses in their games. Take me, for example. I’ve got 2+ years of Arccos data that all but proves that I couldn’t find a green with Magellan on my bag. At least I know what to work on.

The point is that this is the era of big data, and all that big data can help you shoot lower scores. According to Arccos, in 2017, Arccos users improved their handicap by an average of 3.55 strokes. Context; that’s 46.7x faster than the average golfer with a USGA handicap. This year, improvement increased to an average of 3.79 strokes. Perhaps that’s a statistical anomaly, or perhaps it’s evidence that not only do shot tracking systems work, they’re getting better.

It’s within that spirit of getting better that Arccos has rolled out version 3.2 of its Arccos Caddie (previously known as Arccos 360) platform. The update, which on the surface may not appear all that significant, takes a major step in addressing one of the last remaining weaknesses of the system. That opens the door to even greater accuracy, and with that, the potential for users to have even greater insight into their games.

Dude, Where’s my Flag?

In my opinion, the greatest weakness in the Arccos system is that it doesn’t always know where the flag is. The software has a damn good algorithm that allows it to make a better than well-educated guess, but from time to time, the estimates weren’t exactly spot-on. Consequently, it was on the user to position the flag, often after the fact, and just as often without much precision. That had a trickle-down effect in Arccos’ stats.

Vague flag locations mean imprecise first putt distances. If you don’t know the first putt distance, you don’t really know how good (or bad) your approach shot was. As I said, the algorithms are good, but knowing exactly where the flag is, well that’s just better.

To that end, Arccos has introduced Crowd-sourced hole locations. The new feature allows any golfer using Arccos Caddie to update the hole location before, during, or after the round. A degree of manual intervention is still required, but when one golfer does it, it sets the location for every Arccos user who plays the course that day.

That functionality is, to no small degree, made possible by the newly enhanced flag editing. It perhaps sounds fancier than it is. In practice, it’s a better zoom feature. The larger green view allows for more precise pin setting, provides putt distances, and makes it easier to add and edit putts.

Again, that trickles down. More accurate flag locations make for more accurate putting stats, which make for more accurate approach stats.

Siri Shortcuts

For iPhone users, Arccos Caddie now offers a Siri Shortcut feature. Siri can now take some of the manual overhead out of using the Arccos system. As you begin using the updated app and encounter different on-course scenarios, you’ll be prompted to add Siri Shortcuts. Arccos will make suggestions, but the actual phrasing is entirely up to you. So, while Arccos will suggest “add a duff” to cover those instances where you chunk a shot; if you prefer a more direct approach, “Hey Siri, I suck” should work just fine.

Other examples include recommend club (based on Caddie info), add a missed drive, and – here it is again – “Hey Siri, mark a hole location”.

The value of all of this ultimately depends on how smoothly it works on the course, but in theory, what Arccos is giving us is a straightforward method for marking the flag as precisely as GPS allows for. This is definitely a big deal.

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More Good Things to Come

By the calendar, Arccos 3.2 is arriving just a few weeks early, but the small but significant improvements are the first in what’s shaping up to be a big 2019 for the platform. At least one other OEM will join Cobra in offering an Arccos option with its club line, more robust Apple watch functionality is in the pipeline, as is an accessory device that will eliminate the need to keep your phone in your pocket, though as I’ve said before, is an overblown problem. It’s the kind of thing you get used to quickly and don’t even notice after a few rounds.

Arccos 3.2 for iPhone is available now (mine auto-updated yesterday), and we anticipate several more noteworthy enhancements to the system in the coming months.

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How to Come up with Hundreds of Business Ideas

This article is part of our Business Startup Guide—a curated list of our articles that will get you up and running in no time! It’s also part of our Bplans guide to coming up with a great idea.

For some people, coming up with ideas is as easy as spotting chewing gum on the sidewalk. For others, it’s nearly impossible.

For me, new idea generation isn’t just easy, it’s something I’m doing all the time and often without trying. I do not believe this is an innate ability, but rather a “skill” that I’ve learned and practiced over the entire course of my life.

While this “learning” has primarily been subconscious, as I’ve run into more and more people who struggle to come up with new ideas, I’ve made an effort to become conscious of how I do it and where I do it best. The fact that research on the subjects of creativity and innovation has become so popular certainly helps too.

I fully believe that anyone who puts in enough practice and who makes a conscious effort to notice problems and identify needs can improve their ability to come up with new ideas.

A brief bit of science before we dive into how to come up with ideas:

Good ideas are networks

The brain is largely composed of neurons—about 100 billion of them. Connected together, they form a nervous system that is capable of making decisions, sensing surroundings, and issuing commands to our body.

How we think, what we think, and what we’re capable of, are largely a consequence of the connections these neurons have made with one another.

Every feeling, every thought, every memory, and every sensation you have is a direct result of the signals that pass between the neurons in your brain.

In fact, something particularly interesting about the human brain is its ability to rewire these connections and to make new connections, regardless of age. Neuroscientists refer to this property as “plasticity.” And, the more experiences we have and the more changes in behavior or environment that we experience, the more plastic the brain becomes, or, the more capable of making new connections and rewiring old connections.

This is why, in our older years when most of us do less and use our brains less, we have a harder time remembering information and controlling bodily actions. Our brain has not stopped being plastic, but has simply fallen out of the habit of making new connections.

A similar difference exists for those in the habit of generating new ideas and those who aren’t. The more practice you get doing it, the better your brain will become at creating new connections. Simply put, the more active you keep your brain, the easier you will find it to come up with new, good ideas!

The perfect state of mind for idea creation

Steve Johnson, the author of “Where Good Ideas Come From,” has spent years researching and writing about this subject.

He believes that you are more likely to develop great ideas when:

• You explore and experiment in different areas
• You allow your idea to develop slowly, over time
• You are exploring and open to the idea of serendipitous connections
• You make mistakes
• You look for new uses for old inventions
• You build on platforms that have come before

If you read his book, it will become obvious fairly quickly that the environments you spend time in contribute to or detract from your ability to ideate.

“In order to create new connections, you need to place yourself in environments that actually mimic the neural networks of a mind exploring the boundaries of the adjacent possible.”

– Steve Johnson

When humans first organized themselves into dense settlements, innovation soared.

With the invention of agriculture, for the first time, humans began forming settled groups that numbered in the thousands. This meant that more connections with more people were possible and that a good idea could quickly spill over and take root in others’ minds.

If you keep this in mind as you work, live, and experiment, you’ll quickly realize that it’s a lot easier to come up with new ideas when you’ve got an influx of ideas coming your way in the first place. This doesn’t have to happen in a city, a university, or an environment full of people; it can just as easily happen if you’re interacting with ideas from many people online, in books, and across other modes of communication. The key is “connectedness.”

With this in mind, let’s move on to how you can actually go about coming up with business ideas.

1. Business ideas that solve problems

The easiest way to come up with business ideas is to solve the problems you have. The second easiest is to solve problems others have. These don’t have to be big solutions like Google search or Amazon—they could be much smaller.

One company that solves a big problem I have, thanks to owning cats that use the litter box a lot, is Fresh Step. Fresh Step has created a line of “scoopable” cat litter, which means that when the cat does its business, the litter clumps together and I can scoop it out no problem. Ultimately, it means I have to change the sand less often and that cleaning up is a lot easier.

Another of my favorite products that solves a problem for me are my Bose headphones (mind you, I don’t have this fancy version). That’s because they’re fitted with noise-canceling technology. This means a lot when you’re working in a busy office, or when you’re taking public transport. Hello world, goodbye world. You literally have to be tapped on the shoulder to hear people coming. When I first tried these headphones on, I felt like I was underwater. Today, they’re a necessity.

Many of the products you have become used to using were actually invented to solve a problem, including Thermoflasks to keep drinks and food warm, sunglasses to protect from the glare, security alarms to alert you that someone has broken in, fire hydrants to put out a fire before the whole place goes up, toothbrushes to keep your teeth clean, and dental floss to fish out unwanted food. The list is literally endless.

All you have to do is get good at identifying problems

Once you’ve realized that each of your own frustrations is actually an idea in the making, you’re actually going to start having fun!

One of the frustrations that I wish there was a product for is something you probably think is too obvious—a jewelry stand. Because I have so much jewelry, I have to stick thumbtacks in the wall to hold it all up. There is no stand that I have seen on the market to solve my problem—only small stands for a time long past when people bought fewer but more expensive items.

Today, I’d almost describe fashion as “disposable.” You buy something, you wear it a few times and set it aside, partly because things like costume jewelry have become so cheap. Because this is true, people that enjoy jewelry accrue a lot of it and, as you can see in the picture below, don’t have a place to put it.

My problem? Too much jewelry and no stand to fit it all.

Another good example of a company that has come with a business idea by solving a problem is U.K. car insurance company ingenie.

For many young drivers, the cost of insurance just isn’t affordable. Ingenie has taken a rather clever approach to solve this problem. They’ve created a small black box that you fit into your car. As you drive, the box monitors your driving style, including things like braking, speed, acceleration, turns, and so on. Every 10 days, the box assigns you a score out of 100. The higher your score, the bigger the discount you’ll receive on your insurance policy come the three month review period.

Ingenie claims to help customers (often students) save up to 50 percent of what they would otherwise be paying. And, there’s the added bonus of encouraging people to drive better. Very clever.

I’ll leave you with one last example: consider GoPro, the camera company that got started in 2002. Founder Nick Woodman had recently been on a surfing trip to Indonesia, and was unable to find amateur photographers who could get close enough to get good action-shot pictures of him surfing, or who could obtain quality equipment at an affordable price.

The solution to the problem? The GoPro camera—a wide-angle lens HD camera capable of taking excellent video and good action shots, and which could go where other affordable cameras couldn’t. Snap one into a case and you can literally do anything with it, from scuba diving and extreme mountain biking to flying (and crashing) a model airplane.

Footage shot by a GoPro camera attached to a model airplane in Derbyshire, England.

As you go about your daily tasks, be they at home or work, try to get in the mindset of noticing the things that frustrate you.

If you’ve been in a particular industry for a while, you may have good insight into this, as there may be things that have been a problem for a long time. This is why venture capitalists like Boris Wertz see value in investing in those that have a lot of experience in the market they’re pitching their idea for. He calls it “the secret of the market.” It’s this secret, or those problems, that you have to identify.

For me, sitting at work, it’s having to stay at my desk—because that’s the only place I have two monitors—that irks me. A lot of the time, I need to leave my desk to do writing in a quieter area. But, without a second screen, writing and research don’t go hand in hand. I like to have my research up on the one screen and do my writing on the other. Moving away from my desk is always a sacrifice. The solution to this problem would, of course, be a laptop with two screens—now, who is willing to help me start the company?

Even if you work for someone else, try to get into the habit of finding the pain points. It baffles me when companies have products that their own employees don’t use. Palo Alto Software, for example, uses their own product, LivePlan, to manage and keep track of key business metrics. If they didn’t do this, they wouldn’t fully understand a user’s pain points, or know if problems needed fixing. 

Once you get into the habit of finding problems, you’ll probably start to enjoy it. Remember, every problem is an opportunity for a new product, service, or company, especially if it’s a problem many others have too.

2. Solve things that may become problems

Solving problems that you currently have is not the only way to come up with new ideas. Why not think of solving problems that will exist, but don’t yet?

In this very futuristic sense, no one stands out quite so well here as Elon Musk. The ventures he undertakes, including Solar City and Tesla Motors, may make some scoff, but lack of fossil fuels will become a problem in the near future, and Elon is taking steps to fix that before it happens. This gives him the time to innovate, as he’s first in and it gives him market share. Good luck to others catching up!

If you think there’s not yet a market for your idea, you may just be able to create one by appealing to those that, like you, believe it will be a problem in the future.

At present, there are numerous potential problems with obvious solutions, including desalination plants for California, a state that is quickly drying up and running out of water, preventative medication for diseases that could become problems (like ebola), makeup and accessories to protect privacy when face recognition software really takes off, and breeding programs or nature reserves for animals that will become extinct without help.

3. Adapt to evolving needs

Physiological needs stay the same—the need for food, shelter, and water. Emotional needs tend to stand the same—often based on envy, greed, pride, and so on. What doesn’t stay the same are the products and services it takes to fulfill these needs.

The easiest products to market are also products that fulfill a real or contemporary need.

An example of a service that is everywhere now is cloud storage. You don’t hear as much these days about the growing CD or SD card market. You can still get them, but it’s increasingly easy to store everything online.

It’s a result of our very contemporary need to have access to our data, information, photos, music, and so on, no matter what device we’re on. Google sells cloud storage, as does Dropbox, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and a host of private companies that do as well.

4. Save people money

Yet another great way to come up with ideas is to think about saving people money. I buy 23-watt, energy-saving light bulbs because they’re affordable, not because they last for years and are actually the equivalent of a 100-watt lightbulb, though that’s an obvious bonus too.

I also continue filling my car with ARCO gas because it’s cheaper than Chevron and Shell, even though they’re owned by BP who was responsible for the horrible Gulf spill.

And, even though I am desperate for real-life bookstores not to vanish as a consequence of sites like Amazon, I still prefer to buy my books on Amazon because it saves me a lot of money. Were it up to me, I’d own a Tesla, I’d only buy books from independent bookstores, and I’d buy all my food at local farmers markets.

The truth is, unless you’re earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, pounds, or euros, it’s still a luxury to be able to make more “moral decisions” to buy from and support better companies and people. 

This is why, if you can figure out how to save people money, you’ll have a good business idea, new or not. Have a look at some of our money saving tips for further information on this topic.

5. Make people’s lives easier

A coffee machine with a timer that ensures there’s hot coffee when you wake; a central vacuum cleaning system that means only carrying a hose and brush around the house rather than the full unit; a smart thermostat like Nest that can figure out how to save you energy; shopping baskets placed at convenient intervals in the store in case you decide you want to purchase more than what your arms can hold—the list goes on and on.

Remember, coming up with business ideas doesn’t mean you have to focus on inventing new products or services. In fact, you could just as easily adapt an existing service or introduce a new benefit that makes peoples’ lives easier.

Kohls is one company that I return to time and time again because they’ve got a lifetime return policy. Even if you’ve lost your box and your receipt, they will take back a product and replace or refund it—your choice. Not only does this make me feel good about the company, but it keeps me coming back, despite the fact that their prices have obviously been marked up to account for this benefit. In short, it makes my life easy.

When I moved to Eugene, Oregon, I bought my microwave, kettle, toaster, and vacuum cleaner from Kohls, knowing that when they packed in, as electronics always do, I can take them back even if that’s in four years time when I’m guaranteed to have lost or thrown out my receipt.

There are always small ways you could be making things easier for yourself or for others. In fact, if you think about doing this on an ongoing basis, you may find you’re also able to release new products that are simply a version of the old product that makes someone’s life easier in some small way. The Garmin Nuvi is a step up on GPS predecessors that did not include live traffic updates. This small addition makes the product so much more useful and helpful. The Waze app takes it a step further—you only need your phone to get those real, drive-time traffic updates and reroutes. No separate GPS required.

Can you think of something—an action, product, service, or chore that could be adapted to make your life easier?

My Salomon trail running shoes do exactly this. Instead of normal laces, they have pull laces, which means they don’t come undone when I’m running. They don’t fit as well as my Asics, do but they mean I stop a lot less because for some reason tying laces has never been my strong point.

Start looking at the things around you and asking, how could this be easier? How could it be more intuitive, less stressful, and in general more pleasant to use? You may find that even the tiniest change will create something incredibly popular. The book, “The Design of Everyday Things,” can be a great starting point—check it out.

6. Make chores or things that feel like tasks less unpleasant

In the online world, marketers and developers often look to “gamifying” software in order to make using it feel less onerous. That is, they come up with small ways to reward you for taking an action.

When I go running, I use the Strava app on my phone to track my distance and my average speed. Each time I beat a previous record, Strava gives me a trophy or some other small acknowledgment that makes me feel I’ve achieved something. Occasionally, this will push me to go a little bit farther, as once I’ve got into the habit of receiving trophy icons, it’s very difficult to do a run and not get one! The point is, it makes my run a little more fun.

What do you hate doing? How could you make it more enjoyable? Personally, I need someone to make hanging my clothes less of a pain, to make drinking water feel less like a “to do,” and to take all my bills and pay them for me. Know of any solutions?

7. Turn a hobby or something you’re passionate about into a business

For those of you already actively making or doing something, this may be an obvious next step. Or, if you’ve been doing something on a regular basis and find yourself good at it but don’t think of it as a hobby, perhaps you should think about how it could be a business.

Things that I do on a regular basis that could potentially be turned into business ideas include glass painting, writing, researching, jewelry making, fixing jewelry, illuminated lettering, social media training, and so on. Everyone has things they do on a regular or semi-regular basis. If you’re good at any of these things and are looking for business ideas, you just might want to think about turning your hobby into a business.

My sister’s boyfriend, Alex Alotte, is doing just this. When he worked as a bartender in the San Francisco bay area, he wanted to be able to use the best tools possible, not just because a craftsman’s tools are his pride, but also because they’re an important part of your image.

Alex catered for a number of reputable clients and companies, so this last part was especially important. Unfortunately, there weren’t a whole lot of quality muddlers on the market that he could choose from. Most were plastic, or they were made using boring wood, or they were poorly shaped, poorly finished—you name it. So, when a relative who was enrolled in a high school wood­ shop course heard about Alex’s hunt for the “perfect muddler,” he suggested Alex make one himself.

Given that he enjoyed using his hands and already felt he needed a hobby, Alex decided to make his own muddlers or to make, in his words, “high quality, beautiful, wooden muddlers that verge on art!”

He purchased a lathe and all manner of other tools and set to work. The result is a product that resembles a small bat or large pestle, which, when used by a bartender, serves a similar purpose to a pestle, grinding, mashing, or crushing herbs, sugars, fruits, and ice. Mojitos are made using muddlers, but hardly ever using ones like Alex has created, out of beautifully-figured wood.

While Alex is still refining his product, he’s already sold one of his “art” muddlers for 50 dollars. The next step will be setting up an online store and figuring out how to make this a full-time business.

Alex Alotte’s handmade muddlers.

If you find the idea of starting a business intimidating, start with something you know. This way, it might not feel like a business and you’ll enjoy the process as you go.

Be sure to think carefully about how you’ll feel if things do work out, however. You may find things suddenly become less enjoyable as you’ve got to start doing your hobby to meet customer demands or to pay the bills. Or, you might just need a new hobby!

8. Fulfill a need

Take any of the human needs on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and think of the products and services created to meet these needs. Then, build on those.

Consider: As humans, we have a constant need to hydrate ourselves. If we did not drink water, we’d die. As such, we’ve had plumbing built into our houses and into all of the buildings we work in and visit.

But, despite being able to pop in almost anywhere to drink water for free, companies have come up with additional ways to meet this need. They’ve provided solutions for water on the go. They’ve provided solutions for flavored water on the go, for “vitamin” water, even CBD-infused water in some areas.

Move up to the love/belonging level on Maslow’s pyramid, and you get companies like Facebook that allow a user to feel a sense of connection with friends and family.

Move up another level to esteem and you get the likes of Tony Robbins with books and tapes on how to achieve your dreams, improve your self-confidence, and become the best.

It might feel a little manipulative looking at things this way, but many of the products you use already bear reference to these needs, including the toilet paper you buy (physiological), the locks you have on your door and the pepper spray you carry (safety), the birthday card you buy for your friend (love/belonging), the feedback you seek via recommendations on LinkedIn (esteem) and the tools and situations (like the Peace Corps) that allow you to practice your creativity, morality, or problem-solving skills (self-actualization).

9. Appeal to a base emotion

What makes you angry? What makes you happy? What makes you jealous?

Author and renowned copywriter Andy Maslen phrases appealing to base emotions a little differently; he says, exploit a base emotion. 

Think of it as you will (positive or negative), but fundamentally, Andy is right. According to him, humans often make decisions based on one of seven emotions.

These emotions are more popularly known as the seven deadly sins:

• Pride
• Envy
• Lust
• Greed
• Gluttony
• Sloth
• Anger (wrath)

When you consider some of the services and products available to us today, you’ll quickly realize how many of them were invented to appeal to or take advantage of these emotions. Take beauty salons as an obvious example; how many people really need their nails buffed or their legs waxed to survive?

The fact is, that as a society, we have taken evolutionary reactions a step further. Where cleaning hair may previously have been an action we took in order to attract a mate and look better than the competition, today we’ve taken it to the extreme.

Now, rather than simply having products that get the job done, we have products that build on and create new needs, like salt spray to add volume to hair, hairspray to hold a style, dry shampoo for when you don’t have time to shower. Companies are able to sell these products because they’re still able to exploit our base needs.

I have very fine hair, so salt spray and volumizing shampoo is an easy sell. Oil, not so much—however, for my friends with really thick, bushy hair, oils are the easy sell. All of this is exploiting our pride. After all, none of these products are really necessary.

Take a look at those seven deadly sins and see if you can think of how products and services you use on a regular basis are exploiting those needs. Perhaps you’ll even start picking up on how advertisers do the same!

10. Experience more

It’s true that the more you do and the more you experience, the more material you will have at your disposal to be able to create new ideas or stitch together seemingly disparate ideas.

In fact, Bill Gates believes so strongly in the power of serendipity in order to come up with new ideas, that he frequently allots time to read books on a number of different subjects in a short amount of time.

Nirmalya Kumar, professor of marketing at the London Business School, knows how important it is to be curious and to look outside of your own business or industry in order to come up with new ideas.

In this video interview below, he says that if he did not read broadly and try to find connections, he would always feel he was going to write or say the same thing as everyone else. Primarily reading outside of business helps him come up with new ideas and draw new correlations between topics.

According to Nirmalya, “Intelligence and raw knowledge are overrated. It’s more important to have diverse interests.”

His discussion with interviewer Matt Symonds is so interesting; I encourage you to watch it if you have the time.

The other simple things you can do to make coming up with ideas easier is to simply do more. This is how I come up with new topics to write about, new case studies or people to mention, and new things to say. If I didn’t do this, I’d be limited to those things I know. Doing things and reading things that differ from my “usual” activities hopefully gives me more interesting stories to share!

11. Steal others’ ideas

There is no shame in this. In fact, most good ideas are built upon someone else’s idea.

The dissertation that I ended up submitting for my MA program actually grew out of the seed of a story that my sister had written while in high school. I liked her idea so much that during my undergraduate degree I built on the idea.

Take J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter. Don’t tell me the Death Eaters weren’t modeled off the Ku Klux Klan, and that the spiders in the Forbidden Forest didn’t bear reference to Lord of the Rings, or that J. K. Rowling didn’t use myths as a basis from which to create the strange and fascinating creatures in her books. In fact, even the entirely fictional game of Quidditch has origins in the idea that witches ride broomsticks. She simply built on this idea.

I’ll leave you with this final thought from Albert Einstein: “Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”

How do you come up with ideas?

There are so many different ways to do this; I’ve only mentioned a few. However, I hope that through these examples, you’ll be able to come up with your own ideas or to improve on others’ ideas.

Still looking for more business ideas? Check out the Bplans guide to coming up a great idea. Once you think you’ve found a solid idea to start with, check out this article on how to know if you have a good idea. And, this free downloadable idea checklist will help you think through every aspect of your potential business idea, including how to test it out.

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First Look – Bridgestone Tour B J819 Driver

We’ve already talked about 2019 being the best year for drivers ever. In addition to Titleist, Wilson, and Srixon who already have their 2019 products on the shelves, we’re expecting new drivers from Callaway, TaylorMade, PING, PXG, and Cobra (the only one in that group that’s already announced it’s new stuff). But it’s not just the big guys. Tour Edge has a $399 Exotics Driver, Mizuno has the ST190 stuff on the way, Lynx (yeah…we’re digging deep) has a new driver on the list, and as of today, so does Bridgestone.

While nobody expects the Tour B J819 to be the best-selling driver on the market next year, the company does have a small cult following beyond its golf balls, and with a significant overhaul of the company having taken place just a few months ago, the new driver could provide some insight into where the company is headed.

As is often the case with the USGA conforming clubs list, details are sketchy. We know it’s going to be available in at least two lofts (9.5° and 10.5°). The crown has markings that read Boost Power Technology and Honeycomb Rigidity Technology. That first one we can reasonably assume has something to do with ball speed retention, while the Honeycomb stuff is almost certainly a form of variable thickness crown technology.

Sole features could suggest some sort of aerodynamics story, or the fins could be just for show. The hosel isn’t adjustable, which suggests the 819 could be another value-priced offering. Finally, the visible 8-gram weight is positioned in the heel, which almost always means the driver is draw biased.

Naming conventions aside, it’s been a while since we’ve tested a driver from Bridgestone that we would legitimately place in the Tour category. Frankly, it’s been a while since we’ve tested a Bridgestone driver that we wouldn’t categorize as solidly game improvement. The most recent offerings have been heavily toe-up, draw-biased, and high spinning. Whether that’s entirely intentional, or simply the consequence of products designed primarily for the Japanese market is harder to nail down. What’s nearly inarguable is that, already a niche brand in the club space, Bridgestone’s most recent drivers have primarily serviced only a niche portion of the market.

At the risk of being overly speculative, appearance suggests that trend is going to continue with the J819.

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Bridgestone’s Next Chapter

We haven’t been presented with a clear vision for the next phase of Bridgestone as a golf brand, but recently appointed CEO, Dan Murphy, appears committed to changing the company’s trajectory. All but abandoned in the Angel Ilagan years, there’s already a renewed emphasis on ball fitting. And why not, with Tiger, Bryson, and Lexi, Kooch, and Sneds all winning in 2018, the Tour B series balls are backed by plenty of tour validation. The strength of the Bridgestone Golf brand has always been the ball, and if anything, the company appears ready to try and flex more muscle in the category where it has, almost inexplicably, fallen behind both Callaway and TaylorMade in market share.

Where that leaves the clubs remains to be seen. There’s an argument to be made that the company strayed too far from the core golfer and took a credibility hit with the release of a box set earlier this year. Bridgestone may have called it a Packed Set, but golfers know box sets when they see them, and without casting any more aspersions than necessary, box sets make their own kind of brand statements, and none of them are good.

So while full details are pending, the fact that the J819 doesn’t come with 13 other club; well, we’ll take that as a small sign that the company is moving in the right direction.

More details as they become available.

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First Look – PING Blueprint PROTOTYPE Irons

In case you missed it, last week Louis Oosthuizen became the first PING staffer to win with the Blueprint Prototype iron in the bag. A good number of PING’s staffers are looking to be next.

The Blueprint is already generating plenty of buzz and while on one hand that’s not particularly surprising; it’s certainly unusual for an iron that legitimately doesn’t have a release date on the calendar. Seriously, don’t expect Blueprint to launch in the run-up to the PGA Show. It’s not in the near-term pipeline.

As you could probably surmise, I’m not allowed to share nearly as much as I would like, but what I can say is that the iron represents something we haven’t seen from PING in recent memory (if ever). There has been some perfectly reasonable speculation about what Blueprint is and where it will eventually fit in the lineup, but the one thing I can say is that if, and when, it comes, it won’t be an iBlade replacement. I guess you could say there’s already a blueprint for that.

What I will say is that this as compact an iron as I’ve ever seen from PING. No bulk, narrow soles, and topline so thin you could cut butter with it.

As always, more information as it becomes available.

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4 Christmas Decoration Tips for Rental Apartments

Thinking about embellishing your rental home to celebrate Christmas? Don’t worry, with the following design ideas, even the landlord will put you on the nice, not naughty, list.

Photo by Tyler Delgado on Unsplash

Bring Out the Christmas Candles

Candles omit a Christmassy glow, warming winter scents and can be glammed up to create opulent table displays. Surround simple tower candles with conifer cones, berries and rings of holly to give off an easy Christmassy vibe without redecorating a thing! Source: IdealHome

Decorate a Tiny Tree

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without the sparkle of tree lights and a special spot to tuck the presents for the big morning. Although a full-size tree is lovely, you can get the same effect with a pre-lit, predecorated tabletop tree. These small trees come complete with lights and non-breakable ornaments like bows, faux birds, and pine cones. They’re also incredibly easy to set up — just pull them out of the box and plug them in. When the season is over, store them back in the box for next year. Source: Tripping

Glam Up the Table

Your place settings can be transformed to make the perfect holiday-themed table. Choose colors that coordinate with the rest of your space, whether that’s reds and greens or silvers and blues. Mix and match various shades using glassware, napkins and plates. You can also bring some color or texture to the dining area with a dramatic tablecloth or some fun placemats. Source: Rent

Hang the Greeting Cards You Received

Most definitely you’ll find plenty of greeting cards in your mailbox. Use them to create unique ornaments by tacking a length of a fishing wire across a wall over which you hang the cards. Turn your memories into magic! Where there used to be a bare wall will now be a colorful reminder of warmth and love from and towards friends and family. Source: RentCafe

Even rental homes can benefit from the cozy comfort only a carpet can bring. You can use either carpet tiles or area rugs to make your space feel homier. We can help with any and all of your carpet needs. Find out more when you contact us!

The post 4 Christmas Decoration Tips for Rental Apartments appeared first on Curlys Carpet Repair.

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