Craig Rabin – Entrepreneur & Inventor of the Air Hook; Success & Failures; Founder of 11 companies; Fast Prototyping to Market; Understanding Your Customers’ Needs
Segment 1: (Length :03:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Craig; Journey to Date
“My entrepreneurial journey truly began when I was 16 years old.”
“My first job was working at Michael’s Crafts Store. I was 16 years old and I had just cleaned the entire floor. The entire floor. It was about 2 minutes to close and someone came in sopping wet and basically went through the store. I had to clean it again and I’m mopping the floor and I’m thinking, ‘Really? This, I don’t know if this job is for me.”
“As I was driving home, something in me just stirred.”
“Not only do I want to work for myself. I want to do something that will not only better myself but all of the communities around me.”
Segment 2: (Length :05:00) – Talking with Craig; Background on Air Hook; Understanding Customers’ Needs; Knowing How to Locate Resources
- Better Accommodate existing airline seat space
- Using the tray table vertically in it’s locked position as an anchor
- It holds your cup and your electronics device
- Designs – 9 or 13 major redesigns
- Built a small airline set inside of his condo to rapidly prototype
- Can adjust angles
- For the Hustle Sold Separately Listeners here’s a DISCOUNT CODE for Purchasing the Air Hook: HUSTLE
“I built a bunch of versions. I had just gotten into 3-D printing. I built about 10 different versions of this little hook cause I didn’t know enough about sizes. I didn’t know anything. I found one that worked and I was literally high-fiving myself on the plane. I really thought I had just become an inventor.”
“Stewardess comes by and I grabbed a cup of coffee and I’m looking at the tray table and I’m thinking, ‘Oh darn it’. I’m going to have to put this tray table down. Where am I going to put this cup of coffee? That really changed things. So, we’ve gone through 13 major redesigns.”
“Eventually it became less about me and more about the consumer. We decided to do a lot of product research . . . In doing customer research, we found that there were so many different devices so we had to make it more of a universal holder.”
“All of our iterations of our product were just understanding our consumer better and adapting a pre-existing product to their existing needs.”
Segment 3: (Length :04:00) – Difference between being a founder and an inventor; Learning from Failures to Create Successes; Having Passion
“This is really my first physical product. All of my other ones have been service companies. For me that was a lot more difficult because I didn’t have something tangible that I could take a part.”
“I was overextending my entrepreneurial dream by trying to get into a service model business. I think that’s some of the failure that I had to realize in the past and why some of those didn’t work. I needed that tangibility to motivate me every morning.”
“You really have to be passionate about whatever you’re about to get into. It can be a very long journey.”
Segment 4: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:
Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. Sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can. – Vince Lombardi
GENERAL NOTES:
Craig Rabin – Entrepreneur & Inventor – The Air Hook
- The Airhook is an innovative solution for limited leg room on airplanes – For the Hustle Sold Separately Listeners here’s a DISCOUNT CODE for Purchasing the Air Hook: HUSTLE
- It’s a two-in-one invention for airplane travel that holds a drink and viewing device (smartphone/tablet) without the use of the space-stealing tray table. Instead of using crowdfunding for financial purposes, Craig used it primarily as a marketing strategy
- Founder of over 11 companies
- Co-Founder of Collegiate Poker Tour Events
- Founder of Show Me Your Skills
- Platform to create fully customizable e-commerce storefronts and interactive portfolios in order to show off their skills
- Founder of View In Your Room
- Develop software that allows consumers to see a measure free, virtual sneak preview of how products will look in their home/office, prior to purchase.
- The most important lesson he’s learned – when you learn from your failures – they become your successes.
