The Best Idea Man I’ve Ever Known

6 lessons I’ve learned from his successes and failures

A week ago, I wrote about Jim, the best side hustler I’ve ever known (the link is at the end). Writing that piece made me think of someone who I consider the “best idea man” I’ve ever known.

Maybe you remember reading different business books that say things such as:

“All you need is a good idea, and you can make a million dollars.”

Well, Roger was an idea man. If he had earned a million dollars for every “good” idea he had, he would have rivaled Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Although he did not make it to those levels, he did find success, many successes actually. However, he also experienced deep failures.

And maybe now, you will want to learn from his successes and failures.

Setting the Scene

Roger (pronounced “Ro-jay”) was my great-uncle. He was born in Belgium around 1912. He started University studies in Engineering, but World War II interrupted and he joined the Belgian Air Forces instead. (You may not have known Belgium has an Air Force, but they actually have one of the oldest Air Forces in the world.)

Roger was captured and sent to German prisoner of war camps, not once, but twice. He escaped both times, once walking across Europe to get back to Belgium.

He once told me that the time in the camps and walking forced him to think of different ideas, so he could “escape” the reality of his situation.

Thinking up ideas helped him by creating images of possible futures. The ideas gave him hope.

Roger’s greatest gift was creativity, and that is why his ideas were so varied. Fortunately or unfortunately, his head was always in the clouds and his business savvy didn’t match the quality of his ideas.

Still, we can learn many lessons from Roger’s business ventures

Roger’s Businesses and Corresponding Lessons

Business #1: Selling Hawaiian Clothes

After WWII ended, Roger moved to Mexico in the late 1940s. By the early 1950s, Tiki Culture and Hawaiian clothes were the rage in the United States. Mexico, though, had very strict import laws and tariffs, so everything was hard to get. People in Mexico, who had the money, wanted the same fashions but just couldn’t get them.

Roger figured out how to import them by travelling with the boxes of clothes himself. He opened a store and cornered the market on the Polynesian clothing and trinkets in Mexico.

He ran the store for about 5 years, made hundreds of thousands of dollars, but then didn’t change with the times. Roger’s store eventually went bankrupt and everyone in the family got Hawaiian clothes for Christmas.

Lessons #1 & #2

Get ahead of the trends and do what others can’t or won’t.

Other people had tried to order the clothes from Hawaii and Tahiti and just ship them. However, that had not worked because of the import laws. But no one had tried to just travel with dozens of boxes of clothes and repeat that every couple months — that is, until Roger did.

Remember that trends are cyclical. They will peak and then die down.

This was Roger’s mistake. He didn’t diversity so he could stay relevant.

Business #2: Selling High End Speaker Systems

After he closed his clothing store, Roger “realized” he wasn’t cut out for the fashion business that could and would change. Nevertheless, with that business he learned how to import and had met many of the upper middle-class and upper-class customers — and he identified that they liked to throw parties with music.

Roger opened a store to sell high end speaker systems to his previous customers. Like the Hawaiian clothing, these were hard to import, but he found a way and provided a wider selection that his competition. He was an instant success, and again, made hundreds of thousands of dollars over the 3 years he ran his store.

But ultimately, sales started to drop and he had to close this business too.

Lessons #3 and #4

Not everyone likes the same thing. Providing variety, even within a niche will help your appeal.

There were other electronics and music stores at the time, but most of them focused on only one brand. Roger, on the other hand, stocked 5 to 6 name brands. He provided his customers with variety all in one place.

Some products have a shelf life. Don’t overstock the inventory.

That was Roger’s mistake this time. His products were high end products, and each was had a large price tag. For his business to succeed he had to have enough inventory, but Roger bought too much. He didn’t calculate his inventory turnover.

Business #3: Designing, Producing, and Selling Mosquito Killers

As I mentioned, Roger had started out studying engineering, specifically electrical engineering. By the 1970s, he had moved to Cuernavaca, a tropical climate city about 1 hour away from Mexico City.

Cuernavaca had a lot of mosquitos.

His new endeavor was to design a machine to kill them. He, along with a partner, were the first people in Mexico to patent the electronic bug zapper. For about 5 years, they held 100% of the market share. Roger would use his money to travel with his wife and spend like they never had before.

Then, his business partner took the business away from him — legally.

Lessons #5 and #6

Identify a problem that many people have and find an innovative solution.

Roger had never really thought about mosquitos until he moved to a tropical weather city. But once there, he saw they were a problem. Because of his background, he knew he could kill them with electrical current. So, he designed and patented a machine with fluorescent bulbs and electrical wires to fix a simple, but annoying problem. It was a clean and elegant solution to the bothersome mosquitos (although it also killed other helpful insects — butterflies, moths, and spiders).

Make sure all documents are in order, and in business, be careful who you trust.

The business was taken away from Roger because he never checked the patent paperwork carefully, and he put his trust in a partner he hardly knew. For this business, Roger was the engineer and the partner was the businessman.

What Roger had not noticed was that the patent paperwork was in both of their names, as equals. Therefore, once the business was doing well, the partner left him, took the customer base, and created a company to compete with Roger.

The patent paperwork let him because it granted BOTH of them an exclusive license. The problem was that Roger was not a good businessman, so he lost his business.

Final thoughts

Roger was a fun loving and utterly engaging person, but he was not a born entrepreneur. After the bug killing machines, he had many other business, ranging from electroplating jewelry to making chicken nuggets. He came up with tons of ideas all the time

However, his main weakness is that he always had a blind spot with his businesses. Roger really thought that because he could come up with the idea, that he could run the business. He never bothered to “learn about business.”

He lived an amazing life, and I was fortunate to know him. However, as I have thought about him, there are a couple of chess stories I think may show you both his strength and his weakness.

Chess and Business

• Roger loved chess, and when I was 11, he asked if I would play a game with him. I knew how to move the pieces, but really did know any strategy. He beat me in 4 moves using the “Scholar’s Mate.” After the game, he just laughed and wouldn’t explain anything nor play again that night.
• That year, I enrolled in a summer chess camp. A few months later, I asked Roger to play with me again. He tried the same moves as before, but I didn’t fall for them. The game went on for about 12 moves until he just said he was bored and left the game.

You see, whether in business or chess, Roger had one pre-planned idea for the short-term. He never had a strategy for the long-term.

This is what differentiates Roger from Jim. Nevertheless, we can learn a lot from both of them.

If you haven’t read my piece about Jim, The Best Side Hustler I’ve Ever Known, here is that link:

I hope you enjoy!

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Also, please check out Julia Freeman, an anonymous survivor, Alicia Domínguez, and Violet May.

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