In the Oct./Nov. issue of MyBusiness, we talked to entrepreneurs who have a knack for taking one big idea and turning it into long-term success. They gave advice on how to keep from becoming a flash in the pan. Here James Fergason, the inventor of liquid crystal displays, talks about how he found last success.
Every time you glance at a digital watch or peer into a flat panel television or computer monitor, you are seeing one of James Fergason's ideas come to life. Fergason, the inventor of liquid crystal displays, has found lasting success developing the technology he helped advance into products that have revolutionized the consumer, medical and industrial market. At his small Menlo, Calif.-based business, Ferguson Patent Properties, the 72-year-old inventor is still inventing and licensing out his portfolio of products, which at one time boasted hundreds of patents.
"You have to look for the market and try to find a product that answers some need––a need that more than one group of people have," Fergason says.
Fergason was a Westinghouse researcher when he discovered the potential of temperature and color-sensitive liquid crystals, a discovery that paved the way for forehead thermometers and mood rings. When he realized that naturally twisted liquid crystals could be untwisted with electric fields to produce unusually sharp images, inspiring the idea for LCD displays, Fergason left his job as a research director in academia to commercialize the innovation. But not everyone embraced it at first.
"One of the challenges has been convincing people that the market I saw was really out there," he says.
Fergason found success selling LCD instruments and calculators, but it wasn't until digital LED (light emitting diode) watches––which made their debut in a 1971 James Bond movie––became popular that he hit the jackpot. He knew that LED watches took up too much power because they required consumers to push a button to get the time––and realized that he could make a more efficient digital watch with LCDs.
"You have to have the right product when the desire comes along," he says.
Since then, Fergason has continued to pioneer practical ways to use liquid crystal technology, developing eye protection devices, welding helmets, privacy windows that turn opaque with a switch and head-mounted displays used in surgical imaging, flight training and 3-D viewing systems. Though he has turned many of his ideas into moneymaking ventures, his failures have taught him one important lesson.
"If you have a good idea that isn't marketable, you've got to recognize that and not fall in love with it," he says. "Ideas are like children; it's hard to turn your back on a them––but sometimes you have to."
Posted by Megan Goodchild on September 14, 2006 12:30 PM
