The Best Idea You Never Had

One of the first rules in business is to come up with something
that solves a problem your target market didn’t know it had. It
sounds so simple, right? But how do you know what those problems
are? And, where do those ideas come from in the first place?.


Well, in Baton Rouge, one place to look is LSU's Innovation Park
and a company called Iventherm.


Inventherm's latest innovation is a new startup company called
Cremmjoy.


Jason Hugenroth is President of Inventherm and Cremmjoy. You may
recall Jason's earlier appearance on Out to Lunch when Jason told
us about products Inventherm had made for space exploration.
Products that found their way into NASA's equipment. At that time
Inventherm was the owner of 50 patents. Now they have 60. And
their new business, Cremmjoy, is a million miles way from their
previous aerospace, automotive and medical devices.


Cremmjoy revolutionizes soft serve ice cream and frozen drinks
like daiquiris. The revolution is in the technology that drives
the way products are made and dispensed. It basically eliminates
the time-consuming and expensive process of disassembling,
cleaning, and sanitizing the equipment.


Jason has been designing things for decades. He is an engineer,
with a PhD in the field and a really cool lab at LSU’s Innovation
Park. 


You may not have known soft serve ice cream needed
revolutionizing. And you may think the same about retail
shopping. Claire Aillet has other ideas. Claire is the creator of
Shop The Area, an app that allows customers to shop at local
boutiques and retail shops and get same-day delivery within 10
miles of their location.


The app brings together the convenience of online shopping while
at the same time supporting local shop and boutique owners, who
have been hammered by  competition from online retailers.


Claire is a hair stylist by day, who began working on the app in
2018 and launched it in early 2020. Since then it's started to
take off in Baton Rouge with a bunch of local retailers jumping
on board and users beginning to discover the combined hybrid
power of local retail, online shopping, and speedy
delivery.  


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the
Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Erik Otts at
itsbatonrouge.la. 


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