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Garage Greatness: The Humble Origins of MyPillow

Bywittycow

There’s an old adage – anything that separates you from the ground is worth spending money on. It goes for good quality shoes, it goes for good quality mattresses, and – on a related note – it goes for a comfortable pillow! Everyone knows the hotel room struggle of trying different pillows and combinations of pillows, trying to find the one with the perfect mixture of firmness and softness, but for most people this hunt isn’t inspiring. For a certain kind of entrepreneurial spirit, however, any hardship is inspiring. Mike Lindell has just that spirit. 

Lindell tried everything to create the life he wanted for his family through an increasingly bizarre list of business ventures. In 2004, he finally found the million-dollar-idea – or to be more accurate, the multi-million-dollar-idea! MyPillow, a company that he begun in his residential home’s garage, has now sold over 30 MILLION pillows! Before he was the king of pillows, however, Lindell’s life followed a rocky path through business failures and drug addiction. In spite of this adversity, his drive never faltered, and Lindell has made a successful company out of humble beginnings in the family garage. 

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Modern Residential Garage Door Designs

Bywittycow

When was your residential garage door installed? Many homeowners can’t even answer that simple question, since they’ve had the same garage door for as long as they’ve lived in their home and didn’t ask the previous owners about the state of the door. For some reason, some homeowners assume that their garage door will keep working forever. Their door is big and noisy, but it works every time they press a button so it seems reasonable to assume that the door will continue working so long as no one hits it with a car!

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3 Top Reasons to Upgrade Your Garage Doors

Bywittycow

2016 is THE year to think about your residential or commercial garage doors. If you’re a homeowner, when was the last time that you gave your garage door any attention? If you own a business, when was the last time that you even really looked at your door? Like most people, you probably forget about your garage door nine our of ten times – so long as it is working! But even if your garage door is operating perfectly, now is still a great time to upgrade it with a new garage door installation. Replacing your old and grimy garage door and garage door opener will have more of an impact on your life than you know, and we’re here to tell you why.

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The Rise and Fall of Dell, Inc

Bywittycow

There are very few consistent details between all of the companies that we’ve featured on Garage Greatness. Sometimes, the people responsible for these international powerhouse companies don’t pursue their passion until later in life. Sometimes, they spend years or decades toiling with their idea before finding worldwide success. Sometimes, these companies are momentary successes that then see their sales decline, dropping in popularity as time passes them by. None of these are true about the company we’ll be examining today, Dell Inc. Dell had a mercurial rise to success, going from an unknown name with $1,000 of startup money to being the 51st company in the Fortune 500 list in 2014. And just like the rest of the companies that we’ve covered, Dell got their start in a garage. The year was 1984, the place was Austin, Texas, and the mind behind the company, Michael Dell, wanted to fill an expanding niche in the consumer computers market.

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Inventing the Cat Flap: Newton or Not?

Bywittycow

Hello readers! On this installment of Garage Greatness, we’re going to be exploring the dubious claim that Isaac Newton himself invented the cat door while in the garage! Although this claim is interesting and would certainly make for a good story, many people doubt that it is true, so we will also be discussing the other potential origins of the cat door. Having specialized doors for your pets is a very old idea, and tracking the exact origin is difficult, but we have done our best to verify the information we’re bringing you. We bring the same reliable and dependable service to our blog that we bring to our residential and commercial garage door installation and repair services.

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Etch A Sketch: The Timeless Toy

Bywittycow

There are certain timeless toys that are universally associated with childhood – dolls, action figures, building blocks, and so on – but there is one common toy that very few users understand. The enigmatic Etch A Sketch has an elegant design and has remained mostly unchanged for over fifty years, but the simple secret behind its magical erasable screen is not the ultimate reason for the toy’s success. The real reason that the Etch A Sketch has remained an unchanging cultural icon for the better part of a century is that it appeals to children of every background, of every level of artistic aptitude. The Etch A Sketch is an icon, and like many other great icons that we’ve explored on Garage Greatness, it was first invented in a garage.

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Dyson’s Innovative Vacuum Solution

Bywittycow

Dyson is a symbol of innovation around the world, but they got their humble start in a garage, just like so many other important companies of today. James Dyson, the inventor behind the company’s rise to fame and the continuing sole owner of the company, started working on a new way to vacuum after realizing that his Hoover Junior was losing suction over time, as the bag filled with dust and the mesh became clogged. Over 5000 prototypes later, Dyson implemented centripetal cyclones similar to those used in sawmills and build the G-Force, a revolution of a vacuum cleaner that propelled Dyson into the very lucrative vacuum cleaner industry. Now, Dyson sells to over 70 countries, produces vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, fans, and heaters, but the company continues to push the entrepreneurial inventor mindset that it was founded on. All of this, from Dyson’s early prototyping efforts in the coach house attached to his home in Cotswolds, England.

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Garage Greatness: Building Your Own Nest

Bywittycow

How often do you adjust your home thermostat? Many thermostats are outdated eyesores, installed by contractors who are more interested in getting the lowest possible bid than they are in the comfort of their home’s future inhabitants. Also, most homeowners use their thermostat in an inefficient way, and since home temperature control accounts for as much as 10% of total energy usage in the US, even just slightly wasteful habits can mean hundreds of dollars of cost for each household – hundreds of millions, across the country. Tony Fadell is the man behind Nest, the smart thermostat that is designed to solve these problems, and he is more qualified than anyone to create cutting edge technology: before he was prototyping a thermostat in a Palo Alto garage, he was creating the iPod and iPhone at his previous executive position with Apple.

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Garage Project: Hot Rod Fever!

Bywittycow

People use their garages for all kinds of things, but consistently we see two uses that stand out as the most common. Many people store things in the garage, and many (although perhaps fewer than you’d expert!) also keep their cars there. For some people, however, they can practice their hobby and keep their cars indoors at the same time. For anyone who collects hot rods or considers themselves a hobbyist mechanic, the thought of leaving their beautiful custom car outside, exposed to the elements, is unthinkable. The garage has always been home to tinkerers and auto experts, but some modern chop shops take this fascination to a whole new level.