No Problem, We'll Buy Some Gum

My name is Julie Condy and I am the owner and creator of a new product, called Toaster Tops. I call myself an Accidental Inventor, because I didn’t wake up one morning and say “I think I will invent something today”.  It happened merely by accident… or did it?

I think inventing is in my blood. Growing up in a household with a physicist for a father and a biologist for a mother, we were always finding solutions to problems.

When I was fifteen years old, we were fortunate enough to live in Germany for 10 months. One weekend, we had planned to go to Paris and I was excited to wear my new clogs. This was back in the early 80′s and I thought I was styling in my light, brown leather jacket, Farrah Fawcett hairdo and my fancy, new clogs. We had spent the day touring the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. We walked for hours before I realized that the strap on my clogs had come loose and was flapping every time I took a step. I desperately wanted to keep wearing them, but I couldn’t walk around the fashion capital of the world with the strap of my clogs flapping with every step.  As tears began running down my face, my mom looked at me as calm as could be, smiled and said, “No problem, we will buy some gum”. It is amazing that a slightly chewed piece of gum could hold the strap in place and save the day.

From that point on, I knew there was always a solution to a problem. You just have to look at the situation from a different perspective and be open to unique ideas.

This is the first post in my blog. Each week I will talk about what I have learned about inventing a product and what is involved in bringing it to market. I will also share the fun, crazy things that have happened along the way.

My mom and I were always going to write a book and call it “No Problem, We Will Buy Some Gum!”. It was going to be about all the crazy things that happened to us while living in Germany. Since we never got a chance to write that book, I am dedicating this blog to her loving memory. Her eternal optimism and her absolute conviction that you can do anything you put your mind to, give me the strength to persevere.