I am always interested to read the history of inventions and the stories of their inventors. The invention of masking tape and Scotch tape is one that I particularly found intriguing.
The story is detailed here in this link.
The story sounds Richard Drew, an engineer at Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, better known as 3M. Drew’s tenacity and “stick-to-it-edness” (pun intended) led to the invention of both these impactful products.
The key takeaway from Drew’s work is his interest in solving a problem as opposed to creating something new. This trap is a common one that inventors fall into.
They develop a new hammer, and then look for a nail to use it on. In my former startup, we fell into this trap. We had developed a novel 3D display that required no special glasses or other view constraints. We implemented a technique known as a holographic stereogram. We attempted to bend the solution into the flight simulator market. We had a great hammer!
The better approach is the one Drew used in his work. Start with a nail–a problem–and then develop a hammer that addresses that nail. Read the story from 3M at the link.