Tardy Innovation
In his 1970 patent filing, Bernard Sadow wrote: “the luggage, extremely glides, further, substantially any person, regardless of size, strength or age, can easily pull the luggage along without effort or strain.” Sadow was not the first to try creating a wheeled suitcase.
There had been 5 other attempts in the past—inspiration was not the problem.
A man landed on the moon before wheels were adopted on bags.
It took the expansion of air travel to act as the catalyst for wheeled suitcases to be thought of as usable. Prior to that, airports were small, men worked as porters, and bag boys were everywhere.
Once the Rollaboard was created by Robert Plath, a pilot, and sold to other pilots, then passengers began to want the same for themselves. Plath was the first person to successfully pull it off, launching Travelpro. Sometimes innovations happen late because the world is not ready. Usually, tardy innovations are ideas waiting for the world’s adoption. #Tardy Innovation #Target Audience #Social Proof