Top 62 Quotes & Sayings by Ken Hakuta
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a South Korean inventor Ken Hakuta.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
If you come up with something that's useless and promote it the right way, everybody will have to have it yesterday, even though they get up the next morning and wonder why they bought it.
I've become obsessed with preserving Shaker furniture. I feel as though every influence in my life, everything I've learned and know, all the money I've made, has come together to take care of it.
I know my life runs in cycles.
I wouldn't finance a fad if I were a banker.
I was the first person to export Teflon-coated ironing board covers to Japan.
Opportunity just exists in the air for a few minutes. If you don't obey your gut feeling right away, you've lost your chance.
When I did inventions, I always thought only of the invention itself, but the kids would ask for marketing materials.
Most fads get jump starts because of the media.
Generally, successful fads have some kind of play value, like the Frisbee, Slinky, Silly Putty, my Wallwalker. They're generally inexpensive items, impulse items. They tend to be rather useless items, too. They provide a few minutes of amusement.
Most people who have had big fads have turned out to be just like their products: one-shot deals.
It's crazy to go into manufacturing. That's not where the money is.
A fad is something that gives just a couple of minutes of extreme fun. It can be useful. It can be useless.
I have always been fascinated by Shaker design and the culture of the Shakers.
A lot of great inventions are just little improvements on past ideas.
You can't be an inventor trying to figure a better way of changing the spare tire. That's boring. We need someone who figures out how to hit a button and turn the entire car upside down.
In Japan, the more expensive a restaurant is, the larger the plates and the smaller the portions. The cheaper a restaurant is, the smaller the plates and the larger the portions.
I hope to become the Dear Abby of fads.
Fads get hot in California. A good idea can come from Des Moines, but it's not going to be anything there. Then it'll hit Venice Beach or Westwood and go all around the country, back to Des Moines.
There are some keys to success in the fad business. One is never give up. You need total motivation and the right kind of creativity. You also have to back the right activity. It is a disaster if you back the wrong idea with your energy. You not only lose money, but you take a big social risk.
Most people think the Shakers are in Pennsylvania. They tend to confuse them with the Amish.
Many young people don't vote because they feel unwelcome and irrelevant, and that's the system's fault... As much as MTV tries to get them to vote, politicians don't include young voters because young voters don't donate money.
The Japanese really like things very well planned out. I enjoy things as they come by.
Contrary to what most people believe, fads are made, not born.
There are conventions for people with serious, boring inventions, but fad inventors need help. You need someone to talk to. You just can't tell your friends you're going to invent a pet rock and mortgage your house to pay for it. It's embarrassing... risky mentally. Your friends think you're crazy.
It was very enticing to become a yuppie, but I didn't want to do that.
A true fad has little utility beyond its entertainment value. Think of the Mood Ring, the Pet Rock, the Slinky, Silly Putty.
In warm weather, people are sillier.
People came to my house in limos looking for WallWalkers, and they made emergency calls, breaking into our phone conversations trying to order them.
To me, all these things tell a story, and I find clothespin parts as interesting as 'collectors' furniture.' Good pieces of Shaker furniture are interesting, but only so much. It is the other things and the personal effects that let me feel the Shakers.
As a book is judged by its cover, so a fad is judged by its name.
Good ideas are a dime a dozen. It's what you do with them that counts.
When I was a boy, my father used to criticize me for - it's hard to translate - I guess you could say 'mindless time.' Thinking what to do. I need to be bored so I can be pushed into doing something.
In California, you want to have the strangest thing, be doing the strangest thing. People admire that.
The product of stickers will be around for a long time, but how it gets to the consumer will change.
I don't need a big K Street office or a British secretary or a facade for my ego.
I've had a real business education.
In fad standard time, a day is a month, and a fad that lasts two months is a classic.
I'm no Mattel.
Shaker pieces were not to show off. One was not to waste energy to decorate.
I want the Wallwalker in the back of consumers' minds, but not actively thought about. When it returns, they'll react, 'Oh, there they are!' and they'll buy them again as impulse items.
It's incredible how much money you can make on a rubber toy.
America is just a cool place.
I've done strategic planning, all kind of cash flows, but in fad marketing, it is all really irrelevant. It is marketing by total gut feeling. There is no market research. You either sell 500 of something, and it is a total bomb, or you sell 500 million.
People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been snapped up. In reality, the world changes every second, blowing new opportunities in all directions, including yours.
Fads are born to die.
Speed is vital. You got to strike fast. Fads have short lives, and you got to get what you can - like the case of the Pet Rock.
Whatever you do, don't sink your life's savings into cliche items.
People in Los Angeles are more used to acting silly than other people.
People always ask me how I got interested in the Shakers, but I have no clear-cut answer.
My life is a life of hobbies and enthusiasm.
I want to be the Ann Landers for fad people.
Nam June Paik's artworks are highly intellectual, cutting-edge, and sophisticated. But he was also witty, humorous, and self-deprecating.
Voting statistics for younger voters is pathetic.
Anything I do, I do fanatically.
Other people might buy a Rolls-Royce. I'd rather encourage people to be creative.
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
Everyone underestimates the maturity of kids.
You never know where you're going to get inspiration.
I like things that don't go together.
Al Gore has a lot to do with the mainstream attention to global warming, but you can't call him a fad, even if he did dance the Macarena.
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