There was a lady who was 89 years old; that is Mrs. Mieko Sato. She showed us all that you don’t need to be an expert or have special skills to create something new. She came up with an idea for a product that turned out to be a big hit! Now, every year, people buy tens of thousands of this product.
So, remember, it’s never too late to start inventing. You just need a good idea and the courage to make it happen. This story proves that anyone, at any age, can come up with a great idea that others will love. So, keep dreaming and who knows? Maybe one day, you’ll invent something amazing too!
Who is Mieko Sato?
In Machida, a city in Tokyo, Japan. This is where a woman named Mieko Sato lives. About eleven years ago, she came up with a really cool invention. It’s a gadget that makes opening plastic bottles super easy. She named it “Akeru-kun Plastic Bottles”. It’s made of rubber and doesn’t need much force to work. You can find it in stores all over Japan. Each one costs about 400 yen, which is around $3. Every year, people buy between 30,000 and 40,000 of these gadgets.
Mrs. Sato, who is 89 years old, always has a smile on her face. She once said, “I don’t have time to die,” because she’s too busy making helpful inventions. One of her inventions is called Akeru-kun. It’s a rubber tube that’s been colored and has holes in it. A string is threaded through the holes.
Mrs. Sato came up with the idea for Akeru-kun when she had trouble opening a plastic bottle. She knew her health wasn’t the best, but she didn’t let that stop her. The first version of Akeru-kun was a flat piece of rubber. It helped grip the bottle cap so it wouldn’t slip, making the bottle easier to open.
In 2011, Mrs. Sato got a patent for her bottle opener. She worked with the Hatsumei-gakkai Foundation in Tokyo, which helps inventors. After trying many different designs, she finally made the perfect version of Akeru-kun. It’s a 2.8 cm rubber tube, and it’s been a big success!
Ms. Sato: A Tale of Innovation and Success
Ms. Sato and her companions organized a display of their products at a supermarket event in 2013, and her products sold out so quickly that further production was urgently required.
She sold 280 units in 5 days, exhausting all of the materials she had produced before. She received orders of up to 5,000 pieces each month this spring, so she and her husband worked hard to meet the demands of clients.
“All you need to invent something is motivation and the capacity to act quickly when an idea strikes,” Ms. Sato explains. It doesn’t matter that I have no academic background or talents. It is worthwhile when my things can assist someone.”
Her approach demonstrates that when entering the field of inventions, the first step is to solve the problem, the inconvenience that people are suffering in their daily lives.
Mrs. Sato also designed a can opener, “Kanzume Akeru-kun,” which was commercialized. Recently, the 89-year-old grandmother has been working tirelessly to market Zori slippers with straps made from Geta wooden clogs.
Ms. Sato will join the Hatsumei-gakkai organization, which has roughly 3,000 members who have made invention their main business, and 100 companies that collaborate in the intention of earning by assisting members. Although some members used to be engineers, the majority of them, including the elderly, are still amateurs.
Hatsumei-gakkai advises members on how to market products, register patents, and register trade names, as well as direct them to small and medium-sized businesses that use a variety of technologies such as metalworking, plastic, and plastic molding.
