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Too Busy For The Beach? The Beachies Creator May Change Your Mind

 

You hear startup entrepreneurs say it all the time: “There’s no such thing as a day off.” While probably true that it’s impossible to turn off the inner entrepreneur, forgetting to turn off from time to time is simply unhealthy – for mind, body, spirit, and business. The best ideas are often in plain site, just waiting for us to relax and see them.

 

 

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For a fascinating study on how creativity works inside the human brain – helping us invent everything from music to great cities, those delightful Pixar movies, and even the Swifter – grab a copy of Jonah Lehrer’s wonderful book, Imagine: How Creativity Works.

 

If you need immediate inspiration to give yourself a break, to chill out for a summer barbecue, or remember the feel of the sun and soak up that Vitamin D, consider the example of Tiago Camara.

 

 

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You’ll Want Sunglasses To Read About An Idea This Bright…

Camara had been working in Shanghai as a product developer for companies all over the world. He realized that he was in grave danger of burnout and decided he needed vacation. He returned to his native Portugal for a surfing trip soon after.

 

Emerging from the waves one afternoon, he found a familiar site on the beach in front of him – a woman wresting to pin down her beach towel from the wind, grabbing frantically for flip flops, books, and bags. And detached from work, detoxed from stress, determined to do nothing but enjoy himself, it happened…

 

Camara saw opportunity. He saw a problem that every beach goer deals with and became inspired to find a solution. Thus began the story of The Beachies, a set of four stakes to hold down a beach towel.

 

 

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It’s so simple, its hard to believe that many of us haven’t had the same idea before. But then few of us are product developers. Few of us have the habit of keeping a notebook handy to write down all of our ideas – or design friends to put together technical drawings, or existing partnerships with Chinese suppliers able to create molds for production…

 

So, yes, Camara found himself back in action before he intended, working tirelessly to perfect his lightweight, colorful, environmentally-friendly tools to hold down every beach goer’s little rectangle of sunny bliss. His inspiration to give us all have a better time at the beach never would have happened though if he hadn’t stepped off the work treadmill and refreshed both his spirit and senses.

 

 

 

Kickstart This Kicked Back Brilliance

Now, Camara needs our help to help us all enjoy our time on the sand. Product testing, patents, and initial costs exhausted funds for The Beachies. In order to begin large-scale commercial production, he’s running a Kickstarter campaign. He needs to crowdfund 20,000 by mid-morning, Thursday, July 25th. He’s a about a quarter of the way there.

 

Save the beach towels! If this isn’t one summer campaign that we can all rally behind, what is? Check out the video, and pitch in if you can. If not for the Beachies, for the sake of proving that the most surefire way to dream up awesome products is to close up mental shop and ride the waves.

 

 

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Photo Credits

The Beachies

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