Don’t create a doberhuahua!

Especially if you’re an inventive sort – not an unreasonable guess, given you’re reading StartupSmart – there can be a temptation to take two successful inventions and combine them.

Now, there’s a place in this world for tools that do many things. Your humble correspondent always carries around a Swiss Army knife, for example.

But, while convenient for those times you need a cross-head screwdriver in a hurry, your average Swiss Army knife makes neither a great magnifying glass, nor a great pair of scissors.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been cases where combining two different inventions into one can be useful. After all, the smartphones in our pockets are basically PDAs with mobile phone capabilities tacked on.

What sets smartphones apart is the combined functionality – being able to send data or make calls from PDA-style apps – fills a useful purpose.

But, more often than not, combining two different inventions means you end up with a splayd, or worse, a Microsoft Surface!

Seriously, what additional use case is filled by combining a laptop and a tablet that you couldn’t fill better with a proper laptop and a tablet? None!

Now, earlier this week, Old Taskmaster was watching the Super Bowl while cheering on the winning team – capitalism – when an ad perfectly illustrating the point came on the TV:

So are you toying with the idea of combining two different products into one?

Before you do, think through about whether any additional benefits are gained by combining the two inventions. You don’t want to create a doberhuahua!

Get it done – today!