“Voting statistics for younger voters is pathetic.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Good ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s what you do with them that counts.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Contrary to what most people believe, fads are made, not born.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“You never know where you’re going to get inspiration.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Most people think the Shakers are in Pennsylvania. They tend to confuse them with the Amish.”
― Ken Hakuta
“My life is a life of hobbies and enthusiasm.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“People came to my house in limos looking for WallWalkers, and they made emergency calls, breaking into our phone conversations trying to order them.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“It was very enticing to become a yuppie, but I didn’t want to do that.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I was the first person to export Teflon-coated ironing board covers to Japan.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I like things that don’t go together.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I don’t need a big K Street office or a British secretary or a facade for my ego.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Anything I do, I do fanatically.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Most fads get jump starts because of the media.”
― Ken Hakuta
“The product of stickers will be around for a long time, but how it gets to the consumer will change.”
― Ken Hakuta
“A true fad has little utility beyond its entertainment value. Think of the Mood Ring, the Pet Rock, the Slinky, Silly Putty.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Whatever you do, don’t sink your life’s savings into cliche items.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I wouldn’t finance a fad if I were a banker.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“When I did inventions, I always thought only of the invention itself, but the kids would ask for marketing materials.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Everyone underestimates the maturity of kids.”
― Ken Hakuta
“In warm weather, people are sillier.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“In fad standard time, a day is a month, and a fad that lasts two months is a classic.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Fads are born to die.”
― Ken Hakuta
“It’s crazy to go into manufacturing. That’s not where the money is.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I’m no Mattel.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Nam June Paik’s artworks are highly intellectual, cutting-edge, and sophisticated. But he was also witty, humorous, and self-deprecating.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I have always been fascinated by Shaker design and the culture of the Shakers.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I hope to become the Dear Abby of fads.”
― Ken Hakuta
“In California, you want to have the strangest thing, be doing the strangest thing. People admire that.”
― Ken Hakuta
“People in Los Angeles are more used to acting silly than other people.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Most people who have had big fads have turned out to be just like their products: one-shot deals.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Shaker pieces were not to show off. One was not to waste energy to decorate.”
― Ken Hakuta
“People always ask me how I got interested in the Shakers, but I have no clear-cut answer.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I want to be the Ann Landers for fad people.”
― Ken Hakuta
“Other people might buy a Rolls-Royce. I’d rather encourage people to be creative.”
― Ken Hakuta
“A lot of great inventions are just little improvements on past ideas.”
― Ken Hakuta
“It’s incredible how much money you can make on a rubber toy.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I’ve had a real business education.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I know my life runs in cycles.”
― Ken Hakuta
“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.”
― Ken Hakuta
“As a book is judged by its cover, so a fad is judged by its name.”
― Ken Hakuta
“A fad is something that gives just a couple of minutes of extreme fun. It can be useful. It can be useless.”
― Ken Hakuta
“America is just a cool place.”
― Ken Hakuta
“The Japanese really like things very well planned out. I enjoy things as they come by.”
― Ken Hakuta
“I think what you inherit is not real. I haven’t inherited anything. What I have is really mine because I made it myself.”
― Ken Hakuta
“California starts a lot of trends.”
― Ken Hakuta
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