What I love about traveling with no schedule is that you end up seeing some interesting places that make an impact on your life. I decided to go to Yokohama, 30 minutes outside of Tokyo to explore some of the sights I enjoyed while playing a video game taking place there. Not only did I get a lot of inspiration from their Chinatown, but I also decided to visit the Cup of Noodles Museum on a torrentially rainy day.
The museum, which tells the history of the ramen noodle industry was surprisingly well done and tells the life of Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin (is there a relationship to Monde Nissin? Actually very hard to tell but surprisingly they are two different companies). He invented the Cup of Noodle Brand which not only dominates the United States but is amplified throughout all of Asia.
Monofuku Ando’s innovation in creating a completely new category can be considered a case study of someone who just has this prolific creative mind and would stop at nothing to create something that within the next 60-plus years would influence our whole world.
Right now, due to many factors, innovation is being hit hard with doubt, and feelings that it’s a waste of money. We can always learn from history, from the simplest thing such as food, that no matter who you are, all you need is a creative spirit and a burning persistence, to create something truely wonderful.
Age and Status don’t matter
Ando created instant ramen at 48 years old after a previous business venture failed. In fact, he went to jail for tax evasion before starting Nissin. The museum glamourizes the exciting life of Momofuku Ando and for the rest of his life, he pursued to keep on innovating his ramen noodle invention. I believe this shows that even after failure, all it takes is to get back up and keep on going. It’s a reminder that age truly is just a number.
It’s also interesting that the company Nissin was created 10 years before instant ramen was launched as their first product! Before that, Nissin’s job was to produce salt.
What is also interesting to note was that the first instant ramen was actually considered a luxury item. As we all know, Instant Ramen is now known as the cheapest food source on earth that only college students and bootstrapped entrepreneurs can eat. When we look at products now and we think, “how expensive!” realize it takes time for innovation to bring the price down. Over time, and with enough effort, instant ramen is a prime example of an innovative product becoming mainstream.
Creative Process
The museum emphasizes a lot on epiphanies by looking at things at a different ways. Ando was an outsider, with no experience in Ramen making and spent a whole year in his hut trying to perfect his idea.
One of the setbacks was that he noticed that drying took to long and gave an undesirable result when rehydrating. It wasn’t until he got the epiphany when his wife was making tempura, that frying would solve all the issues.
Scientifically, frying allows for a faster drying time, but also would “foam” the starch structure. This creates the dense but “wholly” microscopic structure. Once you hydrate the fried noodles, the starch would swell up and create a lighter, bendable texture.
Momofuku has 6 key words that he puts his whole creative philosophy in which are:
Discover something completely new
Find Hints in all sorts of places
Nurture an idea
Look things up from every angle
Don’t just go for the status quo
Never Give Up
These six key phrases helped push Ando forward into creating his instant ramen and has carried out in his work to create a new category globally. I think these phrases are quite generic, but I do think innovators don’t do this enough. What seems to be the central theme of these mantras is to not only look at things differently, but it takes time and persistence to create a good idea.
Globalization Innovation
The iconic cup of noodles was designed to be a mobile unit that can be eaten on the go. Nissin was planning to hit the American market and he knew Americans love to eat fast food in a sense where we want our sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers in one hand at eat as we go.
He also found out through some focus groups that Americans actually like to eat ramen in a mug rather than the Japanese which eats it in a bowl. This sparked the idea to create Cup of Noodles.
The museum does a great job emphasizing the innovations that Ando had to approve to make the cup of noodles happen which includes:
Freeze-dried food – the technology wasn’t readily available in Japan do Ando made his own
Polystyrene Cup – Lightweight and doesn’t burn your hand, Ando took the risk to use this as his package of choice.
Shrink Wrap – Surprisingly, Ando was one of the first to use this technology
Noodle Packing Tech – One of the technical problems Nissin had was plopping the fried noodles into the cup. It just wasn’t consistent. Apparently, Ando solved this by having vertigo while sleeping and woke up feeling like he was upside down. This epiphany allowed him to manufacture in a way where the lid is actually inserted on the noodle cone.
All of these took a significant amount of capital and risk to put into the invention. Momofuku could have taken the save route and use cheaper, proven material, but he took a different route.
Competition
As Ando’s brand grew, many competitors started to pop up.
Like all good businesses, Ando was fighting hard by trying to gather IP such as patents and trademarks and all that to make sure his product was protected. It got so bad the government had to step in and basically told Ando to make a Ramen Association and play fair. Ando slowly changed his stance and started to help proliferate the industry and grow as a whole, alluding it to Nissin being a giant tree, that helps the forest grow.
A sign for the future? Who knows.
True Spirit of Innovation
Cup of Noodles Museum has a cool app where they share excerpts of Momofuku Ando’s yearly words of wisdom. I resonate with these quite a bit and I hope you do too
Here are some of them:
When starting on something, pay attention down to the smallest detail. But once you start, give everything you’ve got and never be caught unprepared -New Years 1968
Flexiblity meeting the changing times is more important than anything else. Like a rolling stone, you need to have an attitude that can change course at any time -New Years 1974
A sincere heart shakes even the heavens. If we all can cooperate and join our strength together we can move the Earth –1987
Make your dreams as vast as space. If you focus the eyes of the heart, you will see far, far into the future. -New Years 1990
The key to long life is to eat moderately. Let us learn the importance of food and live in good health -New Years 2006
People set up business. But the success of those buisnesses is a gift from the heavens -New Years 2007
It’s always nice to study the history of successful innovators and level set what our world used to look like back then. Though things are much different now, the is still room to innovate no matter what period of time you’re in, no matter what age, or how many failures you’ve endured.