If you want a lesson in perseverance, talk to Jeff Eldridge ’93. The successful Boulder businessman can speak from experience, as he did recently to students in the Gates Invention and Innovation Program.

 

Jeff co-owns Liberty Puzzles, a wooden puzzle manufacturing company with more than 400 designs in stock. With 30 employees, his business cranks out 300 puzzles each day. It all started with an idea.

 

“There are different ways to be an inventor,” he tells students. “You can come up with a new product, remodel a product already on the market or do what we did: resurrect a product that is extinct.”

 

After working in manufacturing overseas and owning a restaurant in Pueblo, Jeff was uniquely suited to opening his own factory and managing production and marketing. He got his product idea after inheriting some vintage wooden puzzles from his grandfather, and proceeded to teach students a short history of the toy.

 

According to Jeff, wooden puzzles were originally made by hand using jigsaws in the 1920s. The product was wildly popular but time intensive and expensive. There was an incredible amount of artistry involved in shaping each unique piece. When America became industrialized, factories began mass-producing puzzles using die cuts on cardboard. The individual pieces had no character, and the end product was cheaper to make and buy.

 

At that point, the hand cut wooden puzzle became extinct. It was simply too expensive. The artistry of the process was lost.

 

Jeff and his business partner decided to apply modern technology to the process and bring the old-fashioned wooden puzzle back.

 

“The wooden puzzles are so much more enjoyable and durable,” he says. “I wanted people to have access to them again.”

 

Their first step was to develop the idea and its methodology. They needed a plan. It took 18 months working on the variables before the first puzzle was cut. They evaluated different types of wood, cutting methods and paper. After much trial and error, they found the right combination.

 

“We definitely felt like Thomas Edison when he tried 2,000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb,” Jeff jokes.

 

The pair sold their first puzzle on ebay eight years ago. Today, Jeff has a few pieces of advice for budding inventors in the process of making their own great discoveries.

 

“Think about what you enjoy doing. There are always opportunities for more inventions in the world. Look for problems you can solve, or bring something extinct back to life. Good luck,” he concluded.