build a better mousetrap

Meaning

Verb

• To invent the next great thing; to have a better idea.

Origin

• A shortening of build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
• Derived from:
• :If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods. Ralph Waldo Emerson