Modern Inventor

I hope everyone had a Merry Squidmas. I did! On Squidmas Eve I received an email from Woot!, who sends out a daily deal everyday, and they were offering PowerSquid. They have sold PowerSquid several times and it is always a big success. The daily deal goes on every day at midnight and they sold out of however many they had by 6 AM.

Accompanying the email was the most amazing poem, written by some genius over at Woot!. It is based on the Night Before Christmas. Follow this link to read it.

My wife and I were visiting my family up in the Toledo, Ohio region and had a lovely Christmas. My niece and nephew (5-year old boy and girl twins) received lots of cool toys. It’s amazing how much variety there is and how many cool things now exist for exploring the imagination. It makes me wonder how all this stimulation will affect their minds as they age.

Will they be super-imaginative due to their relatively unlimited access to different ways to express themselves? The modern toys have much greater fidelity and flexibility than the ones I had. Or perhaps the plethora of options will stunt their imaginations, as all the expressions of their creativity can be manifested externally, without having to rely on mind’s eye hallucinations to add vivid elements to their creations. Or is the net effect a wash? My guess is that it overall adds to the imaginative capacity of these children and we will see an increase in the imaginativeness of the coming generations. There is likely to be some cost, however. Perhaps it will come in the form of a greater reliance on external devices to express creativity, generating a certain type of dependence on machines/ technology.

I suppose if this is the case, we will already be seeing this in some form in people of my generation (’x’ I believe.), who have grown up with an already much greater variety of expressive opportunities than our parents. And I suppose we do see this.

Anyway, it makes one think.

I have been a professional inventor for 10 years, and one thing I have learned is that practically EVERYONE is an inventor. More often than not, when I tell people what I do for a living, they tell me about their “million dollar idea” that they have been nursing for months or years, just waiting for the right moment to unleash it on the world and reap the riches of their brilliance, if only they knew what to do next. Which, of course, leads directly to the question, “what should I do next?” A question I have tried to answer more times than I can count.

There’s no easy answer to this question, since every product idea has its own idiosyncrasies, and every inventor has different skills and means. However, today I will share with you a few simple steps you can take to move your idea closer to reality, starting with some wisdom gained from my experience as an inventor to try and help you avoid disappointment.

So first, the pieces of wisdom:
If your only interest is to nurse your idea in order to convince yourself that you are brilliant and you never plan on testing the idea, by all means, nurse away. You’re a genius. On the other hand, if you plan on starting to spend your hard-earned cash exploring your idea, you need to be realistic. There are 4 things you should know:

1. There’s no such thing as a “million dollar idea”, which implies that the idea itself is so valuable that it can magically turn into money, without any work being done, if you could only find the right person to tell it to! That’s a lovely idea, but the reality is that there are only million dollar executions of ideas, and the execution part usually involves LOTS of work. Making money from inventing is hard work!

2. Making money from ideas is actually a pretty expensive game, and as a general rule, the greater the potential reward, the greater the cost to monetize the idea. Even the simplest invention is going to cost thousands of dollars to even get the opportunity to find out for real if your product will sell. More complicated ideas can cost tens of thousands to develop. Before you begin on the journey to develop a product, you should make a realistic evaluation of your means to pursue your ends. Get professional advice, from a design firm, patent lawyer, or inventor like myself, on what your idea might cost to develop.

3. Avoid “invention services” firms. These are almost always scams of one sort or another. They will take your money gladly, but provide very little help in actually succeeding with your product, and have extremely low success rates. There’s no such thing as easy money.

And

4. Most ideas, even the good ones, don’t make money, often for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the idea. Obviously, a well-considered execution can improve your chances of success, but there are so many factors at play, even the best executions can fail to make a return, so never risk more than you can afford to lose, financially, or more importantly, emotionally.

I don’t mean to sound negative, there is an upside to the inventing game as well. I just don’t want you to waste your money following your dream with illusions of how “easy” it’s going to be. On the other hand, a successful product can bring in residual income for years, and if the product is a mass-market product, like the PowerSquid, those residuals can be quite substantial.

So, if having considered these points of wisdom, you are still set on proceeding, here are the first 3 steps you should take to bring your product closer to reality:

1. Search: In an earlier post, I wrote about Googling your idea as the very first thing you should do. To reiterate, Google it. And then Google some more. Check to see if someone else has beat you to the punch.

2. Consult with a designer (Like Trident, or you can look at Core77.com’s design directory, Coroflot, for a directory of design firms) to find out what developing your idea would take, financially and effort-wise, and get an honest appraisal of how realistic your idea is. You also want to get their opinion of the market-feasibility of your product. Listen with an open mind. You don’t want to waste your money, and do not ignore good advice. If someone says something you don’t want to hear, instead of dismissing it, first say to yourself: “Maybe they are right,“ and give an honest appraisal of their feedback. You should be able to get this feedback for free. Talk to several firms of different sizes to get a range of options.

3. Consult with a patent attorney. The first consultation should be free. They will advise you as to the patentability of your product and what your options are for protecting your idea. They will not usually tell you if it is worth patenting your idea. That is a decision you will have to make. This consultation will give you valuable information as you consider your next steps, where you will begin spending money if your choose to proceed: a professional patent search and analysis and potentially a provisional patent application.

4. Evaluate the risk/reward equation for your invention. Not all great ideas are economic opportunities. Sometimes the cost to develop an idea, combined with the risk it won’t work, outweigh the potential reward. Other times the market is just too small. Should you choose to proceed, there are several ways to monetize your idea, falling into two main categories: licensing and manufacturing. The details of these is a topic for another time, but the path you choose dramatically affects your costs, and therefore the economic equation. Licensing is usually the best option for the independent inventor.

Now that you have some information from your searching and consultations with designers and lawyers, you can make an informed decision about whether to start spending money on your idea or just go back to nursing it and knowing that you’re secretly a genius and that if only you met the right person, you could be rich.

So, in answer to the question, what should you do, the answer is, first, be realistic, and then 1) search, 2) consult a designer 3) consult an attorney, and 4) evaluate your invention for economic opportunity.

Follow these steps, and you should avoid disappointment and bring your vision closer to reality.

When looking to license an invention to a company, the inventor’s first instinct is usually to go after the market leader, with the idea that the biggest company is going to deliver the best royalty stream. However, in my experience, the biggest company is usually not the best target. I have licensed products to companies with annual revenues ranging from $10 Million to $35 Billion. Here are ten reasons why I prefer the smaller end of the scale:

1. The market leader is less hungry for a new innovation to help them gain market share. They already have market share and typically are playing defensively and will resist innovations that endanger the status quo. Smaller companies will see a new innovation as more important strategically, as it may help them gain on the leader. They are hungrier and faster.

2. Big corporations are a royal pain to deal with. They have protocols for how they conduct business, most of which are very unfriendly to the individual inventor, or any human for that matter. The people working in them are often not trying that hard and just want to get their job done. Something new just creates more work for them with no reward.

3. Big corporations are greedy. They don’t want you to make money and don’t care if they are unfair. They will do whatever they can to reduce their royalty payment to you, pay late, and cheat if they can. They will also avoid paying you anything if they can.

4. Big companies make you sign disclosure documents. As an inventor, you want to get the companies you are presenting to to sign non-disclosure agreements, which protect your rights and obligate the other party to not steal your idea. The disclosure agreements from big companies (which are often found on their websites. Here’s a link to one from Black & Decker) are very draconian and heavily favor the corporation. I would never sign one of these documents unless I had exhausted all other possibilities.

5. Big companies are hard to negotiate with. Instead of negotiating with the president of the company who is concerned with driving the business, you’ll be negotiating with either a lawyer, who is definitely not going to take it easy on you, or a mid-level manager with no decision making power. This leads to dramatically drawn out timeframes and frustrations, as well as less generous deals.

6. Big companies often lack focus. A smaller company with fewer products will be able to focus on your invention in order to drive business. A really big company might have thousands of products, and yours will be just another item in the line, given no special attention. Therefore it won’t necessarily enjoy the benefits of the big company’s wide distribution or PR efforts. People in the company may not even be aware of your product after several years!

7. Small companies usually have more passion. Big companies rarely have the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that generates the kind of breakthrough results that the inventor would like to see. Small companies are much more likely to be staffed by people truly excited about their industry and the products they are selling.

8. Big companies have lots of internal friction. There can be competing individuals and factions inside a company, and your invention could be the victim of circumstances having nothing to do with your product. It could be cancelled even if it’s doing well, because much of what happens in large corporations has nothing to do with the common interest or rational decision-making, and everything to do with self-interest.

9.  Small companies have more fun. Corporations are driven by the bottom line almost exclusively, and therefore it is harder to create and nurture relationships, which make doing business much more pleasurable. In small companies, you can make friends with the people you work with and have much more satisfying interactions, which is important to your quality of life.

10. Small companies are more likely to treat you as a partner. A big company doesn’t see you as an equal, whereas the president of a smaller comapny may see you as a partner and resource for future inventions, and treat you like they care if you’ll want to do business with them in the future.

Obviously, all these points are not true for all companies, big or small, but for the independent inventor, it is usually going to be much easier to deal with a smaller company. Of course, if the company is too small, that’s no good either. They need to be large enough to have the resources to develop, market and finance your product. It’s always important to remember that a license is a long-term relationship, and there are things equally important to financial considerations to take into account, things that will affect your quality of life and long-term satisfaction with your licensee.

It’s turkey month and I’d like to start off with a list of things I’m thankful for this year:

1. The election is finally over! It was an exciting and enthralling run-up, but I was ready to move on, one way or the other. Hopefully we’ll see some great things from the new guys.
2. Deep-fried turkey: it’s not good for your heart, but it’s good for your soul! Thanksgiving hasn’t been the same since my folks got the fryer. Delicious!
3. The internet: It’s cliché to say, but my job as a professional inventor wouldn’t be possible in the same way without it. The ease of communication with my remote engineers, my  manufacturer’s in China, my prototypers, and my webmaster all make this possible. This profession was a lot different (or didn’t really exist) not that many years ago.
4. The Yoropen (www.yoropen.com): this is the first really well executed ergonomic pen and since I started using one I am hooked. It was developed by a Taiwanese inventor. It gives me a case of professional envy! I recommend you all check it out!

   

5. My family: Thanks Family, for all your support! Especially you, Sommer (my wife)!
6. The amazing staff here at Trident Design: as a team we are unbeatable! You should all try and find yourselves in the company of teammates that make your job as satisfying and enjoyable as mine!
7. Great customers: Every week we get emails from our customers thanking us for our attention to service and complimenting our products. We put all of ourselves into our products and our service and it is lovely when it is noticed. Thank you!
8. Downhill skiing season: My favorite outdoor activity is once again upon us! It has the perfect blend of action and gear. You shouldn’t be surprised to find out that I love gear.
9. Acupuncture: I just checked out this Eastern import for the first time recently and have had great results. It doesn’t really hurt too bad, and that’s coming from a bona fide needle-phobe. I recommend it for your chronic pains.
10. I made it another year! That’s right, it’s my birth month. I’m a Scorpio, whatever that means.

I recently took a trip to visit some factories in China. I’ll be telling you about some of these places in a series of posts. First, I’ll talk a little about the PowerSquid factory. The PowerSquid is made in the Guangzhou Province, which is the region of southern China next to Hong Kong. This area is home to countless factories making many of the world’s products. The factories range from very ‘rustic’, to absolutely modern.

The factory where the ‘Squid is made is a model of efficiency. They make their own wire, starting with thick copper strands, coat the wire, mold the plugs, stamp the brass, mold the plastic parts, make the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards), assemble and package everything. Watching the assembly lines at work is a sight to behold, with each worker doing one small task and passing the product to the next in line. It was an eye-opening experience to witness their skill.

It’s easy to take all this stuff for granted. Practically everything we buy starts its life in the hands of a hard-working person in China. If you ever get the chance to tour a manufacturing facility of any kind, in China or nearer to your home, I recommend it. It will help you understand how much effort goes into providing you each and every item that’s in your life.

For my first post, I’d like to answer the first question that people always ask me when they come to me with an idea: what should I do first? The answer is: Google it! And then Google it some more! Most people come to me with an idea they say is unique, and they are positive that “there’s nothing out there like it.” When I ask if they’ve searched, they always say they have. I say “OK”,”let me do a quick search.” Often, in 2-3 minutes I find their exact idea out there. Why? Because they have searched only very superficially, not actually wanting to find their idea already on the market. They think they have a “million dollar idea” and don’t want to find out that their one idea is really an also-ran. Of course, this doesn’t matter if all they want is to think that they are a genius, without actually planning on taking any action. But if you want to start actually pursuing your idea, and start spending money, then you better make sure you know what’s already out there.

When doing your search on Google, you should do MANY searches, not just a couple. And you should go through at least 5 pages of results for each search. You need to try every word combination that might lead to a similar product, and you need to try and think and search like someone who would be shopping for a product similar to your invention. This process may, in fact, reveal your idea already on the market, or it may confirm that it isn’t. Regardless, it will help you know what else exists in that product category space, and may help you refine your idea and perfect your innovative angle. If you do find your idea out there, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are out of luck. Execution is the key to success, and maybe you can out-compete the incumbent with a better product, marketing plan, distribution system, or other competitive edge.

The bottom line is that you need to know what’s out there if you are going to start investing real time and money, and you don’t want to put your head in the sand and hope you’re right.

After you complete your Google search on the web, your work isn’t done. Next you need to search the patent database to make sure your idea isn’t someone else’s patent, even if there isn’t a product out there. This can be done at the Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov) or several other places on the web. I usually use Google’s patent search (www.google.com/patents). I’ll cover this topic in greater detail in a later post. Good hunting!

Hello world. This is my new blog, where I’ll be sharing my thoughts on inventing, product development, and the monetization of ideas. If you have any questions that you would like me to answer, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for stopping by!