As an inventor, your #1 goal is to is to make money from your invention – to achieve success with it. Right?
What is the best way to achieve the success with your invention?
- Seek advice from family and friends who aren't inventors
- Seek advice from other inventors who are just starting out
- Seek advice from successful inventors
- Don't seek advice from anyone – if at first you don't succeed, try, try again
Which answer did you pick? The best answer is, of course, #3. Not a hard test is it?
Interestingly, I find many inventors I talk to – based on their behavior – actually choose #1 and #4 over other options.
Would you like free advice and information from successful inventors? How about 3 lessons learned from successful inventors?
Read on.
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Would you like to learn how to make money from your invention? Tired of just spending money?
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Successful Inventors Share Their Tips and Tricks – for Free
Now that I have a weekly podcast – Inventors Helping Inventors – where I talk to successful inventors every week – I'm learning a lot of valuable information from other successful inventors. Here's a tip: if you subscribe to the IHI podcast, you'll get free valuable information every week from the podcast – learn valuable tips and tactics while you're driving to work or working out!
Below are 3 lessons I learned from interviewing very successful inventors.
Lesson #1: Product Packaging is Very Important – Jared & Karina Rabin
It's been said that an average product with great packaging – will sell more than a great product with mediocre packaging. It is absolutely true.
Jared and Karina Rabin (episode #3) learned the hard way that cutting corners on packaging design – hiring an inexpensive package designer – was a very expensive mistake.
It cost them over $100,000- causing them to lose 2 large key vendors. Jared, said, “when getting packaging designed, pay more to get an excellent, appealing, impactful design that truly highlights the benefits of the invention.” Lesson learned.
Have you had challenges with packaging for your product?
Lesson #2: Persistence and Patience Pays Dividends – Roger Brown
Early on in his career, Roger Brown (episode #10) learned the value of persistence and patience.
Before he became a successful serial inventor, Roger Brown developed and submitted story lines and ideas to comic book editors. He found that, while they were receptive in considering his story ideas, the rejection rate was very high. Roger once submitted over 30 different plot and story lines to a particular editor before the editor finally accepted and used one of Roger's ideas. His persistence and patience paid off and built a relationship on trust with the editor. Afterwards, that editor began accepting and using many of Roger's submissions.
Roger applied that same approach towards inventing, particularly in the toy industry. Companies would reject one or several concepts from him, but then would share with him what specific kinds of items they were looking to develop. Roger would laugh and share the ups and downs with his wife, telling her after a rejection, “well, now I know what they don't want!”
How much patience and persistence do you have?
Lesson #3: Collaborate with a Partner Who Has Skills You Lack – Ryan Diez
The inspiration for Ryan Diez's successful invention (episode #8), the Woof Washer 360, derived from his childhood – when he and his dad would attempt to wash the family's rambunctious dog.
Everyone got soaked except the dog.
Working with his handyman dad, they fashioned a 360 degree metal loop with holes that connected to a hose making washing an easy task. Many years later, as an adult, Ryan wanted to see if they could commercialize the idea from their crude metal prototype. Ryan was great at ideas and visualization, his dad was great at building things.
They determined the product must be made of plastic and settled upon PVC piping as the ideal material to use. But, PVC pipes are long, straight cylinders – they needed a hoop shape out of the PVC. Ryan was scratching his head on how to address the challenge.
His father devised a plan to clamp and bend the thin PVC pipes around a circular jig, then used a barbecue grill for heat to bake in the new shape. It worked! Ryan realized that his dad was the perfect collaborative partner for him as an inventor.
Do you have a collaborator who can help you address your areas of weakness – allowing you (like Ryan) to concentrate on your strengths?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
I'm a fan of podcasts as a powerful way to get free valuable information – as you know. You should be too.
Here's your chance. Just click on the blue button below to grab your FREE copy of – Powerful Podcasts for Entrepreneurs – cheat sheet now.
Would you like to learn how to make money from your invention? Tired of just spending money?
Attend the next FREE live webinar – How to License Your Invention for Royalties.
All you need is your cell phone, laptop or computer to attend this live webinar. Get all your questions answered.
Just click on the orange button below to sign up for the next FREE live webinar – License Your Invention for Royalties.
Hi Alan. My ideas are much bigger and require much R&D. I haven’t and still don’t have the financial resources to go to these product developers and get patents. Do you have any advice for me?
Ideas that require much R&D have very little chance of being commercialized successfully. Inventions in the best case, are very risky. Inventions that have ANY additional
expenses entailed in bringing them forward are simply a HUGE risk.
My advice is to go after simpler items that solve simple, but annoying, problems suffered by millions.
My advice is something you won’t like. Complex inventions that require R&D have about a 0.009% chance of ever getting someone to take the HUGE risk to invest and license.
Companies don’t even take those chances on their own products very often.
Think of inventing as risky like a trip to the gambling casino where the “house” always has better odds than the inventor. Right now, you are choosing to play the slot machine and hoping
for a big payoff. Play craps or blackjack instead where you have a chance.
Translated, pick simple, consumer product inventions that solve an annoying problem that millions would buy.
Ronald, my advice is that trying to license “big ideas” or complex items is extremely difficult. Companies are risk averse and are unlikely to invest a lot of money (R&D) into a completely unproven product when over 80% of all newly launched products fail within the first year.
I would recommend that you look at simple invention products to solve annoying problems suffered by millions. Those always sell the most in the marketplace.
Thanks Alan. It just seems ashamed, that my two inventions will probably go to the grave with me. The first one is space propulsion anti- gravity, and it needs the second because it uses so much energy. The second is Epulse Technology, which recycles pulses of electricity to run ac/dc motors or electromagnetic engines.