Chapter 7
Knock. Knock. Buy My Invention, Please!
In This Chapter
◆ Getting your foot in the door
◆ Only fools rush in
◆ Pick your targets
◆ A look at the corporate culture
For every entrepreneur-inventor like Aaron Lapin and his Reddi-Wip, there are hundreds of thousands of engineers working away daily at institutionalized inventing, and countless pauper-inventors twisting pieces of wire into shapes that will never see a merchant’s shelf …. But the free-enterprise system holds out the opportunity for those who wish to take it.
—Henry Petroski for The Wall Street Journal
Have you decided yet whether you want to go with my modus operandi and license your concepts to a manufacturer or start your own company to develop, produce, and bring them to market? If you want to raise venture capital (a.k.a. vulture capital), skip now to Parts 4 and 5 on how to protect your intellectual property. Then, if you need training, find a nearby university or adult education center where you can learn how to raise venture capital.
To learn about state and federal programs, call the Small Business Administration’s toll-free National Answer Desk at 1-800-827-5722, or visit www.sba.gov to read “A Venture Capital Primer for Small Business,” by LaRue Tone Hosmer, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Business Administration.
On the other hand, if you want to license product, stay where you are and read on. This chapter focuses on the process of licensing inventions that can throw off royalty income. Licensing offers a target-rich environment and, in my opinion, a far less-stressful business model. In the end, I have found that licensing has given my family and me a wonderful lifestyle.
But know going in that, whichever path you take, it won’t be easy. The road to success is always under construction.
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