Reminds me of the movie "A Stroke of Genius" which released last week on DVD. It is the true story of the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper system and how the auto industry stole it. In the story when he first present it to Ford after he leaves the guy at Ford asks his employees "how much does he want?" The inventor was seeing dollar signs though and did not sell it to Ford and after a couple of years trying to manufacture it himself unsuccessfully his company folded. From my experience if a big company wants to buy your idea (and Ford actually wanted to come out with the product and not shelve it) take it. This guy's failure was he didn't understand the problems of manufacturing and you've pointed out how expensive it is to create an inventory for even a small product. He did successfully sue the automakers but not after the situation caused him years or heartbreak and family problems.
Duveyoung wrote: > " . . .there is probably nothing new under the Sun" > > You're right....more than you know. > > Over the years, no less than dozens of what I thought were my ideas > have been imagined independently and "run with" by others. I invented > a set of eight cubes that had magnets on each face of the cubes. The > cubes challenged one to arrange them into a bigger cube if one was > able to get the south poles to be abetting north poles. The schema > for magnet placement was the key concept of the invention, and it was > a very fun puzzle kinetically to mess with. Well, I worked up a > prototype and showed it around but everyone (and we're talking ALL the > major toy companies) thought it was way too expensive to make. Yet, > the next year, BLAMMO, there 'twas....right there in the Jacob Javitz > convention hall -- done by a mom and popper who'd somehow solved the > cost problem and gotten the set into a blister card for about $10 > retail -- nice! > > It's humbling. When I would go to Toy Fair, there would be 1800 mom > and pops with their one idea each -- most of them doomed to fail for > lack of business skills, but, yep, there would ALWAYS be someone who > was hot on one of my concepts and had gotten it to market -- usually > in a far better format than I had gotten around to working up. If you > really put out to get something on a shelf, you do a lot more thinking > about the idea, and naturally, the concept evolves and different ways > to package, market, advertise, price, name the product come to the > fore -- whereas, for me, the idea might merely be on a list somewhere > waiting for me to get passionate enough about it to flesh it > out.....meanwhile the movement belongs to those who move. > > The point to underline is that my ideas came to me from out of left > field -- I wasn't improving on or fleshing out other ideas I'd come > across at Toy Fair. I thought of myself as a pure inventor with no > significant impact from the environment, but hey, it sure seems fishy > that so many folks get the same ideas at the same time. Ask Alexander > Graham Bell or Isaac Newton or Edison -- all of them had huge problems > "owning concepts" that others were working on too. > > My inventing was more of a calling than a career. I'd get an idea and > just have to work it up with duct tape and cardboard to see if it > worked. Then, if it did, yep, I'd get visions of grandeur counting my > chickens before they'd hatched. > > Then I'd hit the bricks of the real world and find out how unspecial I > really was....even though I had some very original ideas. The truth > is that the toy industry is one tough nut to crack, and the invention > itself is but the smallest part of success -- business skills are way > more important. A very simple toy can cost half a million bucks to > get even a small inventory into a warehouse. > > But, you know me; I'm such a whiny crabbing pity-me victimized > mental-case who thinks he's special that, yeah, it pissed me off that > others did what I had give up on or had set aside for some nonce. It > was my idea, ya see? But, finally, I got over it and realized that if > I don't immediately take an idea to fruition, it never really was my > idea. > > If there is a God, hHe sows ideas in many minds like seeds cast widely > upon a field. Not all grow. > > Oy! > > Edg > >
