Too many inventors make the mistake of inventing in commodity markets. That is, they create something that can already be bought from many other sources and is very hard to differentiate in a meaningful, price-increasing way. Marketing guru Perry Marshall provides some insight on this common mistake….

“What you sell should be re-packaged and re-invented to differentiate it from competitive products and make apples-to-apples comparisons difficult or impossible.

The worst thing a business can do is be just like everyone else. And the worst reason your customer can have for buying your product is that it’s the cheapest. Live by cheapest price, die by cheapest price.

There are many, many product categories that are commodity items. My definition of a commodity is something that can basically be bought and sold by the pound from a half dozen or more companies.”

Perry’s point applies just as much to inventing as it does to marketing. In fact, it’s the same issue: what you invent will, ultimately, have to be marketed to customers who will buy it. If what you create is seen as a run-of-the-mill commodity product, you have one foot in the grave before you even start. This is not what you want to do! What could be worse than slaving over an invention for months or years, only to find that no one is really excited to buy it? This condemns you to what Perry calls “the pathetic life of the lowest bidder.”

“It’s easy to think customers only want the cheapest price, but that’s only true if nobody gives them a reason to pay extra and get more. Another Internet example: I don’t particularly care for AOL, but they have done a very admirable job of packaging their service such that it can’t be directly compared to other Internet Service Providers. Features like AOL Instant Messenger have proprietary features that other providers can’t duplicate. AOL has always made it very easy to install their software and they’ve distributed their CD’s to just about every living creature in North America. This is how they’ve maintained a price over $20 while many of their competitors went broke trying to do it for free.”

There is a parallel lesson here for inventors smart enough to see it: focus on higher level inventions.

The reason is simple. Higher level inventions (such as electronics, software, construction tools, systems, or anything that solves a pressing yet unsolved problem) allow you to stand out. It’s easier to put your unique fingerprints on a product that takes specialized skills or knowledge to create. This is not merely an aesthetic issue, either. It’s not just about the pride of knowing you have a unique product. (Although that’s nice, too.)

It is often literally the difference between success or failure. Like Perry said - if you don’t give people a reason to pay more, they won’t. Let’s apply this thinking to an example.

You’ve decided to invent something that will boost a car’s gas mileage. All else equal, this is a great market to invent for: lots of demand, hundreds of millions of potential customers with a very big itch to scratch. But if you’re not careful, you still run the risk of painting yourself into a “commodity corner.” You probably wouldn’t want to invent yet another bottled fuel additive that “erodes engine gunk to free up lost horsepower and gas mileage.”

Why not? Because 9 out of 10 people who know anything about cars know that those things don’t really work all that well. Plus, there are at least a half dozen different ones you could buy. Instead, you need to think about inventing something that solves this problem is a more clever and creative way. That’s why a very smart man invented something called the <a href=”http://www.tornadoair.com/HowItWorks.php”>Fuel Saving Tornado</a>. Unlike the many bottled products, the fuel saving tornado is a physical device that you strap onto your engine. It fits any gas-powered car or truck and claims to boost your gas mileage by 1-2MPG by making it easier for air to pass through to your engine.

There have been some disputes about how well this actually works, but that is irrelevant for our purposes. The point is whoever invented this product knew he couldn’t risk being seen as a commodity. So instead, he created something that solved a problem on a higher level. By doing this he carved out a totally new image and niche one the bottled fuel additive guys couldn’t hold a candle to.

The overall lesson here is to challenge yourself to think about your invention in a different way. Look at it through the eyes of your target market and strive to think of something that will intrigue them. Something they cannot easily associate with the other products claiming to solve the same problem yours does. Pull this off and you will stand a far greater chance of inventing success.

Eric Corl is the President of Idea Buyer LLC, a new product development company and the parent company of IdeaBuyer.com. IdeaBuyer.com is a marketplace for new technology and products that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers.

A new T-shirt designed by EU researchers could assist athlethers with the ability to improve their performance and prevent injury. As part of the ConText Project, a project with the mission of producing clothing to measure electrophysiological activity from the body, this shirt can send muscle movement information to a computer using sensors.

These disc-shaped sensors are 12 millimeters wide constructed of three conductive layers. Two layers are made of knitted polyamide fabric and silver-coated thread printed onto it just as a logo would be printed onto a shirt. These layers are the shield and the sensor. The third layer is made of polyurethane for insulation. 

Sensors measure the electrical activity produced from muscle contractions. The electrical field created by this movement generates a small charge built up in the sensor, as muscles contract. The signal is then amplified by a circuit board and sent to a computer wirelessly. The results can then be analyzed. 

One concern with these sensors was that there would be interference from other waves such as radio signals, or interference caused from a shirt. However, attaching these sensors directly to skin makes natural performance more difficult. This new prototype will eliminate that problem.

“The sensor can even measure the [muscles’] electric field through another T-shirt—it’s very unobtrusive,” says Torsten Linz, researcher from Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration and team member.

This is possible because the sensors pick up the electric displacement current using a capacitive coupling to the body. This means there is a transfer of energy through measuring the amount of electric charge stored or separated. As a result, the sensor shirt can be worn over clothing instead of being applied directly to the skin with liquid gel. 

The prototype for the body-sensing shirt was tested on hockey players. From the sensors, the players were able to see how they were using their various muscles and how to adjust their movements for accuracy. 

It could also be useful for other sports such as tennis and golf that require repetitive movements. The computer would show athletes exactly which muscles they were using for each specific movement. Players could improve on their techniques and modify how they use their strength to further improve their performance.

Eventually, the device could also be used in training to help prevent athletes from straining muscles, therefore preventing injury. The computer could display of muscles that are being used and overworked, allowing athletes to adjust motions to enhance performance quality.

 
Sarah Crowell is a staff writer for Idea Buyer LLC, a new product development company that owns and operates IdeaBuyer.com- The Online Marketplace for Intellectual Property. The site gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. Edited by Lindsey Yeauger, Director of Communication, Idea Buyer LLC.

While many late night television commercials would have you believe that priority one is getting a patent, this is far from the truth.  That type of message is more about boosting their sales than moving your invention closer to success.

 The cold truth is that several important questions must be answered before deciding whether a patent makes sense. Some inventors are ready to proceed, while a great many others would be wasting their time and money. Use this quick and dirty checklist to see where you stand and what (if anything) you need to do before setting your sights on a patent.

 1) Does anyone want your invention?

 World-class direct marketer John Carlton once said, “a lot of people want to sell something, but just because you like it, that doesn’t mean anybody else does.” In this case, what’s true of direct marketing is true of intellectual property. It should go without saying that you should only patent something people want, but it’s astounding how many patent applications are sent in before the inventor has really established any demand at all for what he created. Obviously, this is not a situation you want to find yourself in. If you haven’t done so already, do some market research before you even think about getting a patent. Do not proceed until you can answer the following questions:

1)   Who are my customers? (age, sex, income, etc.)

2)   Where are they and how can I reach them? (what magazines/newspapers do they read?)

3)   What quantity (and quality) do they want? (are there surveys that gather this data?)

4)   What is the best time to sell? (Seasonal, yearly, etc.)

2) Do you have a commercialization strategy in mind?

Once you have established a market for your invention, it’s time to consider how you will capitalize upon it. Believe it or not, there are actually several ways of commercializing a patented invention. The more lucrative but increasingly less pursued way to be the entreprenurial soldier who takes the invention from the drawing board to the consumer. Under this scenario you will be responsible for creating, pricing, packaging, mass producing and getting your invention into stores. While undertaking all of this yourself is difficult and risky, you also stand to rake in the lion’s share of the profits. Other ways of commercializing your invention include selling or licensing the patent to someone who will do all the things discussed above. In this arrangement, you will make less money in royalties but also invest less time and risk. No matter what you choose, you should decide on one strategy or another before diving headlong into the patenting process.

3) Do you have a prototype?

Despite one infomercial’s claim that “any idea, big or small, can make millions!”, you cannot actually patent an idea alone. Instead, the US Patent and Trademark office will seek an “identifiable embodiment” of your idea; ie, a prototype or at least the early workings of one. While this might seem like a hurdle, you should actually embrace it! See this as an opportunity to get a head start on actually creating your invention, of leaving your comfort zone and marching boldly toward the day you discover whether your idea is really feasible. This will give you an edge over many first-time inventors and take you one crucial step closer to obtaining patent protection.

4) Are you going for a provisional patent first?

Most, if not all, inventors should apply for a provisional patent before a non-provisional (real) patent. Very simply, a provisional patent is a cheaper and greatly simplified way to get patent protection for 12 months. If you have ever heard a product advertised as being “patent pending”, that’s because the company in question has a provisional patent. What this allows you as an inventor to do is “test the waters”, and determine whether the market for your invention is real before committing to the expensive, years long non-provisional patent process. Savvy inventors use this window for all it’s worth, and you should too! If and when you have the above three steps under your belt, move straight to getting a provisional patent.

If the infomercial or shiny pamphlets didn’t mention these things, it’s because they get paid whether patenting your invention helps you or not. For this reason, you should dismiss invention advice that seems exclusively obsessed with starting the patent process. Instead, ask yourself the hard questions above. When you can confidently answer them, you will know with far greater certainty that a patent will move you closer to commercializing your invention.

About the author of this article:

Eric Corl is the President of Idea Buyer LLC, a new product development company and the parent company of IdeaBuyer.com.  IdeaBuyer.com is a marketplace for new technology and products that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

If you do not want to go through all the time and hassle of bringing an idea to market yourself, there is an alternative: license your idea to a manufacturer. In doing this, you are granting someone else the right to create your idea and bring it to buyers via the marketplace. However, there are some important steps and considerations that you should keep in mind if you choose to do this. In this article, we will make you aware of them.

First, a few words about what it means to license an idea. Licensing an idea actually means licensing a patent, which protects your idea. If your idea is not patented already, you will want to apply for one. Luckily, there is a quicker way to do this than you probably think. That way is known as the “provisional patent.” It is when you file an application with the USPTO and get full patent rights for 12 months. During those 12 months, smart inventors will try to license their idea, sell it, or in some way see what the interest is. After those 12 months you will be required to forfeit patent rights or apply for a full patent. However, we will assume that you do have a patent or will have one soon. So what about licensing it?

Legally speaking, you have licensed your patent when you (the licensor) grant exploitation rights over your patent to a licensee (the person you are licensing it to.) In this case, the licensee is whichever manufacturer you have licensed your patent to. “Exploitation rights” simply means the right to create, market, and/or sell something based on what that patent protects. A patent license is also a legal contract, and that contract is what will spell out terms precisely which exploitation rights are being granted. These include any performance obligations the licensor might demand of the licensee. This means that if any performance obligations are included in the contract (ie, “You must produce X number of sales by the year X.”), and they are not met, this could lead to the license being terminated in its entirety.

If this sounds complicated, it can be, but it is actually quite simple. The biggest consideration is finding the right manufacturer to license your patent to. To do this, you should check resources like the Thomas Register to find manufacturers related to your idea. These are the people most likely to want to license it from you. There are other easy ways of finding manufacturers to license your idea to, as well. See our article “Researching Your Market Online” for more details. Once you have narrowed down a list of 10-20 relevant manufacturers, the next step is deciding on the terms of your license agreement.

As mentioned earlier, most license agreements include one or more performance obligations. These are simply requirements that the manufacturer (licensee) must fulfill in order to keep the license. If you have certain expectations that you want to enforce, such as X number of sales in the second year or a 4% profit margin, performance obligations is the way to enforce them. Of course, both parties will have to agree on the obligations before they become final. There is also the issue of royalty requirements, where you can specify that you must receive X dollars in royalties monthly, annually, or semi-annually to keep the license agreement alive. These are ways of ensuring that your own financial needs are met from licensing your idea to the manufacturer.

Making sure those needs are met is probably the biggest consideration of all. How much are you going to ask for in royalties? You cannot get greedy, but you must ensure that your costs are paid back and the money you get is worth your while. Tally up the money you have spent so far and keep the total in mind when setting royalty requirements.

Another consideration is the term of the agreement. Do you want a longer or shorter agreement? Well, that depends on your circumstances. Do you want to someday capitalize on this patent yourself? If so, you might opt for an agreement of 5 years or less. However, if you’re the kind of person who just wants to collect the royalty checks and move on to something else, a longer agreement might suit you best. The key is to choose the length consciously, based on your true needs and goals.

Of course, you should also use a patent attorney for the duration of this process. Licensing a patent is not something you should “wing it” with, as there are complex laws involved and severe penalties for breaking them. Additionally, a good patent attorney can also warn you if you are about to license your idea in a way that harms you. What if the manufacturer tries to get away with paying you a pathetically small sum in royalties? Situations like these are when it pays to have an attorney on your side, so don’t feel shy about spending the money to get one.

If you can keep these considerations in mind and the timing is right for your product in the market place, you will have a much better probability of profitably licensing your idea to a manufacturer.

Eric Corl is the President of Idea Buyer LLC, a new product development company that owns and operates IdeaBuyer.com- The Online Marketplace for Intellectual Property. The site gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

Earl Bennett of GT Seat Belt Extenders

Persistence, patience, and perspiration have paid off for long-time inventor, Earl Bennett in the form of his latest product, the GT Seat Belt Extender.

Bennett says his inspiration for inventing comes from Willy Wonka. “Wonka said inventing is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple. That’s 105% my way of thinking”.

After years of tinkering and inventing, Bennett has produced a product with mass appeal that is moving off the shelves - a seat belt extender. Bennett solved the problems that other similar products were having and built the first prototype in 2004.

Bennett’s seat belt extender initially caught the attention of an entrepreneur who backed the original order that is now being distributed through KOI Automotive, as well as directly to consumers on gtseatbeltextender.com.

While the product’s original purpose was to eliminate size and shape discrimination of people, it has caught the attention of police officers and firefighters who have began buying them by the case. These professionals are a large contribution to the already 70,000 in circulation.

The high response KOI has received about Bennett’s product has forced the company to hire a full-time employee to focus solely on the GT Seat Belt Extender.

With another order for 40,000 units in place, Bennett’s infomercial below has begun airing on Spike TV and Lifetime Television in test markets in preparation for national airing.

Click Play to view the commercial:

Sales are expected at more than 10 million units next year, leaving Bennett with a pleasing return well over 100%.However, Bennett doesn’t plan on stopping. “Right now I’m publishing a book - The Legend of Bucky the Beaver. It’s an inspirational book for children that teaches them never to give up.”Bennett’s advice for inventors is the same as it is for children in his new book, “If you have something that you believe in, then take it all the way.”

You can order a seat belt extender at gtseatbeltextender.com. Investors are also encouraged to contact Bennett if they are interested in future projects.

His contact information is available upon written request to info@ideabuyer.com.

Written by Lindsey Yeauger, Director of Communications, Idea Buyer, LLC.
IdeaBuyer.com- The Online Marketplace to license and sell patents and ideas.
IdeaBuyer.com/news – Patent Licensing and Sale Tips

Creating and licensing an invention is a quest that many inventors embark upon, but few actually succeed at. In large part, this is due to the amount of misinformation and general ignorance to the crucial steps involved. Luckily, this is not a fate that inventors are doomed to. With some research and diligence, you can create and license a patent in 10 relatively straight forward steps. This article will lay them out for you in order.

1)      Think of an idea

The first step to creating and licensing an invention is to think of an idea for something you will get a patent for. The goal is to think of something that solves a pressing problem in a way you can commercialize. A new kind of accounting software, bicycle tires, or alternative energy devices are all examples of new ideas that could, potentially, be patented.

2)      Flesh out your idea

Before you go through the steps of patenting your idea, you want to flesh it out a bit further. Is there really a demand for it? Who will your target market be? Are there any similar or competing products you have to worry about? What will your costs be like? If you find yourself stumbling over these questions instead of being able to answer them, go back to the drawing board. Once you have an idea you can realistically see yourself bringing to life, you’ll want to….

3)      Create a prototype

Now you are ready to create a proof of concept, or a prototype of your idea. This is simply an early stage model of your idea as you see it functioning down the road. It makes sense to do this because you will learn from it, and because your patent application will benefit from having a working model to include in the claims.

4)      File for a provisional patent

Ever see “Patent Pending” on a commercial or product package? That product was covered by a provisional patent, which is, in layman’s terms, a way to obtain patent protection inexpensively for 12 months. This allows you to see if there is any interest in your product before investing hundreds of dollars and waiting years for an actual patent to be approved. In the meantime, you have the status of patent pending for those 12 months.

5)      Survey the market for people who might want to license your patent

With a provisional patent in hand, you will want to begin looking around for a bigger or wealthier company who might want to license your patent from you. Think in terms of companies who do something similar to what you have patented. Then, narrow down a list of 5-10 companies that you will focus the bulk of your efforts on.

6)      Get an appointment with these companies

Once you know which companies you want to target, you want to get appointments to talk with them. The key here is to introduce yourself as a Product Developer, not a mere inventor. This will exude an air of professionalism that established companies like to see, and it will boost your chances of scoring that critical interview.  If this isn’t your strong suit, you may choose to have someone represent you.

7)      Seek legal advice on patent licensing

Once you have a meeting secured, you will want to seek the help of a competent patent attorney. While this could be expensive, it is well worth the money you will spend. Patent licensing laws are complex, and it is not something you should just rush into without doing any homework on the subject. A good patent lawyer will explain the options for licensing your patent in layman’s terms so you can see the pros and cons and evaluate them against your own needs.

8)      Prepare a presentation for the companies you meet with

Once you have decided on how you would, ideally, like to license your patent, you should prepare a presentation in anticipation for your meetings. This presentation should emphasize the benefits of owning your patent. What is the size of the market? Is the market growing? Are you the first to market? (Or will you be?) How long will it take to bring this idea to life? Appealing yet honest answers to these questions will entice companies to license your patent from you. Again, if this isn’t your strong suit – you may wish to have someone represent you.

9)      Follow up after the meeting

Few meetings will result in a company instantly deciding to license your patent. More likely, they will take a few days to consult amongst themselves about how to proceed. The key as far as you are concerned is to stay on them and follow up in the days after the meeting. Be respectful, but certainly call back and ask them where they are in the decision making process. This keeps the onus on them to make a decision and tell you what it is.

10)  Close the deal

You may need to give a little last minute “push” to get the deal done. This could take the form of a second meeting, conference call, or last-minute questioning by the company or individual in question. The key here is to keep your cool. Emphasize why this is a good deal for all parties involved and respond to their questions or concerns in a direct way.

Follow these 10 steps, and you will be well on your way to creating and licensing an invention.

 Eric Corl is the President of Idea Buyer LLC, a new product development company that owns and operates IdeaBuyer.com- The Online Marketplace for Intellectual Property.  The site gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

These words are easy to say, but not always so easy to do. Nowhere is this truer than in your fight to invent something new or grow a prevailing business. As you strive to bring your vision to life, you will face countless obstacles and barriers to success. These obstacles can take on many different shapes and forms. Whether it is someone stealing your ideas, business partners flaking out, or even loved ones leaving you behind, the life of a creator is an ongoing test of wills. Can you learn to see the beauty in struggle and persist toward the life you desire?

The world of literature offers an inspiring example of what this attitude means in practice. In the groundbreaking novel “The Fountainhead”, readers meet an architect named Howard Roark. A few years into his career, Roark is alone, struggling financially, and consigned to working in an obscure rock quarry while his corrupt colleague basks in fame and prestigious assignments. While these circumstances are enough to reduce anyone to hopelessness and despair, Roark heroically refuses to give up. His reason?

“Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing with their own vision. The great creators – the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors, stood alone against the main of their time. Every new thought was opposed, every new invention was denounced. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid – but they won.”

By staying true to his vision, Roark persisted through his temporary hardships and ultimately triumphed in his chosen field. If you want to keep going, you need to become a man of unborrowed vision yourself.  But how can you do what Roark did? It’s one thing for a fictional character to inspire us to great things. It is another for a real flesh-and-blood person to actually do so. Fortunately, history is filled with strong-willed men and women who have done just that. Their larger-than-life stories offer us both wisdom and encouragement to keep going when we know that we should.

One of the most inspiring stories of all belongs to Steve Jobs. Most of us know Jobs as the high-flying founder of Apple, the man who brought us the iPod, iMac, and every movie to come out of Pixar’s studios. But in 1986, Jobs was anything but. Exiled from the company he started, Jobs found himself alone and for the first time in his life, without a purpose. Jobs offers a rare personal glimpse into this dark period of his life in a commencement speech he gave at Stanford University in 2005.

“I was lucky; I found what I wanted to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had gone from just the two of us in a garage, into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.”

If we stop the story there, many of us would envy Jobs. How many people can say that they found the work they love and achieved that type of success at such a young age? However, the story does not end there. Jobs continues:

“And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me. And for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually, we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him. And so at 30 I was out – and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I didn’t really know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with the board and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the valley.”

Here, we see Jobs at rock-bottom. The fruit of a life’s labor gone in the blink of an eye. A gaping void where a beaming pride and sense of direction once was. Against such crushing odds, a lesser person might have simply given up and resigned to failure. Not Jobs.

“But something slowly began to dawn on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I’d been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next 5 years I started a company named NeXt, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXt, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXt is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laureen and I have a wonderful family together.

Sometime’s life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

SRC: http://youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Like Roark, Jobs was a man of unborrowed vision. Cast off from all of his material success and legacy, he retained what no outside force could take away: his intransigent love of what he did. There is a lesson here that every person should learn. It is not your social status, possessions, or professional ability that makes you who you are. They are important, but they are only effects, not causes. They are the just rewards of an attitude, of the refusal to let any hardship tame the fire of your passion and hold you down.

So, if you find yourself staring down impossible odds, keep going. Don’t give up.

  Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, the online marketplace for intellectual property that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

Read about any successful inventor or businessman and you will inevitably notice something: a habit of decisiveness in all that they do. What is decisiveness, exactly? It is a word we often hear, but rarely define.  In simplest terms, decisiveness is accepting the fact that you are in control of your own life. It is the methodical, systematic effort to determine the best course of action and then carry it out. Put negatively: it is the refusal to let the random gyrations of society, chance, and whim set your course. Psychologist Michael J. Hurd sums up decisiveness as “trusting and acting on the conclusions of one’s mind.”

Obviously, decisiveness is a quality inventors stand to benefit from enormously. So how can you develop this habit in your own life? Hurd offers some practical tips on being decisive in his article, “What Should I Do?”

When stuck with the question, “What should I do?” don’t stay stuck. Don’t fall prey to the temptation to blindly asking someone else what you should do. Instead, ask yourself – and answer – the following questions:

What are my options in this situation? (If there is only one option, your question is already answered. If there are two or more options, then proceed to the next question).

What are the likely immediate and longer-term consequences of each option? (Make a list of each set of consequences and confine the lists to one page).

Which options are the most desirable and the least desirable, and why?

What is my final choice? (If you cannot answer this yet, then first develop the top 2 or 3 finalists. Then go to a final judgment).

Questions like these will become invaluable guides to action, as inventors face decisions all the time. Which supplier should I use? Do I believe this cost is legitimate? Is this deadline realistic? Do I have too much on my plate? Questions like this crop up all the time, and successful inventors are the ones who are comfortable answering them.

Of course, it will be far easier to ask yourself those questions if you accept that you are the author of your own destiny. As appealing as this sounds, few of us ever fully accept what it means in practice. Hurd elaborates more on this helpful point, which is essential to creating a lifelong habit of decisiveness:

“This exercise is an example of using your own rational judgment instead of letting others tell you what to do. It’s the alternative to both do-as-I-say dogmatism and do-as-I-feel subjectivism. It’s called being objective. Some don’t like the idea of objectivity because it seems too cold or harsh; others feel it’s too hard, or too much work. What’s the alternative? Self-defeating impulsivity? Doing what a dictator tells you to do? Praying to the skies and hoping for an answer in code? Get real!”

If you work at it, you can stop yourself as you are about to fall into these traps. Do you find yourself thinking “Ahh, I can’t be bothered with this now; I’ll cross the bridge when I get to it.” Or how about, “I know this is important, but it’s just such a big decision that little old me can’t possibly decide it.” If you think these thoughts, drop what you are doing and change them. Successful inventors cross bridges miles ahead of them in their own minds and are better off for doing so. They do this by asking themselves, “If I don’t decide, who will?”

So, instead of succumbing to those passive thoughts and letting them move you, take a different approach. Will yourself to sit down and consciously decide the pressing questions before you. If you need to write a business plan, don’t think “oh my God, this is such an important task that the slightest little error will screw it up. I might as well not even try.” Instead, put on a pot of coffee, sit back, and do some research. Read a few sample business plans. Get some expert advice. And then, sit down and write one. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, and you can certainly go back and edit. The important point is that by doing this, you have made the decision to move forward. You have gone from thinking to doing.

This same thinking applies to any decision you face. Instead of getting stuck in analysis-paralysis, calmly think about what this decision requires of you. One way of staying calm is to remind yourself that no matter what you are doing, someone, somewhere, has done it before. It may be challenging, but it is doable. You can also save yourself a lot of mental anxiety by asking, “Where do I start?” Once you figure this out, the rest tends to unfold naturally.

Above all, keep your cool and always remember that you are in charge. If you resolve to make this a part of your outlook, it is almost impossible to fail.

 Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, the online marketplace for intellectual property that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him at EricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com.

Most inventors are tough-minded people who thrive on ingenuity and a willingness to experiment. However, inventors need to be on the lookout for an insidious beast, an attitude hell-bent on robbing you of your fire and ambition: Inventor Baby Syndrome. If you permit yourself to succumb to its progress-sucking powers, you will experience roadblocks in your quest to bring an invention to market. So what is Inventor Baby Syndrome? Before attempting a full diagnosis, here are some symptoms:

1)      Refusal to adjust your original idea in any way, shape, or form.

One thing that victims of Inventor Baby Syndrome have trouble grasping is that the idea is less important than execution; ie, less important than the problem you are trying to solve. Venture capitalist Paul Graham discusses this in an article relating to startups:

“In some fields the way to succeed is to have a vision of what you want to achieve, and to hold true to it no matter what setbacks you encounter. Starting startups is not one of them. The stick-to-your-vision approach works for something like winning an Olympic gold medal, where the problem is well-defined. Startups are more like science, where you need to follow the trail wherever it leads.”

Replace the word “startups” with “inventions”, and you will understand the point being made. Clinging to your original conceptions in the face of rational evidence that you should make changes is a disastrous policy. Be careful though! Rushing to start over all the time is another symptom of Inventor Baby Syndrome.

SRC: http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

2)      Constantly scrapping your progress and starting over.

In the same article, Graham cautions against the opposite problem: starting over too frequently!

You have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea.

“But openness to new ideas has to be tuned just right. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal. Is there some kind of external test you can use? One is to ask whether the ideas represent some kind of progression. If in each new idea you’re able to re-use most of what you built for the previous ones, then you’re probably in a process that converges. Whereas if you keep restarting from scratch, that’s a bad sign.”

This is an Inventor Baby Syndrome symptom because it’s just a way for you to put off that fateful day when the market decides if your invention will fly. By endlessly starting over, you never finish. It seems obvious enough, but this is a surprisingly common problem.

3)      Refusing to partner with anyone or disclose anything

Perhaps the most common symptom of Inventor Baby Syndrome is guarding your idea with such jealous hostility that you turn away perfectly harmless people who just want to help. The obvious downfall of this is that depriving yourself of partnerships and assistance makes the road to selling your product much more challenging. If you need a database programmer, you should hire one. Make him sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and swear him to secrecy, but hire one! This is often the only way to get your invention to market. Trying to carry the whole operation on your shoulders will only lead to an overstressed life, not runaway success.

If you do any of these things, you are afflicted with Inventor Baby Syndrome. It is a harsh name, but an accurate description. Inventing something and convincing people to buy it is hard work, and anyone who tells you differently is lying, naïve, or both.

If you want to throw this success-stealing monkey off your back and face the challenges ahead with open eyes, there is a cure: a rational, reality-based approach to inventing. To achieve it, you need to confront and fully accept some basic facts about what you are doing.

The first fact is that people don’t buy inventions because they’re really cool ideas. They don’t walk into Wal-Mart or Home Depot, pause, imagine all the painstaking work that went into making the product or how unprecedented it is and then, in a rush of inspiration, decide to buy it. Rather, they buy things that they believe will solve some pressing need that they have. That is why you should not cling to your original idea at all costs. Instead, hold true to your vision, but make changes if reason and logic tell you that you should.

The second fact is that constantly starting over is just a defense mechanism to shield you from the pain of possible failure. “What if no one buys the product?” you might subconsciously wonder. Well, that is eminently possible. But what is the alternative? Giving up and living the 9-5 grind that helped drive you to invent something in the first place? Instead, adopt a mindset of optimistic realism. “Yes, failure is possible, but I am confident in my ability and the value of my invention. I am going to persist as though I will succeed until actual evidence makes me think I wont.”

The third fact is that, to be totally honest, most people do not care about your idea. Yes, you should take reasonable precautions like NDAs. But in all actuality, there are not swarms of people just dying to steal your idea. Most people will not drop everything they are doing to pursue an idea they just heard of. For the most part, this will not happen and you should not let it dominate your thoughts.

Above all, keep the end in mind: getting that product to market. If what you are doing is inhibiting the process then stop doing it and start making new decisions. You have to have sensory accuity and figure out what is working and what is not. Don’t expect the market to suddenly change it’s response to your product. You must grow and adapt to meet the markets demands.