It was great fun today with Tony Johnston at Radio ABC in the News South Wales Northern Rivers. His blog can be seen here. I spoke to him a few weeks back when he was following up on the Judges reversal of the $388 million USD jury verdict in favor of a company I founded (Uniloc).
Before talking to people on the phone Tony asked for some good advice for inventors. What came out of that was the following:
The Esky light kid: Now that I've had a little time to work out the benefits of a light in an Esky I think I know where the 16 year old was coming from. I can see him now on a beach with his mates... an esky with some food and drinks and then "total darkness". A light in the Esky makes perfect sense... soooo.... I reckon a little solar-powered-calculator type solar panel on the lid of the Esky with a contact that goes thru the lid to a connector at the top of a little light that sits just under the lid in side the esky and automatically clicks on if the led is removed and there is no light (ie daylight present). There you go.. now the idea is making sense...
Street Drain filter guru: A filter that fits over street drains and can stop cigarette butts and makes it easy for rubbish to be collected during street cleaning is a great idea. Hope this works for you mate... one thing to think about... someone else has sold to most Australia's councils... probably selling something very similar to your product in many ways... if ou can find that guy or company you have an ally that knows how to make things happen and can use his existing knowledge to give you the momentum you need. I'd search the internet for companies that have been successful selling street sweeping equipment or drain clearing services... there has to be a symbiotic opportunity there somewhere....
Joice? I think a lady named Joice asked about schools or unis that may take peoples ideas and develop them... well I was surprised to have a Uni approach me just recently for an opportunity to evaluate some inventions for development... so it does happen... my best support can be given by setting up a site which I am building called Patentmachine.net (the name may change) but the idea is to document inventions, nurture the patent writing process then showcase the inventions to allow entrepreneurs and business builders to see if there are opportunities of mututal benefit and to see good inventions get off the ground....
It was meant to be a 20min show and turned into 45mins... real fun and I hope Tony has me back.
Before talking to people on the phone Tony asked for some good advice for inventors. What came out of that was the following:
- Have a go at patenting yourself (ie filing a provisional patent) to get yourself protected while you work out if your invention has legs or not. The book I recommend is called "Patent Pending in 24 hours" and can be purchased from Amazon or downloaded from NOLO press as an e-book if you wasn't to get going ASAP. Advice on how to use the book can be read about here.
- Find someone to compliment your weaknesses... if you are great at inventing but cant do sales or cant do business, then build a team that can.. share the equity with them...
- Every invention should have a business plan that spells out the financial benefit for the end user and the ultimate buyer of the invention be it a start-up company, a corporation or a government department. How much is saved by using your invention? Help people work out how it benefits them besides the fact that "it may be a cool idea".
The Esky light kid: Now that I've had a little time to work out the benefits of a light in an Esky I think I know where the 16 year old was coming from. I can see him now on a beach with his mates... an esky with some food and drinks and then "total darkness". A light in the Esky makes perfect sense... soooo.... I reckon a little solar-powered-calculator type solar panel on the lid of the Esky with a contact that goes thru the lid to a connector at the top of a little light that sits just under the lid in side the esky and automatically clicks on if the led is removed and there is no light (ie daylight present). There you go.. now the idea is making sense...
Street Drain filter guru: A filter that fits over street drains and can stop cigarette butts and makes it easy for rubbish to be collected during street cleaning is a great idea. Hope this works for you mate... one thing to think about... someone else has sold to most Australia's councils... probably selling something very similar to your product in many ways... if ou can find that guy or company you have an ally that knows how to make things happen and can use his existing knowledge to give you the momentum you need. I'd search the internet for companies that have been successful selling street sweeping equipment or drain clearing services... there has to be a symbiotic opportunity there somewhere....
Joice? I think a lady named Joice asked about schools or unis that may take peoples ideas and develop them... well I was surprised to have a Uni approach me just recently for an opportunity to evaluate some inventions for development... so it does happen... my best support can be given by setting up a site which I am building called Patentmachine.net (the name may change) but the idea is to document inventions, nurture the patent writing process then showcase the inventions to allow entrepreneurs and business builders to see if there are opportunities of mututal benefit and to see good inventions get off the ground....
It was meant to be a 20min show and turned into 45mins... real fun and I hope Tony has me back.
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