My Letter to an Inventor Wanting Me to Help Market his Invention

In the 1990s, I successfully marketed several outdoors sports products. Recently, I was considering going into inventor consultation for a small fee but after careful consideration, I decided not to follow through with this business. Below is a letter I sent to an inventor wanting my consultation help, in which I explained to him the difficulties involved and why I had decided not to go into that business.

Dear Inventor,

First, I want to let you know I put real thought and consideration into breaking into consulting for inventors and I've decided I'm not going to do it. I am however pasting an extremely helpful link below. This webpage gives the best rundown of the process an inventor needs to take, plus the needed warnings and realistic expectations etc...

Since you explained to me your concern about someone ripping you off (it's a good fear to have), let me tell you a story that will help you see my view as well in being reluctant to work with inventors and also why I had such a set method described when I posted the service I was wanting to do a trial of, on that inventor website.

In the 1990s, I had several inventors contact me, wanting me to help them with getting their inventions marketed, after seeing my outdoors products on the market, in stores like Wal-Mart and Bass Pro Shops. I did not advertise wanting to help anyone, they simply saw ads in different catalogs and magazines, that featured my products and found my contact info. One of these guys had a fish measuring device an adhesive ruler you stick on your fishing rod and you could then hold fish against it to measure them, without having to retrieve another item from your tackle box. I agreed to help him for a percentage on sales and I immediately got him into the Academy Stores chain (60 stores). In the mean time, I was submitting his invention to other outlets and my phone expense built into the 100s of dollars. My time spent was considerable and I believe I received a total of $80.00 because he at one point decided my cut (5% if I remember correctly), was cutting too much into his profit. That's gratitude for getting him into a large chain!

Another man in Arkansas invented a deer lure he contacted me wanting help with. Again, my expenses built up to 100s of dollars and he decided he wanted to drop the invention because he didn't have the money to invest into the development of it, packaging, materials to manufacture it etc..., so he dropped it and left me with my expenses.

This is why I decided to have a set way to consult with inventors but just yesterday I've decided I'm not going to follow through with it and will not be considering doing it again in the future. I had the fee set extremely low on the consulting I was considering doing, for reasons ($75.00). My reason first was to not add much expense to an already struggling inventor and second, so that my help was greatly more cost-effective than that of an invention company, who will charge clients in the 1,000s of dollars. My suspicion after laying out the plan to be a consultant to inventors was that inventors, who contracted with me, will go outside of the detailed, contract list of what I'm able to do and expect a great deal more, despite the very low fee and the time I'm able to commit for the low compensation.

Just one more bit of advice I would give. While invention info-sources warn about invention theft, this is more-so of a blanket type warning because the fact is, companies do not steal unproven ideas, unless they are in that extremely small percent of obvious breakthrough type ideas. Most inventions would not impress a company, even if an angel appeared and handed it to them. A product has to be developed, packaged and proven before a company will even think about stealing it most of the time and a simple $100.00 Provisional Patent (one-year term) can solve that worry. I you do however apply for a Provisional Patent and at the end of the one-year term, find out that you can't follow through with a longer term patent because there's already one applied for by someone else with very similar invention, your marketing has to stop right there or you risk infringement on a patented or patent-pending invention. This is why a Patent search needs done first. Most inventors will believe there is not a similar product patent-applied for already simply because they don't see it on the market however, there could easily be a patent applied for but the invention just hasn't been launched onto the market yet. Even then, some inventors believe a patent alone will automatically bring success to their invention and after getting one, they never get the invention off the ground. A company who steals an un-patented invention will have to through the same expense and process the inventor would to get a product marketed and the vast majority of the time, un-patented products they come across are simply not worth the effort and expense.

These facts sound like a bummer I know but they are harsh realities and the real bottom line is a thing called ambition. This little commodity can over-ride all of the obstacles and I know this from experience. Even after I patented my main invention, the fishing Rod Floater, I could have easily given up for the very reasons I state above because the patent did not automatically make companies chase after us to get the product. It still took resolute ambition and determination to not give up, to see success with the product.

Here is that link to the webpage that I thought offered really great advice to inventors and no, I am in no way affiliated with them, just wanted to share a great source.

I offer sincere wishes to you for success with your invention!

That link>> http://www.virtualpet.com/invention/inventionprocess.htm

Sincerely,

Jim Lowrance