Whether you’re a creator or a connector, these ideas do not have to be mind-blowing. They don’t have to change the world. No reinventing the wheel here. Companies can make huge gains from small, incremental changes and from slight improvements to existing products.
Stephen Key is the leading expert on licensing products for passive income. He writes extensively about open innovation, product development, marketing, using intellectual property to profit, and licensing contract negotiation strategy online and in print. After licensing dozens of his simple ideas to powerful companies for several decades, he now mentors and coaches thousands of other entrepreneurs as a cofounder of inventRight. Catch him live! Stephen travels across the United States and the globe to teach inventors, entrepreneurs, product designers, engineers, startups, and national governments alike how to bring their ideas to market with less risk and more success.
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Stephen worked at Worlds of Wonder on Laser Tag and Teddy Ruxpin
Leverage big companies to bring your ideas to the world
Figure out your last paycheck. If you are happy with that humber. If you aren’t, how can you create wealth that doesn’t have a ceiling.
How many businesses can you start? Licensing is where you are lending an idea to another company. When they sell it, they pay you a royalty. You leverage their connections and their speed to get to market.
You don’t have to quit your day job and still do this creative endeavor.
Michael Jordan Wall Ball (hoop hoop hurray) sold for ten years.
Show someone a 1 page ad and see what people think.
For $200 you can be in the game with a sales sheet and provisional patient.
Companies don’t steal ideas. They want new ideas.
Benefits are different than features. Sell the benefit first.
For example, imagine your idea is a new hammer with a softer handle and large head. Those are features.
The benefit of this product is that you can work longer, get job faster and make more money with this hammer that has a soft handle and a large head.
This needs to be 1 sentence long.
Another example is the iPod: 1000 songs in your pocket.
How do you get a benefit statement? Talk to someone about it and that benefit will come out. Look for them to answer the question, “how will my life be better?”
You can also look at what other companies are doing (their fonts, colors, images).
Amazon is a great place to look for complaints in reviews.
Make a 1 page ad that the company then can use to sell the product after you are working together.
Make small improvement to an existing market.
3 steps: 1) cave a sales sheet, 2) write a provisional patent for 1 year – $65, 3) contact a great company.
You don’t need a long track record or relationships. You are only as good as the product you are showing today.
If you don’t do anything you will see your idea out there.
All your ideas won’t be great. You need lousy ideas and then something will jump out at you.
Impact is a chain reaction. You never know what will happen or where it will come back to you.
Stephen’s mission: help someone regardless of what it takes to be successful.
What is not going to change in the next 10 years? Consumers appetite and desire for something new.
Every product doesn’t need to be a business. Licensing can unlock creativity and get an idea to market differently.
Stephen suggests every ask another person, “What do you think they need?” Then come back to them with solutions.
Challenge: Call a company you don’t want to submit an idea to and ask them the process: “I want to submit an idea. How can I do that?.”
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