Questions?—Or Lazy BEGGING?

The following "beg" letters are a one week sample and are typical of what I and others who try to help wannabe inventors are inundated with. I have included responses that I never bothered to send. Instead I sent a pointed response that suggested some appropriate reading material.

The [] symbols replace the real names. My answers are bolded.

Subject: In need of advice....
Date: Saturday, December 18, 1999 5:26 PM

Hi...my name is C[] and i am 17 from South Florida.  I have this great 
idea for an invention, but im not in the money range to get jump started, and 
i dont have any clue as to where to start.  I've kind of mentioned it to 
people and i get pretty good responses as to my idea.  So, if you could help 
me out id greatly appreciate it.  Thank you...C[]

Ask around and get some baby sitting jobs and earn the money to buy the book "Will It Sell?..." (Or you could tap dear old Dad.) While you are earning the money to buy the book spend some time reading the FREE EXCERPTS on the web site. Also study some of the information at web sites to which links are provided. Start with STEP 0, it's FREE (that's just a clue, you'll have to ferret out what STEP 0 is). Also learn how to capitalize your I's. Using good grammar and following the rules of English help demonstrate a professional approach to success.

Subject: I have a question???
Date: Sunday, December 19, 1999 12:11 AM

Dear Mr. White,
    I am 14 and I am working on an invention in my spare time.  How can I get 
a patent even though I am 14???
From,
D[] S[]

You get a patent just like most everyone else, you earn the money and pay a patent attorney or agent to prepare, file, and prosecute your application. Or you learn what you need to know and file the application yourself. At 14 I detasseled corn, walked beans, baled hay, and did other paying work. You can too, even with city jobs rather than country jobs like mine. You should also READ the FREE EXCERPTS from the book to discover that getting a patent is THE LAST THING YOU NEED TO DO at this point in your "spare time" invention "work."

Subject: Have an idea!!
Date: Sunday, December 19, 1999 11:52 PM

I just thought of this great new product
for the market.  The only problem is
that I need a company to buy my idea.
No patent on this new invention.  I just
know it will be  needed greatly once
submitted to the public.  My question to
you is,  how can I find someone to buy
my idea?  Can this happen?  Do companies
buy ideas from inventors?  Or would I
have to patent my idea first then sell?
Please help!  Look forward to hearing
from you soon.   Does it work like a
contact type thing?  For instances the
profit made would be split. On the terms
of contact agreement made.  Money
wise.    Thank you for time.  []

Congratulations. Yes companies occasionally buy ideas. But it is usually only when a proper business case is presented to them and you have some evidence that there can be some intellectual property protection for them. All of this is thoroughly covered in the book. Order your copy today. Also start working to dramatically improve your English communication skills--it will be well worth it.

Subject: idea
Date: Monday, December 20, 1999 4:14 AM

Dear Sir,                                                                     
                                            
             I have an idea for lets say a type of cookware have never seen 
it on the market. During cooking making a certain dish in which i get very 
mad at the outcome. So i say to myself if someone would make something for 
this product i'm cooking it would be so easy and not so messy. Then i say to 
myself i have this idea in my head. So i want to know how i can go about 
this. First find out if said product is on the market but to do that i would 
have so say what my idea was.Well i'm not stupid but how can i find out and 
protect myself at the same time. I'm a plain old housewife with an idea, plus 
we live month to month. Please would you give me some input on this .         
                         Sincerely, R[] W[]       

Congratulations on your idea. You are absolutely correct that you need to go look for it on the market already. But you should also look for competing solutions whether they are on the market or can accomplish the same goal without buying a special product. I don't understand why you have to say what your idea is to check out the market, that makes no sense. All you need to do is divulge the problem you think you've solved and store clerks will be happy to tell you what is available. I'm not sure if you are "stupid" or not but I do know that you haven't read the FREE information about non-disclosure agreements available on my web site. There is also no law that requires you to be a "plain old housewife," get going and transform yourself into something else.

Subject: Question
Date: Monday, December 20, 1999 11:40 AM

Dear James,
It is a great fortune to read your book in the net. It is exactly what I 
want. I have just invented an instrument to examine the voice box and I have 
filed it to US Patent Office. I am about to make a market search. Do you 
have any idea how should I proceed? Also I have a question in mind which 
have troubled me quite a period of time. Should I start my own business from 
scratch or trying to sell my idea to the current manufacturers(eg. company 
selling medical product)? I would be greatly appreciated if you can 
enlighten me on this matter. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your kind words about my book. I do have a question though. If it's "exactly what you want" then why didn't you order a copy? Even if it turns out it's not got the information you need you can still get your money back. I hope you are a foreign medical doctor with extensive experience studying the human voice-box (but minimal education in English) so that you truly understand what is needed. Cutting up 20 or 30 cadavers to thoroughly study the larynx would give me the willies. I'd be pretty nervous about poking around in live human throats too. I congratulate you on your nerve.

You are very right to look at the market but I would think that a doctor with your experience would already have pretty good knowledge of what is available before wasting time inventing something new? I am highly in favor of the approach of starting your own business to make and sell your invention whether you have much time to devote to it or not. What you don't have time to do, pay someone else to do. You don't need to build a factory to be a manufacturer, you can subcontract the actual manufacturing out (and sometimes even the selling) and thereby reap far greater rewards than if you turned your patent over to someone else to take the risks on. That is all covered in the book even if it didn't make it into the excerpts on the web pages.

Subject: (no subject)
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 8:18 PM

Is it a good idea to send your invention to a place that does alot of the leg 
work for you, and you split the proceeds with them? I don't know if I have 
the drive to go to all that trouble. If there is a company you can trust to 
not steal a idea form you? I get good ideas all the time but I loose the 
enthusiasm to follow through. Please e me if you can help. Thanks, G[]

It is almost NEVER "a good idea to send your invention to a place that does a lot of the leg work for you." This is especially true since you don't know how to write and are therefore unlikely to be able to write ironclad contracts that guarantee you'll get what you think you are paying for. I suspect that you are toying with paying some "service" that already has a contract for you to sign that essentially says they will provide their "best effort" at whatever they say they will do. Until you develop some gumption and a spine I wish you the best of luck, you'll need it. After that, look out world.

P.S. If you had looked at my site you would have discovered that I don't work for free. Please remit $100 ASAP for this professional advice.

Subject: (no subject)
Date: Thursday, December 23, 1999 9:56 PM

IF I WERE TO GIVE YOU THE INFORMATION TO PROCEED WITH A SEARCH AND MARKETING 
ANALYSIS WOULD YOU CONSIDER  50% / 50% PARTNERS ON  A  INVENTION OF MINE  . 
I'VE BEEN RIPPED -OFF BEFORE AND IDEAS TO THE PROTO TYPES TO ME ARE SIMPLE.  
I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A  BACKER  AND  THEY ARE JUST NOT OUT THERE.  TAKE A 
CHANCE  I'M  FOR REAL . WHY HAVE YOU JUST SETTLED FOR  LEGAL SUPPORT. PEOPLE 
GET RICH EVERY DAY BUT HOW?  I HAVE THE IDEAS!

No way! I wouldn't even consider taking all the risks and doing all the work and GIVING you 50% of the profits. If you pay me to do some preliminary marketability analysis for your specific idea, and I like it (and you), then I might consider some kind of a split with you. The web site and the book give you several options when you are ready to do business. I'm not too sorry to hear you've been ripped-off before but if you will tell me exactly what product idea that was, who ripped you off, and what documentation you can provide that makes your case I will be glad to put you in touch with one or more good IP attorneys that take contingency cases. I want 20% of the recovery for my intermediary services though so I hope that is acceptable to you. I am, BTW, glad to hear you are fairly normal like the rest of us and have such an easy time with ideas and prototypes. When I first got your post I was afraid you might be some kind of freak genius that blipped right through the hard parts of development, production, distribution, and marketing.

I simply cannot understand why your INFORMATIONLESS SHOUTING hasn't procured you a sucker yet. Oops, I meant a backer. THOSE DAMN CADS ANYWAY!! I'm sure you are for real but I'm not sure how you determined I've "just settled for legal support" when both my book and web site make it clear I am not an attorney, just an inventor, marketer, and author. (That couldn't have been a SPAM e-mail you sent, could it? Nah!! No "inventor" is that dumb AND lazy.)

An author, incidentally, who just spent 15 months doing his homework to find out how to best work the invention process to be a success and then was kind enough to write the results of that more than $200,000 worth of hours of labor up in a 300 plus page book and offer it to you with a full money-back guarantee for a mere $24.95 (plus shipping). Sure I'll have to sell a lot of books to pay for that time but I plan to make far more than that on just one invention that follows the rules of the many successful inventions and inventors I researched and interviewed. Meanwhile I expect you'll still be begging.

Usually people that get and stay rich EARN it (if they win the lottery they just fritter it away). You can EARN your riches too--that's just some arbitrary advice but I've met quite a few nice people it worked for so it might be worth a shot. Good luck with your ideas, right now I happen to have too many of my one mediocre ones that I get to keep 100% on so I can't take the time to consider your great ones that will only give me 50% for doing all the work and taking all the risk. Sorry!:-)

Jim

The above "example individualized" responses were never sent, they are simply being provided to help you see what your request typically looks like and what a reasonable response to it might be. Yes, this page and the other free pages at this and my other free sites and all the links really are FREE help for the thousands of idea people just like you.