Are you employed, but looking for other sources of income? Licensing is a great side business for people with product ideas because it’s low risk and doesn’t demand a lot of investment. You don’t have to quit your day job or raise capital to successfully license a product idea to a Fortune 500 company. My book, One Simple Idea, teaches you the ten steps to licensing your product idea.
Why does licensing make sense today? Thousands of companies are seeking outside innovations with increasing fervor, recognizing that they don’t have a monopoly on intelligent and creative people. At the same time, it’s widely recognized that products that reach the market shelf first are the most successful. Speed to market is crucial. When you rent your idea to a company that has established shelf space and a means of getting products there, your idea is going to have the greatest chance of success. And finally, I argue that the traditional method of bringing a product to market — patenting the idea before ever showing it to a potential licensee — is outdated and inefficient. You could wait up to four years for your patent to be issued. But fortunately, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has given us a great tool: the provisional patent. Filing a provisional patent costs a little over a hundred dollars, can be done with only the help of software program like Patent Wizard by Michael Neustal, and allows you to stamp your idea with the words “patent pending” for one year. During this period, you can shop your idea around to potential licensees with the confidence that your idea is protected. And more importantly, the feedback you gain from these licensees will help you determine if your idea is worth investing more time and energy into.
Start your own business with little to no risk and get companies working for you. I’ve helped thousands of students over the past decade, guiding them to licensing agreements. All of the information you need to get started is included in One Simple Idea.
StephenKey is a successful award-winning inventor who has licensed over 20
products in the past 30 years. He is a board member of Accudial
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and has a new book "One Simple Idea: Turn your
dreams into a licensing goldmine while letting others do the work," from
McGraw-Hill. Along with business partner Andrew Krauss, Stephen runs
inventRight, a company dedicated to education. Teaching inventors and
entrepreneurs the skills needed to successfully license their ideas. You
can listen to the weekly radio show on inventing.
One
Simple Idea is available in book stores and online book retailers
nationwide. When you buy the book you get access to our our database of
over 1400 companies looking for ideas as well as other bonus materials.
Visit www.inventright.com to learn more.
