Join The Tribe David Fedewa

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Join The Tribe

Invent Tribe, https://www.inventtribe.com/ is a very interesting website/organization. They have a highly organized system that has produced some pretty spectacular results but more about that later. Now, I’d like to introduce you to their founder.

David Fedewa, negotiations coach and licensing specialist, has coached over 180 students to successfully license their own products.  He has been featured in Inc. and Entrepreneur’s online publications on licensing and negotiation strategy.  He has licensed five of his own products, with one being featured on Time magazine, CHIVE, and CNET Father’s Day Product of The Year list.  His strengths lie where business and psychology meet.  While coaching students through multi-million dollar negotiations, he not only looks at the present deal at hand but teaches strategies that can be used in constructing deals with a win-win scenario throughout life.

His system is based on 5 elements, the first, being Research. I totally concur, this is the most crucial step that most inventors get wrong. He has some hard knock stories that will drive this home for you.

Next, is Marketing. Nobody can see your vision unless you can convince them. He does this by showing you how to do a 30 to 60 second video pitch. This lead to Protecting your invention through various types of intellectual property. Then, of course, comes Sales. If you have ever watched Shark Tank, they always ask, what’s your sales, what’s your margins? The answers make or break the offer.

Lastly, Closing The Deal, here David is a true expert. He knows how to assess the company and develop a winning approach. He and I spoke at length about all the steps. I must admit, I was impressed and I believe you will be too.

Chris Ladano

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The Inventor’s Hero

Chris Landano is a true to life Hero. After 20 years, including the towers of 9/11, he has retired from the NYC Fire Department. He started with the NYPD as an auxiliary police officer and also worked on a NYC ambulance as an emergency medical technician. He finally retired from 911 calls to dedicate his time helping inventors.

Inventor Rescue https://inventorrescue.com/ is so much more than a website. It is a treasure trove of information. He started it to educate budding inventors about promotion companies who lead inventors to believe that they are just seconds away from making millions while charging them thousands of dollars for overpriced services until they run out of money. 

The site has evolved to include “how to” information regarding inventing, all sorts of video, books, magazines, links to websites, the list goes on and on. He also personally mentors inventors for FREE.

Chris is a successful inventor. He developed his product the Tracbelt 360 to satisfy his needs as a FDNY forensic photographer. It is a tool belt that allows you to rotate the various containers giving you better access to all of them. He went on to manufacture it himself, sell it through various websites, ran a Kick Starter campaign, and secured funds from an angel investor. 

When he takes on a project, he’s All In. Along with his website and product, he is an ambassador for the United Inventor Association (UIA), he runs two NYC inventor clubs, goes to various trade shows, he even appeared on America’s Big Deal. The experiences that he will share with you will keep you mesmerized. 

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Stanley Eyler

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The Other Road To $uccess

Every successful invention follows the same path to success. First, the inventor must identify a commercially viable need or want by making sure that the market is large enough to attain success. Then, they must develop the idea into a commercially viable product. This takes into consideration the cost of manufacturing, customer appeal, how well it functions over its’ competition, all the overhead expenses, leading to a competitive price.

Once this is achieved, the product is ready to launch. Now the roads start to branch off. The inventor might choose to license the invention or sell it out right. They might manufacture it and sell it on a website, listing sites, through stores or directly to the consumer.      

Last month, we learned about how an inventor successfully licensed her inventions. This month, we have an inventor who took the other road to success. 

Try to imagine a time when credit cards were rare. They actually used the imprint of the card on a packet of paper which included carbon paper to pay a bill. Then, magnetic readers changed the world. However, they were bulky and when the reader needed to be cleaned, they had to send it back to the factory.

Stanley Eyler saw these drawbacks as an opportunity and seized the day! He created the perfect cleaning device which he turned into a successful business that held its’ place in the industry for many years. Then saw another branch of a road coming his way and sold the business.

I am sure that every single inventor out there would Love to have the $uccess that Stanley had. If you are one of them, make sure that you tune into his presentation on 10/8/22 at 1:00 pm eastern to hear his wonderful and insightful tale of how he did it. I found it incredibly interesting. So you can get started down your own road to success.

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The Real Deal April Mitchell

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The Real Deal

April Mitchell describes herself as, “… a professional problem solver, creative thinker, idea machine, magic maker, dreamer, and What If-er, also known as an inventor and designer specializing in the toys, games, party, and  housewares industries.” She is also an InventRight licensing& product coach, holder of 2 patents, self-made product licensor, author, mother of 4, and military spouse. I would describe her as Amazing.

She has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Military Entrepreneur, Military Spouse Magazine as well as contributing to 4 books and has a monthly column in Inventors Digest, which is where I found her. Her articles are packed with information, yet, succinct. One article stood out for me, where she shares her experiences, good and bad, in acquiring a licensing deal for her product. I said to myself, “My People Need To Hear This”.

Licensing is the dream of just about every inventor I know. Here is a woman who’s been to the front line and returned to tell the tail. Not only that, I am sure she will go into how to develop the idea into a commercially viable product. She often gives credit to her Team (family of 6) who help her develop her products.

As a self proclaimed, “Teacher at Heart”, she is driven to share her real world expertise with her fellow inventors. As Mr. T from the A Team would say, I pity the fool, I Pity The Fool who would let this opportunity slip through their fingers!

      

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Eileen Fischlschweiger

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An Overview Of Patent Public Search 

If you are serious about inventing you Must become proficient regarding patent searching. The Patent Office tells us that 97% of all issued patents never make back the money spent on their development. So what are the chances that somebody else already owns your idea? You don’t want to spend all your money on a patent, manufacturing, marketing, etc., to get your product to market only to have somebody tap you on the shoulder saying, “Guess what, You got a partner”.

It is also how you maintain your knowledge regarding the state of the art in your industry as well as inspiring huge improvements to your original idea. I once misunderstood a patent drawing and thought, what a brilliant concept this inventor has. After reading the specifications, I realized my mistake, but then I became overwhelmed with excitement when I realized, this is the most brilliant concept that I, Have Ever Had!

Eileen Fischlschweiger, Librarian, Senior at the Broward County Main Library, is the Patent and Trademark Resource Center’s Representative Librarian for the Fort Lauderdale PTRC for over 25 years.  As such, she is the library’s liaison with the US Patent and Trademark Office. 

    She has been working with patent and trademark information for over 27 years, starting shortly before they implemented the Provisional Patent Application, and she has been on top of every change that has happen since then, thanks to annual training from the USPTO at their campus in the Washington, DC area. She has also implemented a program whereby an inventor working Pro Se, writing their own patent, can get help from a patent examiner in their art department. 

This presentation will provide an introduction to Patent Public Search, the new system that is replacing the legacy patent searching systems  PubEAST and PubWEST and the online patent searching databases PatFT and AppFT.  Learn how to search with key words as well as with the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) to locate patent documents (issued patents and published patent applications). 

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Terrence Bentley

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Mastering The Pitch

One of the most important skills an inventor or entrepreneur Must develop is the Pitch. It is the moment of truth that determines, in an instant, success or failure and every pitch must be developed for the intended audience. Although, some points may be the same, your approach to pitch a product to an end-user, a retailer or an investor would all be completely different. Successful business people know this. 

Terrence Bentley is the epitome of the successful business person. His early career was in network Product Management (25 products). He finished up by closing deals in tech Corporate Development and Mergers And Acquisitions (M&A), Completing 40+ key strategic transaction ranging up to $3B in individual value, and delivered tech solutions in Product Management and Marketing.

Terence negotiated acquisitions, divestitures, and corporate restructurings, working with C-suites and Boards. He found running deal teams fascinating as he closed tech transactions in software, IT services,, databases, web applications companies, aerospace, network systems, and semiconductors. International M&A became his specialty, closing deals in the UK, Norway, Germany, Israel, France, Canada, and Brazil. Those deals varied from large public companies to private companies, VC investments, technology alliances and divestitures.

Sooooo, YES!!! I would say that he has mastered the pitch. After moving to Florida he became very active teaching startups as well as becoming a Founding Mentor of The Venture Mentoring Team www.thevmt.org which is an extremely interesting group. They have put together a huge, diverse team of experts that mentor various types of startups. This has got to be the most powerful organization of its’ type that I have ever seen.

There is a no nonsense application process and a rigorous format to follow if you are accepted as well as a commitment to Pay It Forward, once you achieved your goals by helping others who are starting out. Now, guess what part of that application process is … a 60 second pitch that must contain the answers to a whole list of questions.

Learn how to develop that pitch and others from the Master, Terence Bentley, by tuning in to this FREE webinar on 7/9/22 at 1:00 pm eastern. 

     

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John Risvi

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Go For It Or Go Home   

You got to have BIG Ones to be an inventor. DREAMS !!! I was talking about BIG Dreams. What were you thinking? From that first light bulb moment when with astonishment you realized This Could Be Huge. Then throughout the grueling process of clawing your way to success an inventor has to maintain an extraordinary amount of faith, motivation and determination. There are no consolation prizes in this game. You either Go for it or Go home. 

Let’s face it, it is next to impossible to keep up that kind of intensity forever. You will have set backs. You will encounter road blocks. There will be moments of self doubt, indecisions, loss of confidence and utter despair but You have got to pull yourself together to push your project forward to its’ ultimate triumph. How can you muster up the strength to do this? By listening to this months’ speaker.

John Rizvi is a Registered Patent Attorney, an Adjunct Professor of IP, the author of 2 books on the subject, the creator of The Patent Professor®, an educational video series, and TEDx speaker, but more than anything he is a man who knows how to set unbelievably high goals and achieve them. 

When he graduated law school over 24 years ago he applied to Fish and Neave the most impressive patent law firm in the world. Their client list included the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell and cases such as the near $1 billion Polaroid patent infringement case. To me, that is the definition of Going For It. When he was rejected, did he just go home with his tail between his legs? NO !!!

He called them up and gave them a piece of his mind. So when he saw the envelope from them in the mail he immediately thought, “Law Suit?” after all, he is primarily an attorney but to his surprise he was hired. 

His private practice, www.ThePatentProfessor.com , is another Got For It or Go Home story that starts with his desire to work directly with Independent Inventors. Today, his law firm has a team of 60+ attorneys, engineers, designers, patent illustrators, and touts a former retired patent judge with over 20 years of experience deciding patent appeals as well as 3 former Patent office examiners on staff full-time to assist inventors. 

We all can use some motivation.

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Meghan Wolfgram

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Meghan Wolfgram is probably the most incredible woman that I have ever stumbled upon. Fresh out of University, she started a company based on her invention that has gone viral in the past few years. This is like … Every Inventors Dream !!! So how did she do it?

Ever hear of Lure Coursing? Me neither, but here is where her passion begun. It is a competition sport for dogs which began as an alternative to chasing rabbits. A lure (which use to be a plastic shopping bag) is tied to a cord which drags it just out of the dogs’ reach and the dogs try to catch it.

Meghan wanted to buy a machine for her dog but they were too expensive. So she and her dad built their own. One thing lead to another and she started selling her invention , Swiftpaws https://swiftpaws.com/ , as a commercially-built alternative for professional lure coursing. Skip ahead 6 years and her Kick Starter campaign raised $70,000.00 to lunch their first consumer  version of the product. Three years later, she ran an Indiegogo campaign to launch HomePlus, with a goal of $25,000.00 which, 30 days later raised $130,840.00. She was then one of 23 finalists for the 2021 Florida Venture Forum’s Early Stage Capital Conference. That is where I found her. 

Little did I know at that time that she has become a legend in Lure Coursing as can be seen in this video by the American Kennel Club’s Fastest Dog Competition  https://bit.ly/3JIcbw6 . 

The most recent news is her SharkTank episode that aired on 4/8/22. She must have done well because she ran a viewing party at “…one of (her) favorite places on earth, Groundswell Startups!” This, I soon learned, is an incredible resource for startups. It sounds like a team effort, building prototypes, developing business plans, helping each other doing all sorts of stuff. 

I thought that I was well versed in getting from point A to point Z in the world of inventing but doing research for her flyer made me realize that, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / then are dreamt of in …” my little world.    

That’s why, I can’t wait to hear her story, learn specifics as to how she went from concept to Shooting Star. If you ever want to go from dreaming about success to actually achieving it you need to hear this presentation for yourself.

Mary Lou and Dennis Green

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Here’s Looking At You, Kid

Mary Lou and Dennis Green are brilliant serial inventors and entrepreneurs whose success rate has been phenomenal! They also love to share their hard-earned knowledge through books, as well as video courses, and private mentoring through their Big Idea School https://bigideaschool.com/ 

They are working on a new course due out later this summer. That is tentatively titled:  The Seven Ways Investors and Licensees Evaluate Your Product Before Investing. When I heard about it I said, “You’ve gotta give my group a preview.” This is information that every inventor needs to hear. Below is the description that they sent me and I couldn’t improve on it at all. 

“Let’s say you have a great idea for a product that will benefit millions of people. You consider looking for investors or possibly licensing your idea. You’ve even developed a 60-second elevator pitch and a pretty good sell sheet. But what if the prospective investor or licensee wants to know if you have done any market research or what it costs to manufacture your product? Will you impress them with your business insight, or have to apologize for not being good with numbers?

To prepare for investors’ or licensees’ questions, you need to know how they think. Of course, they want to make money, but exactly what motivates them to invest in some products and reject others? Whether you are an entrepreneur or an inventor, evaluating your big idea from the investor’s point of view will help you provide investors with the information they need. That will increase your odds of landing a deal, help you negotiate a better license agreement and possibly a higher royalty rate.

If you have taken any of their courses at BigIdeaSchool.com, you know Dennis and Mary Lou Green are lifelong inventors, entrepreneurs, and investors. They’ve created and marketed more than 50 simple consumer products over the past 40 years and have earned 17 patents. They have licensed 15 of their inventions. And on the other side, they have also licensed products from inventors and sold them to their retail customers. What they learned over 40 years in business is that investors and licensees have seven fundamental ways of evaluating the products and people they invest in.

                                   

Charles Sauer

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Charles Sauer is a seasoned economic policy expert, author, Co-Director of the Inventor’s Project, President and Founder of the Market Institute https://marketinstitute.org/ . He began developing his expertise in finance and tax by working for the chairman of the Finance Committee, and then going on to be a legislative analyst focused on tax, immigration, and labor issues in the governor’s office. In 2007, he was named the Deputy Legislative Director for the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), a think tank dedicated to finding free-market alternatives to government regulations. 

After his time at NCPA, he served as President of Entrepreneurs for Growth, a Capitol Hill program that educated the Hill’s staff on entrepreneurship. Sauer then co-founded and served as the Executive Director for the Free Market Medical Association.

As Co- Director of the Inventor’s Project https://inventorsproject.org/ he has championed the fight for the rights of the independent inventor community for over 10 years. 

Mr. Sauer authored the book, “Profit Motive: What Drives The Things We Do” and is a frequent voice appearing in outlets like the Washington Examiner, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, and many more.

He will be bringing us up to date on the various activities going on at Capitol Hill. Legislation both for and against us as well as Effective Advocacy for inventors. This is crucial information that we need to make wise business decisions regarding our inventions. 

I am sure that he will also be telling us what we can do to help them with their efforts to regain our rights as inventors.   

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