Advice

Have a few hours on your hands? Why not enter an invention contest?

Our Guest Blogger, Tim Whitney, is a bit of a contest nut. He's the National Grand Prize Winner of the KeyCite Key to Good Law Contest, and a national finalist in both the 2005 Staples Invention Quest and Digital Innovations Design-Originality-Creativity Awards. Tim gives us three reasons why we should spend a free afternoon entering an invention contest instead of watching TV.

Here's his article:

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Every year, you'll find about a dozen opportunities to enter national invention (or other idea-related) contests. Some hold out the promise of bringing a product to market, some just financial incentives. read more »

ElevatorWonder what you would do if you were riding in an elevator with one of the judges from the American Inventor TV show?

Our Guest Blogger, Tim Whitney, is a bit of a contest nut. He's the National Grand Prize Winner of the KeyCite Key to Good Law Contest, and a national finalist in both the 2005 Staples Invention Quest and Digital Innovations Design-Originality-Creativity Awards. His background in law, marketing and design helps him bring a critical and analytical eye to the inner workings of these contests in an effort to advise and inform entrants and help them make the most of these and other opportunities to promote their ideas. Tim gives us some tips on how to pitch your invention in 30 seconds or less.

Here's his article:

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In the marketing/branding world, there's this thing called the "elevator pitch." read more »

Staples Invention QuestThere's an inventor inside everyone of us. I don't know of a single person that hasn't had at least one great idea. Ever wonder whether you should enter into the Staples Invention Quest contest with that great idea?

Our Guest Blogger, Tim Whitney, is a bit of a contest nut. He's the National Grand Prize Winner of the KeyCite Key to Good Law Contest, and a national finalist in both the 2005 Staples Invention Quest and Digital Innovations Design-Originality-Creativity Awards. His background in law, marketing and design helps him bring a critical and analytical eye to the inner workings of these contests in an effort to advise and inform entrants and help them make the most of these and other opportunities to promote their ideas. Tim gives us some of his thoughts about the Staples Invention Quest contest.

Here's his article:

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For as much fun as I had making it to the finals of the 2005 Staples Invention Quest, there was always an undercurrent of corporate agenda that made some of us finalists wonder if we were being naïve about Staples' true intentions for the contest. With some of those elements intact for the 2006 version of IQ (www.staples.com/iq), I think it merits some discussion so the naivete isn't passed to a new generation of entrants. read more »

Staples Invention QuestEver wish you had insider's guide to what's going on in an invention contest?

Our Guest Blogger, Tim Whitney, is a bit of a contest nut. He's the National Grand Prize Winner of the KeyCite Key to Good Law Contest, and a national finalist in both the 2005 Staples Invention Quest and Digital Innovations Design-Originality-Creativity Awards. His background in law, marketing and design helps him bring a critical and analytical eye to the inner workings of these contests in an effort to advise and inform entrants and help them make the most of these and other opportunities to promote their ideas. Tim gives us some tips for Staples Invention Quest contest.

Here's his article: read more »

Trying to decide whether you need a prototype of your invention?

Our Guest Blogger, Frank Morosky, is an Entrepreneur Consultant. He assists people with business ideas or inventions get their business started quickly and on a tight budget. His website is at fmorosky.home.mchsi.com. He wanted to share his experiences with prototyping with the readers of AmericanInventorSpot.com.

Here's his article: read more »

Our Guest Blogger, Terri Phillips, is an inventor of numerous products. She has worked at an Invention Promotion Firm. She now works in marketing, packaging, and product development for an inventor service company that provides a means of distribution for inventors to sell their products through AccessInventors.com. Terri's goal is to educate inventors from the inside out, so she wrote this article exclusively for the readers of AmericanInventorSpot.com.

Here's her article: read more »

Eric & DanardPRESS RELEASE

ABC's American Inventor Finalist, Erik Thompson, Invests Winnings to help other Inventors

As most of America knows, Mr. Thompson was awarded $50,000 from the hit ABC show for the rights to his Catch Vest, but what might surprise you is what he did with the money. After saving his house from foreclosure, Mr. Thompson took the majority of his winnings and started a company, "Belykewater Productions." read more »

Invention: Power Pitch Horseshoes

Did you know you don't need to use an Invention Submission Firm to show your ideas to manufacturers?

Our guest blogger Roger Brown is a freelance Inventor who has successfully marketed tools,
toys and a kitchen utensil without the aid of an Invention Submission Firm. You can see some of his inventions at rogerbrown.net. He graciously agreed to share with readers of AmericanInventorSpot.com some valuable advice. Here's his article: read more »

I thought it may be fun to have a place for folks to share their good ideas.

For the inventors out there, it may inspire them to come up with something new and fantastic. Have you thought of anything the world could use, that does not seem to be on the market today that would be great if someone invented?

Have you come across anything recently that you thought was a great idea?

More...
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When you start a small business, you have to do everything.

Do you feel like you have so much to do to get your business on track and sometimes, feel overwhelmed by all that you need to do and all that you don't know how to do? Well, as you know, the web can be a terrific resource for small business owners and other entrepreneurs. But how can you find the good resources that are out there?

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Guest blogger William Colbath continues his helpful series on Prototyping with the following article for AmericanInventorSpot.com :

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Hi all.

Hope you are all doing well. I want to thank everyone that
wrote me about the death of my great granddaughter. Your comments were appreciated.

Last week I talked about engineers, this week I am going to talk a little about prototypers and what makes them tick.
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Wade Sun is the inventor of the Disc Eraser™. He has written an article for AmericanInventorSpot.com readers as a guest blogger to share the lessons he learned as he went through the process of developing his invention.

Over the past week, we published the first three parts of his four part series on his 13 Rules of Invention Success. Here is Part 4 of his 4 part series:

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We asked Carl, our terrific guest blogger from Inventive Rants to write about some of the critical elements to success in inventing. This week, he chose to write on the Inventor's Toolkit as his special posting for American Inventor Spot readers.

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When I invented my product, I read every book I could find on success, invention and making money. Looking back, I don't think that any one book put it all together for me, but here is a list of things that did help me.

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Wade Sun is the inventor of the Disc Eraser™. He has written an article for AmericanInventorSpot.com
AmericanInventorSpot.com readers as a guest blogger.

Yesterday, we published Part 1 and 2 of a 4 part series on his 13 Rules of Invention Success. Here is Part 3 of 4:

read more »

Wade Sun is the inventor of the Disc Eraser™. I have been reading his comments here at AmericanInventorSpot.com for some time and I thought he had some great advice to share with fellow inventors. So I contacted him about two weeks ago to see if he would be interested in being a guest blogger and writing an article to share what he had learned going through the invention process.

Luckily, he said yes. When we discussed ideas for article topic, he suggested an article illustrating how he brings his invention to a finished prototype with a plastics molding kit and a little creativity. He could use it as a vehicle to share his 13 rules of invention success.

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We asked Carl, our terrific guest blogger from Inventive Rants to write about some of the critical elements to success in inventing. Today, he chose to write on the importance of exploring new markets for your invention as this week's special posting for American Inventor Spot readers.

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It may seem obvious to most, but inventors tend to have blinders on when it comes to markets. I was guilty of this error, and I now know how to avoid this mistake in the future.

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Guest blogger William Colbath continues his series on Prototyping with the following article:

Hi all!

How bout the American Inventor show? They are down to the final twelve and firmly into my territory PROTOTYPING! For me it couldn't be more exciting. This may not seem to exciting to some ofyou, but to the contestants it could mean the difference between winning or not!
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We asked Carl, our terrific guest blogger from Inventive Rants to address the issue of marketing once you have a patented invention as a special posting for American Inventor Spot readers. Here it is:

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An invention can come to you in minutes, yet it has no value until someone decides to part with their hard earned money to buy it. Marketing is 99% of invention success. read more »

Hi all!

So now that you have drawn up your plans for your totally cool invention, perhaps some plans for your voice activated rotary easy chair mounted beer can dispenser that chills the can, opens it and puts it in your hand. (Wow, it just dawned on me that this would be a great invention as I would surely buy one.) You have talked to experts in the field, done a patent search, done your market research. And now you have to commit to a prototyper to help you build your prototype. What to do now?

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Carl, our terrific guest blogger from Inventive Rants created a special posting for American Inventor Spot talking about the key timing issues related to the inventing
process. I think its an essential read for all inventors:

The Invention Timeline

Inventors want to know, how long does the process take? How long does it take from "Eureka" to "royalty check"? The short answer is that it will take anywhere from 1-4 years for an invention to earn money. The key to accelerating the process is networking. Every-time you bring a value-added participant into your venture, you increase the likelihood of moving forward.

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