Easy Path for Inventors
Easy Path for Inventors
Keep your day job and continue working on your business plan or growing your tried and true business. However, I have recently learned there is potentially an easy path for inventors and anyone else with an idea. This may work to see if an innovative idea will have any merit or even a remote chance to make some money, with minimal effort. One evening while watching CBS, a news story about Quirky.com was on and I found it very interesting. This is a company that was founded in 2009 by Ben Kaufman, and it explained how he developed a system where ordinary people with innovative ideas can be an inventor or a person of influence by submitting ideas or suggestions on other people’s ideas to help make them better. By being an inventor or a person of influence, you have a chance to earn royalties off of an invention that his team further develops, files patents, finds industry partners, and even sells the new products.
One example they showed was of a man named Garthen Leslie, who had an idea that it would be great to have some wireless control over all the thousands of window air conditioners that you commonly see on the outside of apartment buildings without central air. His idea was further developed, GE became a partner, and the Aros air conditioner units should go on sale this summer. The interview stated that Mr. Garthen should be getting about $750,000 to $1,000,000 in royalties his first year, and who knows how much more after that. This is probably the homerun example, but it is true. In fact, many other people are making a few dollars or much more every month from their ideas or suggestions to other via the Quirky.com website, and all with very little effort.
This is not my recommended path to having $1,000,000 in the bank, but it does let you get those inventive ideas tested and maybe earn you a few bucks while you develop your tried and true business.
A picture of the unit:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5527244/quirky-and-ge-develop-aros-smart-air-conditioner
Good article and video from CBS about Quirky.com
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-inventors-quirky-path-to-success/
