Brian Fried, Too many titles to list! (USA)

While I was doing my private pilot licensing almost 20 years ago, I met a guy who had a rather unique problem, he obtained too many licenses and professional designation, from morgage broker to motorcycle driver! His only workaround due to a government licensing database limitation, was to cycle through them, resigning one to get the other on a yearly basis. Getting his private pilot license as a result was a challenge, he had to give-up one of his others licenses in order to fly! Brian makes me think of that guy, he’s a Inventor Consultant/Coach, Serial Inventor, Licensing Agent, Speaker, Author, Radio Host, Product Development.

You can visit his website at GetInventionHelp.com

Can you give me a little background as to how you got into inventing and did you ever imagine you’d make a living from it?

I’ve always been curious how things work since I was a kid, but started to really be aware of what people are doing, how they are doing it, how it could be done better and realizing that there may be a big enough opportunity to bring that idea to retail.

Looking at the ideas I was coming up with from a consumers perspective gives me my best chance of success and now I am fortunate enough to be collecting royalties from my own inventions and other inventors I have helped.

You’ve helped lots of inventors get their product to market, what are some of the common threads you’ve seen among successful and unsuccessful inventors when it comes to market penetration? What do inventions generally need in order to succeed with the general public?

One of the most important messages I pass to inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs is to do your research! When you come up with an idea you are in business and you need to make sure you do your research and development, due diligence. That means to go online, visit stores you can imagine your idea in, visit the US Patent & Trademark Office website and search to find your idea, not avoid it!

You need to see what similar ideas are out there and make sure yours is different enough to call your own. Also to make sure you are not infringing on someone else’s intellectual property. Then ask yourself, is there a big enough problem for your solution, are there many solutions that already exist, will people buy it and if so, for how much?

Put aside the emotional side of inventing and focus on your idea as a business. Answering these questions will give you a start to realizing your chances for success.

Can you expand a bit about your book, why did you write it and what has the general feedback been from fellow inventors? What makes your book standout from the other books on the market about inventions?

My motivation for writing my book, “You & Your Big Ideas” was to be able to answer peoples basics questions of inventing and helping them making decisions with their idea. I wanted it to be an easy read and people have told me while they are reading it, they feel like I am actually speaking to them. I wanted it to be personal and provide facts to know what someone with an idea would expect to have to do to reach levels of success.

My book is about you, and your big ideas, while I find most other books in this category focus on the authors themselves.

What are your views on invention mills that ask people for money in order to patent their design but never actually do anything to help them become a success? I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials on TV in your neck of the woods as well.

No matter what you do in life, I am a big fan of doing your research. You need to ask for references, compare opportunities, ask questions and you ultimately make your decision. Just because you tell your idea to someone doesn’t mean that you are committed to them. You have to take your emotions out of making your decisions and be a business person and make decisions in that perspective.You will make better choices.

People say they can do things for you, let them show you how they have proved it to others before you engage them.

As if being an inventor and published author wasn’t enough, you also run your own radio show to help other entrepreneurs and inventors. How did that come about and what doors has it opened for you regarding your other activities such as corporate consulting and public speaking?

After being involved in a local inventors club, then starting my own through my county government office, and writing my book, I realized that I wanted to continue getting the message out more frequently to help inventors keep moving their ideas forward, so I invented a radio show Got Invention Radio in 2009. It started off as a weekly online show where I interview resources for inventors and successful inventors for an hour.

I have had and continue to have the honor of interviewing guests and executives from major companies such as Shark Tank’s Lori Greiner, Kevin Harrington, the US Patent & Trademark Office, Legal Zoom, Alibaba, Johnson and Johnson, Shapeways, As Seen on TV companies, Licensees, Patent Attorney’s and agents, licensees, manufacturers,the inventor of the cell phone, the inventor of the Jenga, Hasbro, etc. I have over 170 interviews that you can download or listen to anytime for free to help you with any stage of the invention under my past shows page.

I spend the time to pick my guests brains from an inventors perspective and educate my listeners. I have a great audience and many of my listeners have hired me as their personal inventor coach, speaker for innovation within their organizations, public and government agencies, schools and libraries throughout the country on the subject of invention.

Can you write a bit about your own inventions? How did they come about, what were the challenges bringing them to market and how much did patents help you along the way?

Many of my ideas have come from watching how my wife and daughter and people watching in public do things and wanting to make the way they do them easier, or finding solutions for making it better, quicker or coming up with something that doesn’t exist! So I have come up with many kitchen gadgets, baby products, as seen on tv mass market products, hardware, toys, fashion accessories and even had my own brand of T-shirt line in mass retailers.

My products have been on QVC, Target, Walmart, catalogs, national supermarket and retail chains and sold online through licensing and also manufacturing my own inventions. Having intellectual property puts people on notice that they should not infringe on your invention and may make the invention more valuable should the product be successful in retail.I have been fortunate to come up with ideas and names for my inventions that people can relate to.

Which area should an inventor throw their limited resources into once they have an invention? Marketing or patent? What are your views on the entire patent system in general including the recent “first to file” change that happened recently?

In my opinion, I think that researching and trying to get some level of intellectual property, such as a patent, is helpful before marketing your idea to the public.

The US Patent & Trademark Office has done a great job with outreach, educational programs for inventors and providing office actions and opportunity to secure patent protection much faster than in the past.

They have also put in place discounts for many of their fees for people just getting started with their ideas and wanting to patent them to spark innovation in the US.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I have recently launched www.getinventionhelp.com where people at any stage of the invention process can answer a few quick questions and be connected up to reputable, vetted resources for inventors.

I have been selected as the Content Expert Writer in the Invent category for Answers.com (www.answers.com/brianfried) and write frequently for my blog www.inventingtips.com. Many of my resources and links for my radio show, blog, inventor coaching, referral network website can be found on www.gotinvention.com.