William Seidel, President & CEO, America Invents (USA)

I’ve had some awesome interviews here on CNCKingdom.com and they just keep getting better! I approached William, the President & CEO of America Invents to see if he was willing to answer my questions and as you can see, he blew it out of the park!

He’s a court approved expert witness and a speaker at national conferences sponsored by AT&T, HP, the USPTO and LES. He held senior corporate positions and worked with awesome entrepreneurs, leading innovators, bestselling authors and business visionaries. Through his companies, clients and customers, he has executed thousands of license agreements, developed hundred-million dollar products and fostered the success of billions of dollars in product sales. Wanting to share his deep understanding of the industry he has a proven track record having taught Marketing, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley and Product Design at San Francisco State University.

Key takeaways

• Corporate mindset is generally, “nothing ventured, nothing lost” so generally improvements are incremental rather than revolutionary.
• A product is very different from an invention.
• If there is a demand you can’t fill, you will be knocked-off, patented or not.
• The average life of a successful toy product is 3 years, an appliance 7 years and a fashion item 3 months.
• Product development is about obsoleting the competition.
• The real truth lies in the life of the product and the picture of costs and profits.
• The royalty percentage is irrelevant because a high royalty rate from a small company is far worse than a low royalty from a giant.
• The high-design products often fail and the idiot-simple products often succeed and the low-price crap will always succeed.
• People don’t buy products, they trade money for benefits.

You can get a hold of him by visiting his company, America Invents, at http://americainvents.com.

When you were growing-up, did you imagine you’d be spending your day creating opportunities for inventors and retail partnerships around the world for your clients? What were your original aspirations and educational background?

When I started at the University of Pittsburgh I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I always liked product design but schools with industrial design departments were rare in the 60’s. I went to Arizona State for post-graduate study in their outstanding solar architecture program and got a masters at San Francisco State with a focus on product design and product development.

I really started out wanting to design better products. As I got into the real-world business of products I found that product design was a small subset of manufacturing which was an even smaller subset of marketing. To know what R&D and design needs to develop they need knowledge from the market. In fact most companies have very limited design and development because the products they develop are small evolutionary improvements to their existing successful product lines or improvements to their competitors products. So the revolutionary products that made a real design and function statement were of little or no interest and too much company risk. I quickly learned that the corporate position was usually, “nothing ventured, nothing lost.”

So I did an about-face and moved into the marketing of products to find out why this happens and how to work with it. I was fortunate to work with some of the leading product, marketing and licensing companies as well as some of the top entrepreneurs, innovators and bestselling authors. I paid my dues earning senior corporate positions and maintaining my own business on the side (since 1978) as well as teaching Product Design at SF State and Innovation & Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley.

How did you first get into the invention business and what aspects of it do you enjoy the most? Do you hold any patents yourself personally?

America Invents is not in the invention business, despite our name. We are in the product business and we develop, license and market new products. That’s very different. We develop 3 to 10 product concepts and prototypes a year, license 10 to 40 product concepts a year and market 3 to 5 product lines each year. We are a small boutique company and we cherry-pick 5 to 30 projects per year. Some of our principals are named on a few patents but we do not own any however our founder has over 100 patents.

Many people think a product and an invention are the same and they are not. When people say the word product, in their mind it could mean an idea or a patent or a prototype, none of which are products. Products are produced, packaged and available for sale. They generate revenue and the business they generate is managed. An invention is an original idea that may or may not be patented and it may or may not be a product and it may or may not make money.

THE INVENTION //// THE PRODUCT

Inventions cost money //// Products make money

License an invention //// Sell a product

Inventions are patented //// Products are packaged

Inventions are defended in court //// Products sell in stores

Inventions are prototyped //// Products are manufactured

Develop an invention //// Distribute a product

“Productize” an invention //// Market a product

Inventions have potential //// Products have cash value

The best part is the deal, that’s where everything comes together.

You have some incredibly impressive clients and success stories, how long does it generally take from idea/prototype to selling tons of units? Do you have some examples of how fast or slow the process can take and why both each case?

For an individual the average time from idea to introduction on the store shelves is seven years. For a sizable company it runs about two years, like the Swifter. To launch a line extension where there is little research and no development and existing distribution, corporate product introduction can be as fast as six months (given the available shelf space). Product introduction, launch and rollout are very different. The individual often introduces the products but cannot rollout because of budget, capacity or distribution. This usually leads to disaster and knock-offs. If there is a demand you can’t fill, you will be knocked-off, patented or not.

Selling “tons” of units is quite another question and that usually has to do with financial and distribution capability and rollout effectiveness. It is generally the rollout that takes the most time and is the greatest expense. When you begin to discuss “tons” of units then the sales cycle, shelf space and operations management become critical factors. When the demand increases it is great. When the demand increase sustains it is exceptionally great! America Invents and myself were involved with many products like: the first baby monitor which had a big five year run until competitive products took the market and the Fast Track Tie Rack is still selling in select markets after 30 years.

Rules Of Thumb (I call them ROT because they rot your thinking) don’t work in this business. Every product, industry and market is different. So how fast or slow, how much or few and how big or small depends on many factors that are different for every product. And different in every market. The average life of a successful toy product is 3 years, an appliance 7 years and a fashion item 3 months. The planning and implementation of Air Flow Fabric for heated and cooled seats in Ford’s Lincoln line took 14 years and the inventors patents expired in the process.

What are some common problems that inventors stumble into and how do you manage expectations when everybody thinks their idea is worth millions when it may not be?

In my thirty-five years of developing, licensing and marketing products and teaching this at leading universities I have found that myths and falsehoods abound in most every area. When people become confused about the development, licensing and marketing of a product it can usually be traced back to myths that led them in the wrong direction. These myths lead to inventor and entrepreneur downfall, false hopes and costly mistakes and ultimately to the graveyard of failed products and wounded inventors.

The tasks and problems are enormous when you develop, manufacture, distribute and market a new product. Bad information is everywhere and immediately available for the naive and inexperienced. Mark Twain said it best:

“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed.”

“If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

Mark Twain was right then and he is right now. Bad information comes from everywhere, usually in the form of opinions from people with no experience and no success. This is not information to act on.

It is easy and common to seek product and business advice from your attorney or rich uncle Bob but they are not qualified unless they had success with a similar product in a similar situation. And even then the time, contacts and climate are completely different. Because they graduated from law school or made $30 million in the concrete business does not make them an authority on the marketing, licensing or distribution of your product. When seeking outside advice you must ask the question, “what products have you successfully developed, licensed and marketed and where are they currently available.” This flushes out the theory, opinion and bullshit. If they don’t have successful products then don’t work with them and don’t follow their advice.

Here’s an enormous myth right up your alley. “Product development is about developing new products.” This is false. Product development is about obsoleting the competition. The objective of product development is to provide a “complete product” while the mission is to make the competition obsolete. Consider the Super Soaker squirt gun, it made other squirt guns obsolete at 60 times the price. And all the leading toy companies turned down the SuperSoaker.

Another myth: “This ideas gonna’ make me rich.” The truth is that ideas never made anybody rich! (Just another myth.) Ideas have no value, no presence and no revenue. Idea’s can’t do anything, they just sit there. You must do everything. What you do may make you rich, if you know what to do. The idea is a seed that takes a lot of care, maintenance and you have to water it with money to grow into a viable concept and a complete product. Bottom line, it’s the action you take, the labor, budget and knowledge you employ to advance that idea to make it a product, then exchange the products for money. It’s not the idea. It’s knowing what to do with the idea to put it into a form that successfully generates revenue. And then, if it works, you get rich.

The myth that all you need is one simple idea and it will set you up for life is a rare occurrence. Oh there are many stories and TV shows about an idea that succeeded but that is the exception not the rule. Here is some more ROT, the following numbers are what every independent developer needs to know:

One in 100 patents make any money

One in 200 patents make enough money to pay for the patent

One in 300 patents make a profit

One in 641 products remained after three years (Tested by a leading home shopping network.)

One in 1,000 product concepts from independent inventors succeed (Udell, Gerald. Innovation (in) Review. United States Patent and Trademark Office, Vol. 1, No. 7 May, 2001.)

11% of the products introduced by small existing businesses remain on the shelf over one year

78% of the products introduced by leading corporations remain on the shelf over one year

Nine in ten corporate products introduced are line extensions of successful brands

Free Advice Ain’t Worth the Price. It is easy to find hundreds of ‘feel-good’ stories and books that tell you how to do it on a shoestring. That’s a nice story but that’s all it is. It is not appropriate for your product in the hardware business, the toy industry or anywhere else. It is not appropriate even if your product is in the same product category because it is a different time, different place, a different product and every company, channel of distribution and category (product category) are different. And you are different: your goals and objectives are different, your product and company needs are different and your purpose is different.

To the second part of your question, “managing expectations when everybody thinks their idea is worth millions.” If we are talking value then that’s simple. How much money did it make last year? (This is the first question on Shark Tank.) Value is not an opinion. The valuation of the product/business is the revenue it generated as a product not an idea. If it sold $300,000 last year then it’s worth millions – by financial ROT numbers 3 to 5 times annual revenues is often used to determine the value. If there are zero annual revenues then it has a zero value. An idea has potential but the value is a number. The potential of an idea is very debatable because it has no value that can be documented.

Big product successes is pretty clear. The small success is really the issue because it is hard to define, mostly unknown and out of the mainstream of what everyone tends to see. The $5 million product from a private company can be a great success for the individual but it is unreported and under the radar of Wall Street investors. Often these small successes are the ones that can experience the greatest growth.

There are many factors to consider when defining a product success because everything is different for every product in every industry and for every business. A hundred-thousand units per year for a novelty product is good where a hundred-thousand units per month for a candy product is bad. The real truth lies in the life of the product and the picture of costs and profits.

Myth: “I just know it will be a success.” When I hear this I ask, “what kind of success?” And no one has an answer, unless they have the spreadsheets to show me. I define five different types of product success. These are products that stay on the shelves and continue to sell-through the store and make money. We take success to mean a product that has repeat sales and predictable and profitable results for a limited or a long time.

1. SuperStars are disruptive and revolutionary changing many industries like the smart phone and the personal computer. It defines how everything else works and it impacts the distribution and revenues of other businesses and industries.

2. A Classic product changes an industry like the first baby monitor, which changed the pattern of parents behavior while minding the baby. Often these are simple ideas that alter our lifestyle.

3. A Hit product has sales over $50 million and it is selling in leading chains. You may recognize a “Hit” product because you saw the ads or know someone who bought it. It could attain big sales for a short time as in the toy business.

4. A Product Success will sell $20 million(+/-) over eight years.(+/-) The Product Success has a strong product life, establishes repeat sales and maintains a defensible shelf position.

5. An Item will make $200,000 to $5 million(+/-) over a short product life (one to five years). Many of these items are successful because they have a profitable structure for a small business or are one of many products in a product line. Items can be very profitable to the individual that wants to do it all themselves. We have a lot of clients that choose this path and we support it when the numbers work. (Meaning when the profit margins are large enough.)

The inventor may have an opinion of the potential of a product concept or high hopes that the product will succeed but until it is made and available for sale and the actual sell-through measured, there are no sales and no reorders to determine growth, potential or value. If your product has a place in the market then it will fit one of the above categories. I suggest that everyone consider what type of product success fits their product concept. When you begin to work the number of stores, the sales per month and the profit margin you can begin to see where it will fit.

What is the value of following-through with an idea from paper to physical prototype before approaching America Invents? Who does this benefit the most: the manufacturer, retailer, designer, inventor or yourself in selling the concept?

Companies don’t buy ideas and they are not interested in patents. What companies really want are profits, the bigger the profit potential the greater the chances you can lock up a sweet deal.

The further developed the product concept the faster to market and less risk and that benefits everyone. The further the development the less time it will take and fewer mistakes will occur. If you already have sales and demand then you will attain a much better deal much faster because it becomes a distribution agreement or a minimum risk deal. The retailer has nothing to do with it, they are simply resellers, no licenses, no prototypes and no ideas. Retailers must have complete products and they prefer proven products.

America Invents starts at any stage in the process of development, ideas, designs, patents and even failed products. The Fast Track Tie Rack was an idea with no protection, no design and no definition. In fact America Invents’ founder is named on the patent as a co-inventor. The Fisher-Price Luv U Zoo, Crib N’ Go Projector was a concept with pending patents when we licensed it. The Triazzle puzzles were proven and successful in the specialty toy business but never made the jump to the mass retailers. America Invents licensed this proven product line (17 products) to the fourth largest toy company who secured distribution into Kmart, Wal-mart, Toys R Us, Target, etc. The Crazer Laser failed multiple times when it came to us. We repositioned the product and successfully licensed it to launch into the pet industry, currently available at PetCo, PetSmart and pet stores everywhere.

Every company and every industry works differently. Some require patents and prototypes, while some require the product to be proven with sales of 100,000 units. While other companies will license a product concept. If you don’t know the company, their terms and their relationships then you are at an enormous disadvantage and there is a chance you will be ripped-off. If the objective is to develop it and show it to everyone in the business (which is foolish) then you must have everything in order including issued patents and limited sales success.

My background is self-taught designing projects for CNC machines (laser, router, plasma, 3d printers… ) and knowing this, if I had an order for a thousand much less a million widgets, there is no way I’d even attempt this myself. I’ve also taken on the royalty system for my designs over manufacturing myself… what is the value in your opinion of licensing vs. manufacturing?

This is a question I get all the time and it is really very simple. If you have small margins (3 times to 5 times product cost for a low priced item) then it is best to license it because you can go broke building the business and competition can react fast and take the business after you prove the product.

If you have large margins (6 times to 15 times product cost for a low priced item) then you need to seriously consider raising the need funds to do it yourself. There is plenty of money in the margin to build the sales and distribution and make a few mistakes in the process. A good example is the Splash Guard which we attempted to license unsuccessfully because it was too small of a product to get the attention of the of the five giant players in the business. So we regrouped and reevaluated the potential with new costs and saw the potential for a nine-times margin, which made it worth the risk and effort. The first sale we made put the company in the black. Big margins solve a lot of problems. Selling 9 million with a 9 times margin pays for the mistakes and makes it worth it.

What is the real point and purpose of what I am licensing, isn’t the company going to do it all over again anyway? What does a typical deal look like between the inventor, yourself, the retail and manufacturer percentage wise on each sale? How do you keep everybody honest?

I hear this a lot and it is another Myth. One thing that is true is that companies want profits not product concepts they have to do over. If they have to do it “all over again” then paying you will always be a question. The more the company must do, or do over, the less their interest and the worse your negotiating position. The further the development the greater the chances for success. It will be reviewed numerous times inside the company and your product/prototype/concept must be strong enough to stand on its own and sell itself. If you have a proven product then the profits are documented and it is of enormous interest to all potential licensees because it reduces their risk and you can have a bidding war.

There is no “typical deal.” Every industry, product category and channel of distribution is different. Retailers are resellers and do not license. Their mark-up is generally 100%, less for the discounters and more for the speciality retailers.

Regarding “how to keep everybody honest” there is no problem with honesty if you are working with people and companies with integrity. Any licensee must perform to retain the rights (unless you have a bad deal). As I said, if you don’t know the companies you are working with then you are vulnerable to all kinds of problems.

Licensing can be very tricky because it is not simply a deal with a company. It must be the “right” deal with the “right” company. Finding the “right” company and knowing the “right” deal is very hard. The royalty percentage is irrelevant! Every inventor, even some of the professionals, get hung-up on this percentage and that is really meaningless. It is not about a percentage, it is about revenue. The royalty percentage is irrelevant because a high royalty rate from a small company is far worse than a low royalty from a giant. I’ll take a 3% royalty from 3M or P&G before I would accept a 15% royalty from a third rate company. This is the difference between a million dollar idea and a total loss.

The profit margin is the most important factor. The royalty as a percent of the profits is a different number and a different situation. While a 5% royalty (5% of the wholesale revenue) appears to be a small number it usually ranges from 20% to 50% of the licensees profit on that product. The net profit margin ranges for consumer products from 10% to 30%. In some private label products (and others) the margins can be much higher.

Most people come to America Invents hoping for a 2% to a 5% royalty. Our average is just under 9% of the wholesale price for consumer products and 12% for commercial and industrial products. The highest royalty I have directly experienced for a consumer product was 33%. We got a high royalty because the product cost was $0.32, the package was $0.24 and the retail price was $19.95 direct to radio and TV. In 2010 I consulted to an oil equipment manufacturer that had excellent protection for a great idea, an improved seamless pipe innovation for the oil industry. The licensee manufactures and sells pipe products directly to the end user with minimal sales and marketing costs and sizable mark-ups. They needed the technology and because they have an enormous profit margin they could afford a 24% royalty. This amounted to 32% of the company profit margin for this product.

Finding the right company that will honestly review your concept and seriously consider it for a license is a complex task riddled with booby-traps and bad advice. Marketing your product concept or idea to a license agreement requires that you target qualified prospective companies. And you must have a plan of attack. This means you must first get it to the right companies and then to the deciders inside those companies. When you don’t have the contacts this is very hard.

The royalty percentage is what the licensee can afford to give up from the profit margin and maintain a satisfactory profit. The importance of the idea is only part of it. The reasons you get a high royalty are

1. you have a very high margin,
2. you have a very unique or protected market (not product) and/or
3. your product is already proven. (Preferably all of the above.)

If I had a great idea, the first thing I’d do after a 3D model is to head over to the patent office. What is your opinion of spending money to market a product vs. patent lawyers? Which is most important, first to market or patented design knowing you need massive amounts of time and money to defend them?

Unfortunately this is not an either/or situation. You need protection and marketing. And patents are only part of your protection strategy. You also need much more marketing money than the cost for the patent and defending it. The marketing and distribution costs can be 5 to 10 times the cost of the patent and manufacturing. My opinion is one thing and what the patent office recommends is quite another. The patent office recommends that you first get a “commercial assessment.” This is where the problems begin. Unlike a real estate appraisal, which has a lot of comparables, intellectual property has no comparables.

To patent or not is always a sticky question because if your product fails, a patent is of little value. However if your product is a success then a patent is critical to owning it and keeping it. Patents also play a key role in any agreement and the revenue you receive.

Myth: Advice from a famous patent attorney, first you patent it then license it to a manufacture.

Fact: this advice is 30 years old, out of date and wrong. Patent attorneys will tell you to patent it because that is their business however the US Patent Office recommends a commercialization study prior to patenting which patent attorneys do not offer. I know for a fact this patent attorney never licensed anything – he wrote many license agreements but he never found the deal and didn’t know how to make it happen. Writing a license agreement is not the pro-activity that actually makes it happen. Again, if your ask the question, “what products have you successfully developed, licensed and marketed and where are they available” it will tell you who to listen to.

The second myth of this statement is that most manufacturers are contract manufacturers that have no distribution or marketing capability. You walk into a plastic manufacturer who is squeezing plastic for 15 different companies and they like your idea but say, “ I have to show it to my people,” which means they show it to their customers who are the ones who have the distribution and marketing capability you need. Now you have a real problem because you showed it to the wrong people that cannot fund your effort because “they know a guy that knows a guy.” And you lost control. Even with a patent and an NDA you can still be knocked off. A patent doesn’t stop someone from stealing it – it simply allows you to sue. Many honorable companies that are prime candidates will not sign your NDA and require you to sign their release. Your best protection for an idea or concept is to work with honorable companies that have integrity. Your best protection for defending your products position in the marketplace is to partner with a heavyweight that can defend it.

If you don’t know the company you are presenting to, you are at a disadvantage. Even attorneys falsely believe an NDA will protect you. It does provide limited recourse but if you are dealing with a bad company no agreement will protect you. The reason everyone uses NDA’s is because they don’t know who they are dealing with and that is a bigger problem. You do not want to be in a position where you must enforce an NDA. So many developers and inventors go so wrong by presenting the wrong products to the wrong companies and to the wrong people. This is one of the reason so many companies refuse to review products from outside inventors. It is also one of the reasons why so many inventors get ripped-off.

About 30% of the projects we license have no patents or protection. We often negotiate into the license that the licensee will pay for the patents in our clients name. This is an enormous advantage because in addition to saving money it usually results in better protection.

There is a lot of talk of the first-to-market which works if you have existing distribution in place and if you can defend the shelf space and if you can move fast with a big marketing budget. If it succeeds you need a lot more money to fill the pipeline and continue the product flow. First-to-market has an enormous associated cost to succeed. The example of the pioneer, Diet Rite and RC cola and how they innovated with the first diet drink, the first caffeine free drink and the first low calorie drink and lost it all. The industry leaders who could adapt fast, increase promotion and took the shelf-space and took the business that Diet Rite pioneered and created.

First-to-market may work for a small entity when you address a niche market that has little or no competition and the product category is too small for competitors to consider. For example a premium, high priced granola has very little competition because the big companies offer low price, high volume products. It is possible to “cream” the top of this product category successfully. Often small, niche items can capture and defend shelf space. The inventor of Laser Pegs (a light up construction set) went into competition with the giant Lego. It is too high priced, too unique and too small of a market niche for Lego to compete. However if Laser Pegs begins to take market share from Lego they will have trouble protecting their position. This is a great strategy to capture a market niche and defend it. And it can be very lucrative.

You taught innovation and entrepreneurship for over 20 years… what is it about teaching that you don’t get out of your business that keeps you coming back? I know for me, sharing knowledge is just as much fun as making money.

I stopped teaching in 2001 but still speak at conferences and events. I started teaching Product Design at San Francisco State where I also taught How to Patent, Market and Develop Your Idea. This class grew into a seminar titled Entrepreneurship & Innovation that I offered through 26 universities in the California University Systems. Fortunately U.C. Berkeley wanted to offer the seminar as a full credit business elective where I taught it for 15 years.

Though I stopped teaching, I have a series of books planned for the fall of 2014 titled ProductologyTM. The first book in the series is The iMyth: Why Your Idea Doesn’t Work and What to do About it. This deals with many of the same issues we are discussing here. And yes it is a takeoff on Michael Gerber’s, E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It.

The second book is the Everything Must Be Right: The Productology PathTM and it is the path to product launch with 146 task defined in detail. It is kind-of like the simple 1, 2, 3 steps of the process except it is 1, 2, 146 steps in the process. The third part is the software to plan each of the 146 tasks, assign the responsibilities and quantify the costs and time. This provides a cost and revenue plan and a timeline for any project or product. It is similar to a Critical Path Method but specific to early stage product development and preformatted for the first time entrepreneur.

If you want more information you can check out the Engineering Science Lecture at the Department of Engineering Science, School of Science and Technology, Sonoma State University.

America Invents has had some amazing successes with almost 2 billion in retail sales but I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of duds. What did these products have in common and what systems have you established so you limit your risks on any given deal?

The trick is accepting the “right” projects. We look for products and concepts that can be economically made and distributed with an acceptable cost, sold at a profitable price, addressing a growth category and having instant understanding to the customer. If it fits this criteria then we think it can be successful.

We believe the market is of most importance because if the market isn’t there it doesn’t matter how good the product is. The high-design products often fail and the idiot-simple products often succeed and the low-price crap will always succeed. Don’t get me wrong, a good product and a good design is enough to get it on the shelves but successes are made from repeat sales. A “me-too product” already has a proven market and the lower price will get it the sales velocity needed to stay on the shelves. It is a much bigger risk for a company to fund, market and prove an innovative product. If there is a viable market then even a marginal success can make big money. When we evaluate a product we really evaluate the market for the product not necessarily the product. And we closely analyze the marketing that is needed (the expensive part) to make a product succeed.

We have certainly had our share of successful products with first-hand development, licensing, marketing and sales of some of the biggest. But we have also had many small successes with Items and Product Successes that financially work for everyone. Little successes are also success. Often very simple things like the Stunt Streamer which does simple stunts for a little girls dancing ribbon/streamer. This has been selling very well for 12 years and we just finalized an enormous order with Walmart. It just keeps on selling.

We don’t scoff at “Gidgety-Gadgety” products like the Pet Rock, Talking Toilet Paper and the Chia Pet. We certainly laugh at them when they are funny but we take the marketing of such products very seriously. It quickly becomes a question of market acceptance, size, cost to address it, profitability and the life of the product. The Pet Rock launched in 1975 made big money selling two million units fast (in six months) but it had a very short life. Talking Toilet Paper was introduced in 1998, we developed the product but declined to market it. It still has steady and consistent sales today. Though its sales didn’t set the world on fire it is predictable and profitable and has a long and healthy product life. The Chia Pet began in 1982 and sells about 500,000 to a million(+) units per year for 31 years. For a novelty/gift item this is large volume and a very long life. All of these are examples of brilliant marketing not a quality product. The point being they are all successful and proven at different rates and times. If the marketing was not “right” in every way for these products they would never make it.

Entrepreneurs and innovators figure things out for themselves. That’s why they are entrepreneurs and that’s how they innovate. There are no rules, no standards and no right way to do it, however everything must be right. The approach and path is unique for every new product and every situation. The more knowledge, contacts and experience you have the greater your odds for success. When you look deeper into any success stories, you see that experienced professionals often influenced successful product deals in a small way or a large way as investors, partners or mentors. And if you understand how to use marketing to prove the product and build value, funding your project will be a much easier effort.

If your marketing is together:

• The value will increase,
• The money will appear and
• Your plan will exceed expectation.

I hope this answers your questions and satisfies your readers. If not send the complaints to me.