BUL 4310 Florida International University The Inventorpreneur’s Handbook Discussion This Is How You Do It, Kid: The Inventorpreneur’s Handbook by Francisco

BUL 4310 Florida International University The Inventorpreneur’s Handbook Discussion This Is How You Do It, Kid: The Inventorpreneur’s Handbook
by Francisco Guerra 
You are Mr. Guerra’s attorney and legal advisor.  Select one topic from the text and either tell him why he is proceeding according to your advice, or suggest an alternative course of action.
Remember, you are giving legal advice.  If you agree or disagree, you must give support for your answer.
You can use any Internet source to support your position, but you must provide all URL. THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT, KID
The Inventorpreneur’s Handbook
By
Francisco Guerra
Copyright © 2014 Francisco Guerra
Smashwords Edition
Acknowledgements
Of all the words that have been strung together for this book, none of them
are as difficult as these. Gratitude is more easily expressed than written, and
there’s always the fear of leaving someone out, of unintentionally slighting
someone. (If that ends up being you, I apologize now.) But because no man’s
journey is without the aid of another’s, then let me take a moment to thank a
few key people who have been mentors, encouragers, teachers, inspirations
and, last but certainly not least, friends.
The late Michael Picora, who first introduced me to the concept of
licensing and who graciously shared his knowledge and friendship. I miss
you, my friend.
To Brian and Angie Glover, who have been with me through every step
of this process. We’ve made some pretty incredible things together.
Thanks also to the South Florida Inventor’s Club—where I first found my
“people”—motivational wonder Tony Robbins whose unerring ability to
inspire others has helped propel me forward along this path to success.
To David Barman, a dear friend and ally, and to the countless other
executives who I’ve had the pleasure of watching and emulating their
leadership style.
And, of course, a particular thanks to my uncommonly insightful friend,
NYT Bestselling author Rhonda Nelson, whose assistance in the writing of
this book has been invaluable and greatly appreciated.
For Frankie
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Introduction
Step One: Finding Your Passion
Step Two: Identifying the Market—Who Wants What You Have?
Step Three: Secure the Intellectual Property—Protect Your Passion
Step Four: Prepare Your Presentation—It’s Showtime!
Step Five: Be Strategic—Fake It ’til You Make It
Step Six: Be Persistent—Narrow the Gap
Step Seven: Licensing—the Ultimate Money-Maker
Step Eight: Close the Deal—Wrapping It up
Step Nine: Protecting Your Interests—You’re Just Getting Started
Step Ten: When All Else Fails—The DIY Approach
Coming in May – Shake and Bake: Cooking Up A Fortune
Sample Confidential Disclosure Agreement
Sample Licensing Agreement
THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT, KID…
Introduction
It’s the million-dollar question—how did you do it?
How did you take your mere idea from invention to fruition, from a whatif to a done-deal? An aha! moment to a ballooning bank account and
properties all over the world? Did you come from a wealthy family? Attend
the best colleges and business schools in the country? Learn the infamous
secret handshake? Find the silver bullet?
The answer to those first three questions I’ll outline in the book, but the
answer to last few is a laughable, resounding no. No, no, no. Born in Cuba,
my strictly working-class family arrived in Miami when I was five-years-old
and, while I’ve since obtained a variety of degrees from institutions and
colleges all over the country, when I patented my first successful invention,
the only master’s I could claim with any confidence had been courtesy of the
proverbial School of Hard-knocks. (And it’s still my most treasured alma
mater.)
When it comes to being a profitable inventor, there is no secret handshake
or magical silver bullet. There’s merely a mechanism to success and once
you’ve learned how to work the mechanism, to be both an inventor and an
entrepreneur—an inventorpreneur, if you will—then the process becomes
quite simple.
It only appears complicated.
You’ll notice that I’ve dedicated this book to my son, Frankie, and he’s
ultimately the reason I’ve chosen to write it.
In the following pages, I’m going to tell you what I wish someone had
told me when I first began this journey more than twenty years ago. It’s my
fondest wish that my hindsight will be his—and your—20/20, because I
would have loved for someone to affectionately grab me by the scruff of the
neck and say, “Listen up and pay attention. This is how you do it, kid…”
STEP ONE:
Finding Your Passion
“Passion is the genesis of genius.”
—Anthony Robbins
Sounds too simple, right? Find your passion. Figure out what it is that you
love to do and then figure out a way to make a living doing it.
Yeah, yeah, I know. This isn’t new advice. You’ve undoubtedly heard it
before, from people with a lot of alphabet listed after the name on their door
or letterhead. But the reason you’ve heard it before—the reason that this little
nugget of insight turns up more often than any other—is because it’s
significant. It’s key. It’s necessary.
Because passion is the catalyst.
It’s what ignites the flame of ambition, sets blaze to purpose, incinerates
doubt and turns a deaf ear to naysayers. Passion fuels the pursuit of
knowledge, the courage to dream a bigger dream. It doesn’t hear “no,” it
continually refreshes the flagging will with the whisper of “you can do it”
and “what if?” and “try again” and “just maybe…”
Much like Superman’s ability to fly or Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth,
passion is the undisputed super power of the successful. It’s that secret little
something that inspires faith and refuses to quit. In a world which is
increasingly rewarding mediocrity, it’s the lone rustler cutting the trophy
winners away from the ever-growing herd of participation ribbon people.
Don’t think you’re smart enough to do what you want to do? Educated
enough? Don’t think you have the resources to make your dream happen?
That you have the right connections? That you’ve got what it takes?
Guess what? You’re wrong. Passion will level the playing field.
Listen, passion doesn’t care if you didn’t graduate from high school, if
years of standardized testing placed you right smack in the middle of the “of
average intelligence” group. It doesn’t care who your parents were, where
they came from or how much money was in their bank account. It’s the
ultimate equalizer, because if you’re passionate about whatever it is that you
want to do or make happen, then none of those things will matter.
You will succeed because passion won’t let you fail.
Whether it’s an invention you want to take to market, a service you want
to provide, even a lowly idea with grand aspirations, passion will inspire you
to learn absolutely everything you can about what’s captured your attention
and set your imagination on fire. That knowledge will give you the
confidence to boldly pick up the phone and knock on doors. That confidence
will help you cultivate those connections.
You see, passion detonates interest, interest creates knowledge,
knowledge inspires confidence and that chain reaction culminates with
—tada!—a result. And that’s the goal, right? (If it’s not, then you need to go
back to the drawing board.)
To illustrate my point, I’m going to tell you a story. In my early twenties I
was a magician on a cruise ship. I’d gotten into magic in my late teens as a
direct result of some sibling rivalry between me and my younger brother. He
was a natural juggler, seriously talented and, while I had passable skill
(translation: not as good) I found that I could master a magic trick in less time
and get a better response from an audience.
Economics at its finest and my first aha! moment, one that would
ultimately chart a course that would change my life forever.
You see, magic was my passion.
Finding something that intrigued and excited me—that I knew to the very
marrow of my bones that I was good at—absolutely set my life ablaze. It
grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. It didn’t matter that friends and
loved ones thought I was wasting my time, that I was squandering my life
“playing” instead of working at a “real” job. The only thing that mattered was
getting better, learning more, honing my craft.
I didn’t want to just be good, or good enough—I wanted to be the best.
Thanks to that enthusiasm and tenacity, it wasn’t long until I was hosting
my own shows, selling tricks and illusions—some of them for thousands of
dollars—to other magicians, and I ultimately landed a much-coveted job as a
spokesperson for Nabisco, traveling all over the US. (There’s another story
there, which I will get to later, but for now back to the cruise ship.)
This particular cruise line toured the southern Caribbean and once every
two weeks dropped anchor in Puerto Rico. A fellow magician and friend
routinely disembarked there and would do a show for the local children’s
hospital, and finally harassed and harangued me enough that I agreed to do it
with him.
I’ll be honest—I didn’t want to. I dreaded it. I can’t even tell you why.
Call it fatigue, call it laziness, call it whatever… The idea of facing those sick
children struck a sympathetic note in my chest that I’d just as soon avoid.
It was with that admittedly poor attitude that I reluctantly followed my
friend into the building. It was a serviceable concrete block structure—in
other words “cheap”—with dingy white walls and old pale green tile, the
kind that had covered almost every school cafeteria I’d ever visited. It
smelled like antiseptic and sweat—sanitized poverty. It was claustrophobic,
depressing, a sense of hopelessness permeating the very air. The nuns led us
down a long, low-ceilinged hall and my anxiety climbed with each step
deeper into the building.
I couldn’t believe I’d let myself get roped into this. I could have stayed on
the ship, gotten some much-needed rest. I could have worked on my act. I
could have flirted with Sheila, the new blackjack dealer. The truth was, I
would have rather been anywhere at that moment than there, in that sad little
hospital in Puerto Rico.
And then I walked into the multipurpose room and everything changed.
Hundreds of children, all of them wearing an identical expression of
expectation, of excitement. Even the older ones, who thought they were too
cool for this sort of thing. Ask any performer what makes a show and they’ll
tell you that it’s the audience, period. It’s action and reaction, the trick and
the response, the illusion and the startled gasp or the breathless “ahhhh!” The
energy in this particular audience was palpable, made my skin prickle, my
heart race.
It was then that I saw him, his expression more expectant, more eager
than any other. His face pressed against the glass of a small room built into
the back wall, he watched the entire act from start to finish, in utter, fixated,
rapt attention.
He was in isolation from the other children—leukemia, I would later find
out—and his name was Carlos.
Because he’d enjoyed the show so much, more than anyone else in the
room, I decided to give him a private performance. I spent thirty minutes with
the kid, gave him all of my best stuff, even some things I was still working
on, and he loved every single minute of it.
Loved it.
Magic, I discovered, was his passion, too.
Carlos made me promise to come back and I assured him that I would.
What I’d imagined was going to be a horrible experience had turned into one
of the most professionally and personally rewarding I’d ever had in my life.
“What do you want me to do next time?” I asked him as I was packing up
to leave. “What would you like to see?”
I’ll never forget the expression on his face. He smiled, almost wistfully,
and looked and me and said, “I want to see it snow.”
Snow? Really? Right. Didn’t see that one coming. At the time I didn’t
have any idea how on earth I was going to make it snow in a tropical climate,
much less in a cramped little hospital room for a terminally ill child, but I
knew that I had to make it happen because I’d said I would.
For the next two weeks every free minute I had was devoted to
developing a device that would replicate snow. I’d always had a knack for
using household items in nontraditional ways to aid in my illusions—I’d once
used rolling window shades mounted to the inside of a large box to make
myself “appear” in what had been a seemingly empty space—so I knew that
there had to be a way to do it.
Lots of trial and error, lots of frustrated grumbling and swearing under
my breath, but by the end of the second week, I’d done it. I’d packed the
device into an old doctor’s bag and the minute we pulled into port, I was off
the boat and on my way to the hospital. I knew that I’d made something
special and I couldn’t wait to share it with the kid who’d inspired it. I hurried
down the hall, through the double doors into the multipurpose area, toward
Carlos’s isolation room…only to discover that it was empty.
He’d lost his battle with cancer three days before I’d arrived.
It breaks my heart that the boy I’d originally designed my very first snow
machine for—the Snowman™—never got to see it, but because of him and
his simple, seemingly odd request, literally millions of people all over the
world have experienced the magic of that machine. It’s in every major theme
park in the world—Disneyworld, Disneyland, Universal Studios, SeaWorld,
Busch Gardens. It’s been used in countless films—Harry Potter, Twilight,
Elf, The Grinch, just to name a few—as well as videos for megastars Taylor
Swift, Miranda Lambert and Justin Bieber.
It was my break-out invention, the one that ultimately launched my career
as a serial inventor and has put me at the helm of the largest special effects
company in the world.
It was the game-changer, my friends, and if I can do it, then you can too.
STEP TWO:
Identifying the Market—Who Wants What You Have?
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand your customer so
well the product and service fits him and sells itself.”
—Peter Drucker
So you’ve found your passion and you’ve learned everything you possibly
can about it. You’re pumped up, you’re psyched, you’re ready to take the
world by storm.
Excellent, chief, because you’re going to need that energy.
For market research.
Sorry for knocking the wind out of your sails, but it’s the truth. It doesn’t
matter how excited you are about your idea if there isn’t a marketable need
for it. If no one is interested in what you have, then this is a large obstacle.
One that can more than likely be surmounted with a little re-envisioning and
initiative, but it’s still a potential problem.
Let me give you an example. Once upon a time, when Frankie was a
toddler, he loved the indoor playgrounds featured at many of the fast-food
restaurants. He especially loved the ball pits. So I’m sitting there watching
him one day, and a nearby kid loses his diaper and proceeds to mark his
immediate territory. (A very different kind of golden arch, let me tell you.)
Another kid has long ropes of snot hanging from his nose, and another is
cramming one of the balls into his mouth.
Ew.
It’s a germ-infested, unsanitary mess and, because I’m an inventor and
inventors admittedly think differently from the rest of the world, my brain
immediately starts looking for a solution to clean those balls. Days later I’d
produced my first prototype. It was a device that vacuumed the balls from the
pit, spun them through a cleaning/sanitizing solution, then dried them and
shot the balls into an awaiting container. Brilliant, yes? I thought so. So much
so, in fact, that I sunk a large chunk of capital into the idea and Fran’s
Lickety-Split Ball-Cleaning business was born.
And subsequently died a swift, costly death…because I failed to do the
necessary market research. I just assumed that every fast food restaurant on
the planet with those nasty ball-pits would want my services.
I assumed wrong.
Those businesses are primarily franchised out to individual owners who
would rather pay a minimum-wage employee to do the job with a garden
hose than hire a professional outside source. Unsurprisingly, this would have
been helpful to know before I went to the time, trouble and expense to invent,
design, and manufacture a machine to do the job, then open and staff a startup to handle what I imagined would become a multi-million dollar business.
Hindsight, remember?
Do your homework. Research your market. And just when you think
you’ve done all the research you can do, go back and do it again. Trust me on
this.
Had I taken the time to actually go in and speak to a few of those
restaurant owners and managers and said, “Look, this is what I’ve got, isn’t
this fantastic, would you be interested in hiring Fran’s Lickety-Split BallCleaning Business to remove the urine and snot and spilled coke and French
fry crumbs from your ball pit?” and actually listened to their response, I’d
have avoided this rookie mistake.
That said, don’t be afraid to think big. Don’t be afraid to explore alternate
uses for whatever it is that you have. Did you know that Play-Doh’s original
purpose was to clean coal and soot from the walls of people’s homes? It’s
true. When cleaner energy sources became available and sales nose-dived, the
original company faced bankruptcy. It wasn’t until one of the owner’s
noticed that his sister, who was a school teacher, was allowing her students to
use it as molding clay, that the “toy” purpose was discovered. They added a
scent—to cover up the old, less appealing one—and rebranded. That’s
ingenuity.
People, as a rule, tend to overcomplicate things, particularly when they’re
dealing with the unknown, and that’s especially true when it comes to the
accidental inventor. We’ve all heard the old saying, “Necessity is the mother
of invention” and I can’t imagine that truer words have ever been spoken.
From the 1930’s housewife who complained to her husband that she needed
something to hold her fashionable “bob cut” in place—thus the bobby pin—
to the Kellogg brothers who were looking for healthier eating choices for
their patients and inadvertently stumbled upon Corn Flakes, need has driven
the market.
Need will always drive the market.
Say you’ve invented something similar to an existing product already on
the shelves, or a service that’s already being provided, but your product or
service is different. (And, one would hope, better.) How do you find out if
there’s room in the market for your idea?
First order of business—look at who’s already manufacturing and
distributing what’s out there.
When I made the decision to take my first snow machine to market, I
went into every big box store in my area and combed through their Christmas
and party sections. I looked at every product that was even remotely similar
to mine—or served the same sort of purpose—and, using my trusty recorder,
I collected the names of the manufacturers and the distributors. It wasn’t
hard. The information was right there. Oftentimes, even the address.
Armed with that information, I came home, thoroughly researched the
various companies and put together cut sheets—an overview with spec
details—and mailed (yes, mailed them, the good old-fashioned way) to each
potential client, asking if they’d be interested in licensing my product.
Within four days of those packets going out, I had an offer of $50,000 in
advance against royalties.
So what was the difference between the ball-cleaning business and the
snow machine? Demand. A bigger market.
Much bigger, it would turn out, than I’d ever dreamed.
You see, after Carlos passed away, I brought the snow machine back and
put it up on a shelf, where it subsequently sat for two years. I’d custom-made
the illusion for him and had been reluctant to share it with anyone else. It
wasn’t until the City Manager of Hialeah, Florida came to see me about
borrowing some things from me for their company picnic that it ultimately
resurfaced.
I’ll never forget it. We were out in my shop, looking through my carefully
labeled inve…
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