Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am sure that many inventors have used up their last thread of patience waiting for others to reply with information, such as quotes, business advice, patents, trademarks, and the like.

At what point does an inventor take control of the process? I have often felt that I "have to" rely on these experts because I know little about the topics in question. Each professional that gets involved in the process seems to slow things down exponentially.

I understand that sometimes we have to use professionals to do the work for us, but I would like to weed out the steps that I can take with some effort on my part.

I feel that my product has a place in the market (as I'm sure every inventor does), but getting it from prototype to market is another big hurdle to confront. Add on top of that the fact that it requires sports licensing to reach its full potential. That hurdle seems almost insurmountable for a lowly inventor.

My product is patented, labor intensive, and requires multiple manufacturing technologies to complete the assembly. I just listened to a podcast on this site for Global Access. Global assists medium sized companies in partnering with offshore manufacturers that have been pre-screened, but what about the blossoming inventor with an idea? . . .

Any thoughts, or wisdom, on the subject of budding inventorism (obviously not a real word) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time, and I look forward to future discussions.

You might consider licensing your invention instead of doing all the grunt work yourself to manufacture and distribute, etc.  Find a mid-size company that makes similar products and pitch the idea to them, after you have a provisional patent ($110) filed with the patent office (try PatentWizard or LegalZoom.com).  I suggest you read a book, One Simple Idea, by Stephen Keys.  His pitch is to let the manufacturers patent, market, produce and distribute your product idea, you stay home and collect license royalties and work on your next big idea.  This seems a lot less complicated, and more fun.  But you have to be a good pitch-man and have a compelling innovation, compelling enough where the company you're pitching it to doesn't want you to take it to their competitors.