Evan Carmichael explains how inventors can sell ideas to big companies without startup capital. Get a solid patent first, then quantify how much development time your invention saves. Use a well-connected patent attorney to make introductions, since companies won't pay without a clear advantage they can't replicate.
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How to present your idea to a company. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, who's an inventor and wrote in to say, this is HJ Invent, "Hi Evan, I'm an inventor. I have a great idea that I've created. I would like to present it to a company that can use the product. I have drawings, even a prototype I personally made. I do not have startup capital to get a prototype. This is a great product and I know that it would do great in the market." "Can you give me some advice on different approaches, things to do? Thanks, HJ Invent." So this is a great question, and for a lot of inventors, you love to invent, you love to create, but you don't love to go out and sell and market. And an ideal scenario for a lot of inventors is to sell the company or sell the license or sell the patent to a larger corporation so you can go back doing what you're great at, which is inventing. Here's the challenge and here's my advice for what to do. When you present something to a company, okay, you present your invention, you give them your idea, you have to understand that companies, they're in the business to make money too, right? They don't want to pay you a lot of money unless they have to. And so the first thing that a company is going to look at, if you're talking to the CEO, he's going to turn to his tech guy his genius on the technology side and say, you know, how long is this going to take us to do? And they're going to try to reverse engineer it. And the only reason why they would do a deal with you is one, because you have a patent. So you have something about your product that is unique that they can't do because it's patented, or because it's really going to cut down their time to market. So if they love this thing so much, they're gonna want to do it themselves. Unless it's gonna take them a year to do it, right? If it takes them a year to do it, then they can figure out, okay, well, if this cuts our development time by 1 year, then it's worth X amount of dollars to us, and that's why they'll buy you. If you have a company, which you don't have, but for those inventors who've built a business and have customers, then there's an acquisition cost to those customers too, right? There's, you know, how long would it take us to have 1,000 customers using this? So they're buying your customer base. So the more momentum you have with your company, the easier it is to get a better price tag and get somebody interested. So again, you've got this great product, right? You go, you talk to a company, they're gonna say, "We love this idea, this is fantastic." You leave the door, they're talking to each other, "How do we do this ourselves?" Do we have to pay this guy? So where you are right now, one, make sure you get the patent because you don't have a customer base to sell. So get the patent to protect yourself so they can't do anything themselves. And two, you want to make it as hard as possible for them to create this thing. So the more technical it is, the longer time to market it's going to be for them. If it's, if it saves them that one year of development because they can just buy from you and they see this as something critical to get to market, then that increases your price tag. So make sure you protect yourself, because I don't want you walking into that meeting and then saying, "Wow, that went really well," and then behind your back, these guys are out creating their own product and you never hear from them again. That happens a lot with entrepreneurs. I don't want it to be you. In terms of how to get in, if you're going for the patent, one great way to get in to see these companies is to speak with your patent lawyer. Get a patent lawyer who's from a bigger company, who has connections into these companies that you're trying to connect with. Because part of how lawyers keep their business around— what's the difference between one lawyer and another lawyer, one law firm and another law firm? It's the relationships they create. So by introducing you to a potential company, they're actually helping that company out too, right? They have to believe that making an introduction is going to be beneficial for everybody. And if it is, then that company's going to say, wow, this law firm really cares about us. That's how lawyers stand out. So if you're going for a patent, don't get the Joe Schmo patent lawyer who has no connections who can help you but give you a patent, because then you're still on your own to try to sell this thing, which isn't your expertise. Find a lawyer who does have connections, or at least their law firm has connections into the companies that you want to sell to. And hopefully they can facilitate that introduction. But make sure to protect yourself. Believe. For those of you inventors out there, I'd love to hear about how you've gone through this process, how you've sold your technology, or how you're trying to do it right now, how the patent process was for you. Leave a comment underneath, let me know what you think. And also, it helps other inventors who are going through this process. Your feedback will really help them. So please leave a comment below. You like this video? Give it a thumbs up. Click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, I'll see you soon.
