Inventors Die Broke... Copycats get rich

What ever happened to MySpace?

(I know it's still around, but I haven't logged in there in over a year...maybe it's just me....)

If you're an inventor, you have to get as many patents as you can. A tech guy I used to do some work for a few years ago patented everything. He even had a patent for a method for dialing a phone! When he sold his company, he got $10M for the business and $70M for his personal patents.

That is exactly what most of us need to hear. When I first started in this business I spent months trying to invent a new system, or something never seen before. It took me a looonnnggg time to realize that I did not need to do that, just take an existing product and make it better.

LOL, very true.

You see most of WSO is just the rehast version of the "previous" ebook...

You mean copycats that were doing what you advocate?

ALL businesspeople end up eventually being embroiled in some kind of legal entanglements. Many successful people must defend their intellectual property against "copycats" who infringe upon them in some fashion. It's a requirement of US trademark law, if one doesn't vigorously defend their property, they lose protection status.

Edison was a massive financier of other technology and development as well.

I don't think you can say that he wasn't a successful businessman. He made fortunes. He also made bad investments like many other businessmen.

Birdseye eventually sold his patents, name and services as a consultant to General Foods for $22,000,000

Hardly a failure.

No "inventor" purely "invents". Almost all inventors base their innovation on prior work done by those before them. If you're wanting to now use that as a distinction to defend your original thesis, then you're changing the story.

Dean Kamen is an engineer.

Yes, Goodyear was in debt when he died... that was due to the business side of setting up new production factories that didn't net profits for him during the remainder of his life. However, he earned a significant sum of money over the course of his lifetime that allowed him to reinvest in his production, and eventually, the royalties of his work made his wife and children very wealthy before their own deaths.

Canned meat. Mostly known under the brand name, "Spam" (not the email).

He combined it with sodium nitrate to create the stable loaf that could be canned.

Made what?

Made a success? Kept a success?

All businesspeople have successes and failures. Kamen is a success. Paul Allen is a success (BILLIONAIRE).

How about Ed Lowe, the inventor of kitty litter? He sold his company when it was doing $200 million/year in revenue.

Robert Moog, the inventor of the music synthesizer. I personally knew him, he wasn't poor when he died.

Mark Andreessen. Ever hear of him? He's got a few sheckels.

I think maybe you've fallen into the classic trap of assumptive thinking that people who are of an engineering-oriented mindset aren't good businesspeople... maybe because you personally haven't been exposed to successful businesspeople that are engineering minds. I dunno.

I agree that there exists many engineers that are abysmal at business and marketing. However, there are many who have done quite well and made fortunes. I personally know a few.

Your point is certainly understood, but I just don't believe that it's accurate unless you make some very sweeping, broad brush stroke generalizations.

I am one as well.

There are exceptions (such as the "Into The Tornado" market phenomenon described by Geoffrey Moore as a technology reaches "Main Street" demand), but in principle, we do agree that marketing will bridge the shortcomings of an inferior technology.

But within this, the "marketing" being more the traditional view of 4P marketing, not the very narrow scope of internet marketing as discussed on WF.

Rod, those two ideas are not mutually exclusive...

I also have a background in engineering. And in general I would change Winebuddy's subject line to "inventors who can't market and pick inconvenient times to die, die broke. Pure copycats get weeded out or marginalized."

Every single "copycat" nominated did more than copy, they tacked on an innovation.

> FedEx innovated systems to make overnight delivery both dependable and affordable on a grand scale.

> Hormel took the concept of preserving food and innovated a process that made canned meat shelf-stable with a half-life measured in years.

None of the examples cited was a true copycat.

And none of the successful innovators would have likely made a dime by innovating something no one wanted or needed.

Look at the inventors that show up on shows like Dragon's Den. How often do you see an invention get the "it's brilliant, but who would buy it" treatment?

Yet, a few weeks back, I saw a former visitor to the Den on a US show called House Hunters. He invented a little plastic junction box for home wiring and licensed it to a huge supplier. Three years later, he and his wife are looking for a vacation home in Spain, with a modest budget of 1.5 million Euros. They were also building a new custom manor house in the UK at the same time.

I've been rambling a bit, so here's my wrap-up. An inventor who can innovate something people want and will pay for can get rich in a way that his descendants will thank him for for generations. A true copycat might make a few bucks, but risks being innovated into oblivion...