Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality (3 page)

You’re probably feeling something burn inside, a powerful force that insists this is your destiny, too. That’s a good sign. But it’s not enough. I’m not saying you’re confusing heartburn with a hunger for success; I’m just cautioning you that the road to successful invention is not easy, and sometimes we too easily dismiss or ignore our weaknesses. For an inventor, that’s a dangerous thing. It’s important that you know yourself well before taking one more step. You can be a source of truly spectacular ideas, but ideas without follow-through go nowhere; determination untempered by a willingness to face reality can lead to bankruptcy; dreams unsupported by strong stamina and organizational skills tend to die. But if after deep self-reflection you are still convinced that you do possess a solid number of the following character traits and tendencies, you can move forward knowing that you’re starting out with the right stuff.

THE SIX ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL INVENTORS

Passion

If there’s one thing that unites all inventors, regardless of who they are or whom they are selling to, it’s their passion for their inventions. I treat each one of mine like my babies, including ones I didn’t actually invent but invested in. One of my colleagues at
QVC used to joke that I could sell mud—that’s how strongly I believe in my products and how infectious is my enthusiasm. Actually, that’s how strongly I believe in most things that are important to me. I don’t know how to dabble. I’m either going to jump into something wholeheartedly and for the long haul, or I’m just not interested at all. So whatever product I fall in love with, or whatever business I champion, I’m behind it 100 percent! And since I fall in love with most of the products I create or businesses I support, it’s just not that hard to get everyone else who matters behind them 100 percent, too. And as you’ll see, once you get the people who matter to support you and your idea, you’re halfway to seeing your dream become a million-dollar reality.

I’ve never met a single inventor who was lackadaisical about his or her creation. Inventors’ descriptions can even be overexaggerations: “My money-dispensing, hot-chocolate making, floating skateboard is the most important advancement in transportation since Henry Ford’s Model T!” Later, we’ll discuss how to objectively determine whether your invention deserves that kind of hype, but for now, your enthusiasm for and belief in your idea really should be that intense. You’re going to need that degree of passion to sustain you through the incredible journey you will take as you shepherd your invention from concept to commercial—and lucrative—stardom.

Passion is a powerful sales tool. When combined with hard evidence, it is irresistible.

However, make sure you’re passionate about the right things. A lot of entrepreneurs and inventors are passionate about making money, but you don’t start your journey with the goal of becoming a millionaire. It won’t work. No one gets rich merely because he or she wants to get rich. You get rich because you bring something
into the world that is unique and that people are willing to pay for. You get rich when you can successfully prove to others how amazing your product or service is. You can sell a million dollars’ worth of goods, but if a million dollars’ worth of goods are returned, you’ve accomplished nothing. When I started out, of course I hoped I’d make money, but it was the art of perfecting my product, and the excitement of launching the business, that drove me. Start with the important part: create something special. Believe in it so much that other people can’t help but see it the way you see it. Do that right, and the money will follow.

Confidence

You will get nowhere if you carry around the idea that you are less important or less deserving of success than anyone else. The inventor’s arena is no place for self-doubt. You need to believe in yourself as passionately as you believe in your product. You will encounter plenty of people who will be looking for reasons to say no, or to make you feel as though you are not worthy of their respect and consideration. Do not let them, regardless of whether they have more clout, better educations, bigger reputations, or fancy nameplates. Your success will have everything to do with how you perceive yourself, because how you perceive yourself is how others will perceive you, too.

That’s a message for everyone, men and women alike. But an important note to women: don’t ever think of yourself as a woman in business. Rather, think of yourself as a businessperson, equal to anyone else and better than some depending on the areas of your expertise. That’s how I see myself. Aside from giving me firsthand insight into the female consumer’s mind, being a woman has had no bearing on how I do business. I think that’s why it’s always been such a shock when I’ve found myself
face-to-face with sexism. The first patent lawyer I ever met with was a man in his thirties who had somehow never heard of the women’s movement.

My husband, Dan, accompanied me to our first meeting because he was interested in hearing what the attorney had to say, since any decisions I made would necessarily affect his finances, too—I used our money, about $5,000, to pay for the first patent filing. I sat across from the lawyer so we could face each other, and Dan purposely sat off to the side as a listener, not a participant. He remained silent as I talked, and yet every time I would ask a question, the attorney would turn to my husband to reply. I was shocked at how blatant this was, but he went on, oblivious to what he was doing. I kept asking questions to see how long he was going to continue this way. He went on and kept directing his replies to Dan. After about ten minutes, I said, “Okay. I’m done. I’d appreciate if you would go find one of the partners of this firm. Tell them you have been such a chauvinist to me that they need to send in a female attorney to help me instead of you.” Maybe that was reverse chauvinism, but I didn’t want to risk this happening again, and I felt I could avoid it for sure by asking to work with a woman. The attorney blushed and stammered and tried to say he was sorry, but I wasn’t interested in his apology. “You’re not really sorry. You’re only sorry that I called you on it.” Fortunately, the lawyer who replaced him, Natalie, is a terrific attorney. Seventeen years and 120 patents later,
I’m still with her to this day, and I consider her a dear friend. I’m so glad that guy screwed up. It just goes to show that things happen for a reason.

Call out injustice when you see it, and always stand up for yourself. But be polite even as you do it—you’ll get a lot further when you gain a reputation for taking the high ground.

I’ve been asked if I’m ever nervous when I go head to head with fellow sharks Mark Cuban or Kevin O’Leary on
Shark Tank
. On the contrary, I like sparring with them. And besides, why would I feel nervous? Because Mark is a billionaire? Because Kevin is ruthless and has an acid-tipped tongue? They’re unbelievably smart, they have worked extraordinarily hard and made brilliant business decisions, and they run tremendous empires—they deserve respect. But does that mean I can’t stand up to them? Does it mean they are better than me, or anyone else? Of course not. They are just admirable and very successful. We are all just human beings in the end. I have my areas of expertise and they have theirs. And boy, do we all have our opinions!

I have my parents to thank for the mindset that I can achieve anything I want to. I have a tendency to be fearless in business (though you won’t catch me within 10 yards of an iguana) and it has served me well. For any challenging situation, my father would say, “Think about what’s the worst thing that can happen.” So I’d think about it. Once I knew what the worst thing was, I’d say, “Okay, I can deal with that,” and move forward. If I couldn’t deal with it, I’d go in a different direction. When I went to start the business, once again I thought, “What’s the worst that can happen?” In the early days I’d worry that a new product wouldn’t be a hit, and that all the time and effort that went into it would have been for nothing. I had good instincts, but not a crystal ball. What if this time the product flopped? Then I’d force myself to get some perspective, and realize that a flopped product wasn’t the end of the world.

Disappointing? Frustrating? Yes. Catastrophic? No. I had a plan in place should the worst ever happen. I think it’s the fear of
the bad things that can happen that stalls people and makes them freeze. If you can conceive of the worst, and you’re prepared to deal with it, should you get there, everything else that comes before it is pretty manageable. It’s good to have a plan, but don’t be too rigid. Rigidity stifles creativity and keeps you from zigging and zagging when necessary. Things come up, and you’ll have to go with the flow.

Some things are out of your control, such as when a buyer could make an arbitrary decision that would affect the future of your product. I’ve been fortunate in that the majority of people I’ve worked with, from retail buyers to attorneys to manufacturers, genuinely want the inventors and business owners with whom they do business to succeed. But eventually, you’re going to run into someone who is having a really bad day and decides to take it out on you. There will be nothing you can do about that. It’s your attitude that will matter, and how you deal with these people. At the end of the day, if someone proves impossible to work with, find someone else. If something doesn’t go in your favor, try something else. It’s never one thing or nothing; there’s always a way. Having confidence will protect you and get you through those moments.

Just don’t allow your confidence to slide into arrogance or rudeness. There’s no excuse for either. I’ve seen many new inventors lose lucrative deals because they were so smug, were inflexible, or carried themselves with such a sense of entitlement that no one wanted to do business with them. I walked away from one of the best products I’ve ever seen because its creator was such a know-it-all, and so convinced he had nothing to learn, that he never heard anything anyone had to say. For me, no amount of money is ever worth the headache of having to deal with someone like that. I want to enjoy my business partners and do great business together, not fight with them. That’s not to say inventors
shouldn’t stand up for what they believe, even if it means disagreeing with their investors or buyers. If you have a point, make it, but always do so respectfully and with an explanation. Being a good leader is being a good listener. Be the person who others want to have on their team, to buy from, or to work with. Remember, buyers are judged by how well their product lines sell. If you work as a team and acknowledge their contributions, your success can be their success, too, and they’ll enjoy working with you.

Confidence is also what will give you the strength you need to ignore skeptics. There will be many. Some may be jealous, or threatened, or simply unimaginative. Others may genuinely have your best interest at heart. They care about you and they’re scared that you’ll fail. And that’s why they are the skeptics and you’re the entrepreneur—because you don’t approach life with fear, but with courage; you prefer to take the positive angle rather than the negative one. If someone doesn’t believe in your idea, it’s typically because the person has never seen it before or couldn’t make it work. When others say, “What if this doesn’t work?” your attitude should be, “It will work when I figure out how to make it work.” When they say, “That’s never been done,” your answer should be, “That’s the point.”

Drive and Determination

You have to have incredible amounts of these two. Drive is your inner momentum, that insatiable need inventors have, as powerful and primal as hunger or thirst, to keep working and moving toward their goals. Determination is your will, your conscious decision to set those goals, commit to achieving them, and then set more once you’ve achieved the first ones. Your drive fuels your determination, and determination is what helps you override symptoms like stress or fatigue that can weaken your resolve to
persevere. Drive and determination manifest themselves in your willingness to do the work of twenty, if necessary.

Successful inventors generally don’t know how to sit still, nor would they want to. Where’s the fun in that? The additional advantage to being so highly determined and having loads of drive is that once you’ve invested all that energy and work into getting your product to market, you will know everything that needs to be done. If you’ve been as hands-on as most successful inventors usually are, you’ve learned the tricks and the traps, become familiar with the laws and the regulations. You’ve seen the ugly and dodged the bullets, negotiated opportunities and reeled in the deals. With that experience under your belt, it’s much easier to get your second product off the ground. And even easier to launch your third. Of course, there will always be surprises, but they become fewer and farther between.

Organizational Skills

I believe that when you’ve got a great idea, you should move as fast as possible to get it to market. I often say that I don’t let the grass grow under my feet. Neither should you. When you’ve got a terrific idea and you can’t wait to get it off the ground, it’s to your advantage to try getting as many balls in motion as possible.