Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 23. How to Get Your Invention From Idea To A Successful Reality With Alan Beckley
Transcript
- Alan Beckley (00:00): One of the biggest in the business licensed my product where they sold over $30 million worth the wallets across about 15,000 retail stores worldwide. So that got me to where I am today, so to speak. And now I help other inventors Intro (00:16): Bigger. Doesn't it always mean better? Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast where people who are flying solo in business come for specific tips and advice to find success as a company of one. Here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries Carly Ries (00:34): Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries. Joe Rando (00:39): And I'm Joe Rando Carly Ries (00:41): I am so excited for our guest today. We will be speaking with Alan Beckley, an entrepreneur, inventor, and podcaster. Alan got a degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A & M University and worked for the Boeing company. A real underachiever there, Al. But, he soon realized he liked aviation and airplanes, but not big companies and bureaucracy. Seeking a role with more with more impact, he moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, got interested in telecom and became a project manager for a small company. His new role and responsibilities and more dynamic companies served him well for many years, but over the years the small telecom firms got gobbled up by large companies. Soon he found himself once again back where he started, working for large bureaucratic companies. He longed to work for himself full-time, but like many professionals found it difficult to make the leap from biweekly paychecks to self-employment. And actually, I want to stop there because this is where your journey that led you to where you are today begins. So first of all, welcome to the show and can you dive into basically the rest of your journey and story starting back with when everything changed in 2002? Alan Beckley (01:49): Sure. Carly, you bet. You've done such a great job of introducing my mini storied journey. Having essentially left as an aerospace engineer, made the move to the Dallas Fort Worth area and getting into telecom for precisely the reasons you just described. That was in 1983, but let's fast forward to 2002 many years later. That's when I came up with an idea or a problem. And that is what I called the rump bump, the overly thick, bulky wallet. Now, I was still working in telecom at the time and I came up with this idea and I had spent like two years trying to find a way to buy any kind of a wallet that would hold a fair number of cards and not be thicker than a brick. Never could find it. So one morning in the shower I came up with the idea for laying cards out, somewhat like a photo album. (02:42): So when you fold it up, it would be half as thick and hold twice as many cards. I thought this has got some real potential. But like most inventors, I had no clue what the steps looked like and what to do next.. So 2002 I filed my first patent. I just found a patent attorney and said, well, you know, time to file a patent. Didn't know what else to do. I began at that time trying to license to wallet manufacturers and really spent three years finding them not terribly receptive. It's interesting, but not for us. I finally got frustrated and said, you know what? Wallets aren't that expensive. I'm just gonna make some of these things and see if I can sell 'em myself. So I had them manufactured ultimately in China and I sold anywhere and everywhere I could including fleet markets, military bases. (03:31): Then finally VA hospitals. I finally got some more commercial success when I was able to get onto QVC where I was on for two years. QVC is great exposure for any product. Sold about $130,000 there. But finally, what really was a game changer for me, and it only took me five years, was to get into direct response tv, what people call infomercials, where all star products, one of the biggest in the business licensed my product where they sold over $30 million worth the wallets across about 15,000 retail stores worldwide. That got me to where I am today, so to speak, and now I help other inventors. Carly Ries (04:15): That is just remarkable. That's one of the big reasons I wanted you on the podcast because you were so successful, but you also went through all the ups and downs, like any invention where you kind of had to figure it out as you as you went on. So now hindsight's 2020, what would you recommend that the very first thing a person does when they first have an idea for invention, where is their first step? Alan Beckley (04:39): Yes. I understand this question. Knowing what you know now, what would you have done different, in so many words. Carly Ries (04:44): Exactly. Alan Beckley (04:46): Two key things that I would say to anybody today considering being an inventor. The first one is inventing and patenting actually is the easy part. Marketing is the hard part. And this is because over 80% of all new products, and I mean all new products like Procter and Gamble fail within the first year cuz the market is brutal. You need a product that is a compelling solution to a problem to be successful. And second point, which was a shock to me initially, most companies aren't actively seeking new products from outsiders like me and other inventors. They're typically not receptive to independent product developers as we call ourselves. So you must learn to speak to what they care about, not what you care about. And they care about cost manufacturer profitability, at least a five x markup and how it can fit into their existing product line. So what I just highlighted for you is what I wished I knew when I started, but I've learned over time. Carly Ries (05:44): Yeah, I think that's fantastic because like you said, it's such a saturated market. No matter what you're trying to get into and just being able to get through all the noise and stand out from the crowd really is one of the toughest things. But I do wanna circle back when you're talking about the patents because that's something that I think a lot of inventors struggle with is an aspect of that in that let's say they have a great idea but they wanna share it to make sure it's viable. How do they navigate that fine line of protecting their patent and intellectual property but still sharing the idea to make sure people would actually want it? Alan Beckley (06:19): That's a fantastic question that inventors and others ask me every day. Here are my suggestions. If it's just a raw idea, ideas are not patentable, they not be stolen cuz they're just ideas. 7 billion people on planet Earth probably come up with half a dozen ideas every day. So just a raw idea, there's not that much risk in "shopping it around", by creating a mockup of it or something on your cell phone and just showing it to somebody and say, Hey, if you saw something like this in the marketplace, is that something you would buy Again, They're not gonna go spend thousands of dollars blood, sweat, and tears and years and all the kind of nonsense you have to do to get something into the marketplace. So they're not a huge competitor and it's still just a raw idea. But once it gets beyond just being an idea and you really think you may have a product, then you should consider filing what they call a provisional patent application, PPA. This would allow you to claim patent pending and give you an implied protection for one year before then you must file a utility patent, what I'd call a real patent to keep the idea going. Does that make sense? Carly Ries (07:29): Yeah, I think it does. Joe, you good there? Joe Rando (07:33): Well I'm curious, and we had a conversation on our previous podcast about intellectual property and this notion that sometimes if it's a really good idea and you present it to some company or some people that really get it and can benefit from it, what are the risks in your experience with people having a patent, sharing an idea and then getting into this situation of "sue me" taking, taking the idea of running with it and then, you know, wearing the little guy out in court. Is that something that you see happening ever or a lot or never? Alan Beckley (08:10): This is a great question. I'm gonna give you my take on it because lots of inventors have different takes. First and foremost, I do think that you should have at least a PPA before you pitch it to a company that could manufacture it. Then you would simply tell them your are patent pending and not be real specific about the fact that it's a provisional patent. If they then show some real interest, you should then get with your patent attorney and file a utility patent and not divulge any detailed information about it until it's at least patent pending. But circling back to your question about products being stolen. There are certainly stories like the famous Ford Motor Company windshield wiper story whereby a large corporation has literally stolen a product from an inventor. My firm belief is that happens pretty rarely nowadays for a couple of reasons. (09:05): Again, as long as you've got some intellectual property on it. Honestly, if you go show them an idea, you've got no intellectual property. It might be unethical for them to take the idea of the product and move forward with it, but it's not illegal. But the reason I think it rarely happens honestly, is major companies, medium sized companies, their reputation is worth a lot of money. And in the 24/7 environment we have of social media, if it gets out there a lot that they're stealing products from small inventors, that's pretty costly to their reputation. So for those reasons, I think most legitimate companies of any size are very unlikely to steal your product if you present it to them. But, you should protect yourself by having at least a provisional patent application. And if the idea or the concept really looks like it should move forward, then you might consider going ahead and filing a utility patent. Does that make sense? Joe Rando (10:09): It really does. I find that a lot of people I know that have an idea for a product, are very afraid of that. And that's one of the things that keeps them from exploring whether it's even a good idea with people. They're afraid it'll be stolen. So, good perspective on that. Thank you. Carly Ries (10:27): Yeah, I think that's a mistake a lot of people would make. So that actually leads me into my next question. What are the most common mistake do you see inventors making throughout their process? Alan Beckley (10:37): I'd start by saying, how much time do we have? But no, I've got five things for you that we can speak to. We could talk about this all day. One of the first things is racing out as I did originally, to file a patent on an idea or concept before you've properly validated it and evaluated it against competition, so to speak. Then mistake number two, oh this one, don't get me started, looking for an easy path, you know, that expressway to success that is just out there somewhere and spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars with an invention marketing company that says, oh yeah, we can do it all for you. We have relationships with all the big box retailers. You'd just sit back and give us your $10,000 or $20,000 and you'll be good to go. (11:28): Unfortunately, so many inventors looking for the easy path, it's like a song in their head so to speak. Number three, spending large amounts of capital and getting a big inventory of product before you even know if it will sell to anyone. Having a garage full of product that won't sell. This can be extremely costly. So many inventors get so enamored of their product cuz their friends and family say it's great and they just assume everybody else is gonna love it. I've got two more here. Number four is not being open to critique from people who do have expertise. You love your little baby, your little product, your invention, and you don't want somebody to say, well you may need to change a couple of things, maybe it's too complex and you don't want to hear that. That's precisely what you should be open to listening to. And then finally, number five out of this, not learning how to effectively market their product with really what is called a 32nd pitch. A 32nd pitch is really the foundation for marketing any product, including inventive products. It is something I speak to in my bootcamp for inventors, Carly Ries (12:37): Alan, you speak my language with with that because I'm a marketer. I so appreciate the emphasis that you put on it. You actually came up with your own marketing process that you called the V-E-M marketing process, correct? Alan Beckley (12:50): I did. Carly Ries (12:51): Can you dive into that and then explain each letter of the acronym? Alan Beckley (12:55): Just as you said, marketing is the most important thing. It's the kind of the nemesis of most inventors because they don't really wanna learn how to market. They don't wanna get outta their comfort zone and as you already know, it's crucially important. So let's go to the V E M. The first V is for validate. Validate your product against key parameters of successful products. I speak to seven of them. And again, all of these I taught teach in the one week bootcamp for inventors. So that's V for validate. Make sure you validate your product to see if it really has a chance for success based upon key parameters of successful products in the market. Then the E is for evaluate and this is evaluated against your top three competitors. There are always some kind of a competitor out there. How does it stack up? How does it differentiate? What makes it stand out? And then the final one is M for marketing it. And that is developing it, creating your 32nd pitch based on this earlier work of validating and evaluating it. Now you can highlight what truly makes this product stand out against the competition. Why is it better? Why would a consumer buy this product instead of half a dozen others that they see? Carly Ries (14:15): Oh love that. And now a quick word from our sponsor. Sponsor (14:19): You may be going solo in business but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. LifeStarr has created a one-person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com Joe Rando (14:48): In terms of competitors, do you find a lot of people say, well no, there's no competition, this is totally unique and there are no competitors. Is that something you see people falling into at all? Alan Beckley (14:58): All the time. That could have been added to my list of key mistakes inventors make, but nine times out of 10 when Inventor says there is nothing like it out there. I'll ask a simple question, where have you looked? Well, I looked in a couple stores, you know, I didn't see it anywhere and I said, you know, did you really do your research? Did you go look on a Alibaba, Amazon? Did you go do a search on Google and Google images? Did you go look on QVC and HSN? Did you check every retail store you could think of? Go to a lot of different websites and always, the answer is no, they didn't do any of those things. The danger of that is you'll convince yourself it's a great product, nobody's got it out there and you'll go spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on a product that's already out there. If that makes sense. Joe Rando (15:45): It totally makes sense and, and is giving me some deja vu. We can talk about another time. The other thing too is that there are times when maybe there isn't a directly comparable product, but yet there are competitors on things like budget, right? Or just alternative uses. And so you can have competitors that don't necessarily look like your product, right? Alan Beckley (16:08): You are precisely right. That's something once again a lot of inventors don't realize. Sometimes truthfully, there isn't a direct competitor from all the research I've seen in the market and my question for them is, if this product really solves a key problem, consumers are solving that problem somehow right now. Maybe not in a great way, but they're finding some way to solve it. Then thinking of the way consumers are currently solving the problem, those are your competitors and they may not be heavy duty competitors cuz you can say, oh this is so much better than that. Carly Ries (16:45): Yeah, with all the streaming services out there right now, like Netflix and Hulu for example, people think, oh they're competitors. Then it's like, well another competitor theirs their Mattel and board game companies because that's still trying to get the same audience's attention just in a different medium. Joe Rando (17:01): You're absolutely right. Carly Ries (17:03): Yeah. That's something people often forget. Something I always try to think about when I approach marketing for things. Alan, you've had such great advice so far. What would you say the number one piece of advice is for solopreneurs listening to this that they should take away from this podcast? Alan Beckley (17:19): Carly, another great question and I'm gonna cheat as I've been doing. I'm gonna actually give you three things, but I'll be short and to the point. Number one, realize that inventing is a very high risk endeavor and it is front loaded with cost, packaging, prototyping, getting all of the pieces put together, patents and many other costs that tend to be front loaded and any profits are typically months or years later. So that makes a high risk invent endeavor from the get-go from a business perspective. And because of that, instead of trying to venture it and build a business around it, I always suggest that they consider licensing their invention, the rights, the patents to their invention, licensing those rights to a large company that is much better at it than they are instead of trying to venture it. It's dramatically less costly, dramatically less risky and in most cases you'll actually make more money licensing than venturing it. I've done both so I can speak to that. Number three, be willing to invest some capital to learn from people who've been there and done that. This can save you thousands of dollars and years of time, making a lot of rookie mistakes that you're probably going to make otherwise. Carly Ries (18:34): Absolutely. Well, Alan, just listening to all of this, I just have a feeling people will be hearing this episode and they'll want to learn more. It's inspiring for me. I don't have an invention right now, but now I want to get in the shower and think of one and come up with a success. Do you have any resources you think would be helpful for a person going in alone? Alan Beckley (18:55): Actually I have several. One is quite simple. I'm good friends with Stephen Key, famous inventor, quite successful. He published a book many years ago that's called One Simple Idea. You can find it anywhere. It's out there everywhere. It's a really great starting point for anybody who's got an idea, got a concept and they think, well gee, what does the path forward look like? It's a really great one. So I highly recommend that. Another one that something like 2% of the population seems to be aware of is they consider working with the small business development center or SBDCs, are in most major cities. They're a part of the small business administration, but SBDCs offer you free business counseling on planning and development and all the things that you need to do, so it's a great resource. Just look under small business administration or small business development center, they're in most major cities and the vast bulk of everything they do is free or very inexpensive and it's a great resource for anybody starting a business. (20:02): Another one some inventors don't do, join your local inventor's group. Once again, most major cities have an inventor's group that meets once a month and these are a whole other collection of crazies just like you that are sharing the same journey and the same experiences. I think it's the single best resource there is. And then, I have to pitch my podcast. My podcast is also a great free resource for inventors called Inventors Helping Inventors podcast, and they can go to alanbeckley.com/podcast to find over three years worth of episodes now. Carly Ries (20:45): Yyour podcast is a great listen, I highly recommend it for anybody interested in pursuing an invention. Well, Alan, I'm so bummed because this is such a great episode. I just love talking to you, but we're actually on our last question. It's something that we ask all of our experts. What is your favorite quote about success? Alan Beckley (21:04): I love this one in particular and it's a very simple one and it's from Henry Ford and he said, "if you think you can or you think you can't, either way you are probably right." Carly Ries (21:16): That is my favorite as well. Did Henry Ford invent something or something? (21:23): I feel like he had some success. Well, Alan, this was so great. I know you just mentioned your podcast and your website, but if people want to learn more, are there other places they can reach out to you or is the website the key place? Alan Beckley (21:37): The website's a good starting point, but let me give you a couple of others. I'm happy for anybody to reach out to me on my email. That's Alan@alanbeckley.com and my monthly boot camps for inventors where they will learn all about the VEM process and how to create their own 32nd pitch is alanbeckley.com/bootcamp. There will be one coming up in February. Then I already mentioned the podcast so I won't hit on that again, but it's Inventors Helping Inventors and I do have a special offer for your audience that I offer to my podcast listeners. A free 30 minutes of coaching with me. If they just reach out to me on my email and say they heard me on this podcast and they want some coaching, then I'll give them 30 minutes of coaching for free. Carly Ries (22:28): Well that is so generous and thoughtful of you and we really appreciate that. Alan, we just cannot thank you enough for coming on the show. Joe Rando (22:39): I just think this is such an awesome episode and such great information that's gonna be so helpful for people that are coming up with inventions. Like you said, everybody's thinking of ideas every day and when someone gets bitten with that bug that they want to move forward, this is a great place for them to look to get good advice. I'm just really pleased that we got the chance to have you on. Carly Ries (23:02): Yes, agreed. Alan Beckley (23:04): Well, and I want to thank you both so much. It's been a pleasure and a real joy and I will be listening to your podcast and paying it forward. I believe in helping other podcasters. Most people have no clue that podcasting is not a real simple thing to do. Carly Ries (23:20): True. Well, thank you so much and listeners, to access this podcast, be sure to visit LifeStarr.com/podcast where you can find this and all others. You can also subscribe there. We'll see you next time. (23:33): CLOSING (23:37): You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes running a one person business and figuring out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? LifeStarr has created a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.