Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality (2 page)

It was 2008 when I got the call to come in and meet with Mark Burnett for a new show that he, ABC, and Sony were developing, called
Shark Tank
. The meeting went great and I was so excited to be chosen for the show. But then the most horrible thing happened: my mother, whom I loved very much, died suddenly right at the same time as shooting, and I had to withdraw. It was a difficult time. The producers kept in touch with me, and three years later, I appeared in Season Three as a guest shark, and then I became a permanent shark in Season Four.

Early on, the casting agent shared with me one of the reasons the show’s creators had sought me out. She said I was a unicorn; there just wasn’t anyone else out there like me. I had never thought about it. Many inventors can point to one phenomenally successful product, but it’s rarer for someone to bring a large number of inventions to market. I’ve developed over four hundred successful products, and I have a hundred and twenty patents. People are always asking me if I’m proud of that, and I am. But what gives me the greatest pleasure is having created so many products that make people happy and make their lives
easier. Had I stopped after witnessing the success of my first invention, I would have been proud of that, too. It’s not about the number of inventions you bring to market. Margaret Mitchell published only one novel, but it was
Gone with the Wind
! There is great satisfaction in developing one fantastic product and watching the world fall in love with it. And it only takes the successful launch of one brilliant idea to make you a millionaire. But whether you create one great thing or many, the steps to get you there are the same.

Why didn’t I stop at one invention? For the same reason many entrepreneurs keep churning away even after their business takes off—the sheer joy of it. Besides, once you’ve brought one successful product to market, you know everything you need to bring another successful product to market. If anything, success only makes you want to work harder. When you are as obsessed and determined as most inventors who have built thriving, lucrative businesses, work doesn’t feel like work. It feels like freedom. Inventors and entrepreneurs constitute a special club, a collection of creative spirits and mavericks who simply can’t or won’t conform to the established boundaries and limitations of the traditional workplace.

We are the kind of people who must forge our own paths, not follow one already laid out for us. Like everyone else, we want to make money, but we want to earn it doing something that we love and that we can call our own. We choose to whittle our lives down to the bare essentials—family, food, sleep—because we know that every hour of effort we put in will come directly back to us and to the people we love. It may seem to outsiders like a Spartan life, all work and no play, but it isn’t, because when you’re doing what you love, work is play. They will never understand what a powerful thrill it is to hold in your hands something you dreamed up in your head.

That said, my philosophy is that life’s a party and you’ve got to have fun every day. I believe that there’s always room for good food, wine, and laughter, whether it’s just Dan and me going over numbers together late at night or my whole team gathered for last-minute preparations for a show. Even when you’re working, you should be having a good time!

“Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”

—A
UTHOR UNKNOWN

One more thing that sets me apart from many other inventors and entrepreneurs is that I preach extreme DIY. My expertise doesn’t come from the sheer number of products I can list; it’s a result of being directly involved in every facet of their creation. There is nothing you cannot learn yourself. Who can you trust better than yourself to get things done right? No one will ever care as much as you do about your business.

You don’t know about manufacturing? Neither did I, but now I could run a factory if I needed to. You aren’t a lawyer and don’t know a thing about patents? I’m not either, but now I’m educated to the point that I help write my patents, and I’ve been called as a guest speaker for the U.S. Patent and Trade Office in Washington, D.C. There was a time when I didn’t know anything about what it took to bring a product to market, but I figured it out. The stories you’ll read in this book will reveal the lengths to which I was willing to go to ensure my products’ success, and that it would offer both value and pleasure to anyone who bought them. As my business grew larger, I would eventually have to delegate some responsibilities, but in those early days I insisted on being there for every step. What I didn’t know, I’d learn. If I wasn’t an expert, I’d become one. No detail was too small, and my efforts paid off. Because in the end, all you’ve got is what you’re willing to bring, so you’d better bring it all!

As in all things, natural creative talent will get you only so far. If you want to see your invention on shelves, in stores, on television, and most important, in people’s hands and homes, you have to develop skills to support your talent. To become a successful inventor, it’s not enough to have a great idea for a product. You have to design it and manufacture it. You have to protect your design from being copied or stolen. You have to package your product and pitch it. You have to find someone willing to sell it. All of those steps require skills and finesse that you can often only learn on the job.

Lucky for you, I already have. In
Invent It, Sell it, Bank It!
you will learn about the ins and outs of great product design, from concept to creation; the nuts and bolts of manufacturing, patenting, packaging, pricing, and shipping; the art of the pitch, the trick to inexpensive yet effective marketing, the rules and regulations that must be followed, and the key to lining up multiple retail sources.

I’m excited to share everything I know and to give you an honest and straightforward overview of what it takes to get a product to market. It’s not always an easy road. Like everyone else I’ve had my fair share of hard knocks in life. I think that’s good. Struggles and setbacks make you stronger and better. And most of the time what you think is the worst thing that could happen to you turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Every time something goes wrong, you will learn from it and become better able to cope with the next challenge or obstacle that comes your way.

To all budding entrepreneurs I say this: you can make almost anything happen if you try hard enough. When you run your own business, you’re taking a different journey than the average person. You’re embarking on a 24/7 commitment. You never really shut the door. You’ll take vacations, but things will come
up and you have to be available. You need to support your team. You’ll need a lot of energy to succeed in this business. You have to dream bigger. You have to reach further. I am living proof that, with enough fire and willpower, you can make anything happen. Failure is not an option; it’s a state of mind.

This book outlines the invention process in linear fashion—first you do this, then you do that. But realize that when you’re bringing a product to market, you’re doing everything at once. When I launched my first invention, I ran around like a nut. It was summer and I wanted my product out for the holiday season, which meant I had to make a miracle happen. I had every fire going at the same time. While my prototype was being made, I was calling stores and pitching my idea. Once the prototype was done, I continued to make calls while at the same time conducting market research. Next thing I knew, I was flying around the country making my pitch, visiting stores from Chicago to Minneapolis to Texas to California, ultimately traveling to nineteen cities in twenty-one days! At the same time, I continued to call other stores, working on tooling, designing my packaging, and selecting a factory. I worked my butt off, and thankfully I made a miracle happen. And I’ve continued to work that way ever since. The thing is, that’s the way most people who achieve success in this business do things. I hope that my story will be inspiring, and that getting a peek into my thought process will be helpful when it’s time for you to start making your own rapid-fire decisions.

Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!
will reveal how I mastered strategic and technical skills, but it may also explain why I have become known as “the warm-blooded shark” on
Shark Tank
. I don’t think being kind or compassionate makes me any less competitive in the business world. I see no point in tearing people down to get ahead, and I have also found that you can never go wrong if you
try to be nice. That’s why I do my best to be respectful to all the entrepreneurs who come into the tank—even the ones whose businesses in my opinion don’t show much promise. When I look at them, I see myself. I know what it is like to have one shot that could make or break everything. I’ve been in their shoes. I remember the people who let me down nicely, and those who treated me brutally. It brings to mind something my grandfather always told me: people will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. I’m far from perfect, but I always try to remember his words. I’ve never believed I had to be cutthroat or cruel to get ahead in business. However, never mistake my kindness for weakness.

It’s a paradox: you are responsible for your own destiny, but you can’t get there alone. No matter how sure you are that you know what’s best for your product, no matter how high your standards, it’s important to be kind to people and to make them feel a part of a team. Take the time to invest in people, not just your product. The height or longevity of any success you achieve will correlate with how well you nurture your relationships with the people who cross your path along the way. You can be kind and compassionate and still be a shark. You’ll be amazed at how far that combination will get you, especially when you’re armed with all the information you need to bring your dream to reality.

How do I know this is true? Every move I make on
Shark Tank
, and every negotiation I engage in with the contestants or even with the other sharks, is informed by years of lessons learned the hard way.
Shark Tank
is merely an extension of what I’ve been doing throughout my career. While I did spend the majority of time creating, patenting, and manufacturing my own products, I always enjoyed helping others along the way. And with this book, I have the opportunity to reach even more, and to offer my take on the ins and outs of the inventor’s world in more depth and
detail than ever before. Finally, with
Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!
I can share everything I’ve learned over the past seventeen years of inventing products and running a business with anyone who’s seen me in the tank, my other habitat, QVC, or in retail stores. But of course this book isn’t just for fans of these shows. Anyone with a creative spirit, tremendous drive, and a terrific idea can use it to invent his or her own way to wealth and success. My number one rule has always been to make great products that help people. I hope this book helps you.

“Entrepreneurs: the only people who work eighty hours a week to avoid working forty hours a week.”

—A
UTHOR UNKNOWN

1

ARE YOU READY?

“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.”

—G
AIL
D
EVERS
, three-time Olympic champion in track and field

When we think about the world’s greatest inventors, we tend to remember a select few whose innovations quite literally changed the world.
Thomas Edison for the phonograph and the first incandescent lightbulb that was safe and practical enough for home use; Nikola Tesla or Guglielmo Marconi, depending whom you ask, for the radio; George Washington Carver, for peanut butter; Wilbur and Orville Wright, for the airplane. And yet, every day we take advantage of products and devices created by millions of inventors who are not and may never be household names, but who have made our world a better place. They are young, like Chester Greenwood, who invented the earmuff when he was only fifteen, and they are old, like
Charles Greeley Abbot, who invented the first solar cooker and was 101 when he received his last patent. They are moms—notorious for creating new time and labor-saving devices, including the disposable
diaper—and dads, like
Frank Epperson, inventor of the Popsicle (originally called the Eppsicle). They are tinkerers who constantly take things apart to see how they work, only to immediately identify how they could build them better; troubleshooters who get energized when hunting for creative solutions to life’s everyday dilemmas; and DIYers whose impatience with inefficiency or disorganization leads to jerry-rigged home storage solutions and ingenious contraptions that leave their friends agape with admiration and begging for their own.

Truly, anyone, at any time, can become an inventor. And yet, the numbers are sobering. Out of all the patents that are filed every year in the United States, only about 1 percent are for products that actually get made and reach the market. In addition, Richard Maulsby, former director of public affairs for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, told
Bloomberg Business Week
that, “
It’s a very small percentage of patents that actually turn into products that make money for people.” But it does happen, sometimes in spectacular fashion. So the question is, how do millionaire inventors beat the odds and achieve commercial success—and how can you join their ranks?

That is why you picked up this book, isn’t it? You want to know how they did it? How I did it? Though the details of everyone’s story are different, there are often common themes. A spectacular, often simple idea. Hard work. Good timing. And yet, research suggests that the seeds to successful inventions are often sown in an inventor’s character, long before he or she ever has the brilliant idea that required such good timing and hard work to strike gold. Psychological profiles of famously prolific inventors and entrepreneurs like Martha Stewart and Richard Branson reveal that most share certain strengths and characteristics. Before
I became an inventor, none of my interests or ambitions would have predicted that I’d wind up on the entrepreneurial path, and yet as it turns out I do fit the mold and possess most of these character traits. I think that explains why it was actually fun for me, not frightening, to maneuver around the obstacles that confronted me when I was trying to bring my first idea to market, and to ensure that the odds were better than average that my inventions could become the foundation of an exciting and lucrative career.