um and I have been inventing as long as I can remember uh my my great grandfather was a big time inventor and
so that I think inspired me uh but I got my start doing it as a career back in
2010 when I became the winning inventor on Kelly Ripa's homemade millionaire
which was all about it was basically an invention reality show so that's where it all began and I just dove in even
though my great-grandfather was an adventurer I didn't know anything really about inventing I just knew what he
invented and so when I won I thought oh okay cool they're gonna make really my
product was a prototype at the time and I thought well they're going to make it for me and and this is going to sell on HSN it's going to be so amazing but then
the cameras went off and that was all she wrote and they there was nobody around it was crickets and I had to
figure this thing out on my own and so I've been doing that ever since and I now have a full product line over
at HSN but I tell you all of that to say how many obstacles there were along the
way that that makes it sound so easy but oh my gosh so many obstacles and I
always told myself that if I had success I would take everything I learned and
hand it over to as many people as I could to help them alleviate the same obstacles that I had and when the
pandemic happened and I had more time on my hands because I wasn't traveling back and forth to HSN I started to think this
is the time for me to really help inventors and so by doing that I wanted to see where they were struggling what I
could do and in looking at that I realized that lovely statistic that I'm
sure all of you know or most of you know and that is that 95 of products never
make any money for the inventor and to me that was staggering and jaw-dropping
and by that time I had I think I had probably commercialized about 25 products at HSN and big box
retail and e-commerce and so I thought what the heck why are 95 of products
failing and I wanted to figure out why and as I got deeper in and you know
really did a deep dive into that what I really realized was that this product
validation step was being completely overlooked by almost every inventor and
the truth is I understand that because I am an inventor and I know how passionate we are and I know how excited that we
get when we come up with this amazing idea that we know is going to make a bazillion dollars and we just Dive Right
In And if you're a new inventor you know that probably the first thing you did or the first thing you thought about doing
was go out and get a patent because you've got to protect it you don't want anyone to steal it and so there goes a
whole bunch of money and a whole bunch of time and so when you look at I started really looking at what the
typical inventors do I just kind of on my gut I say I figured it out like I
said I made a lot of mistakes but by this point I feel like I've had a
real well-oiled machine going and I thought I want to share this with everybody and the first thing I wanted
to do was teach my process for product validation because I was realizing no
one's really looking at that they're saying well yeah no I talked to my mom and my cousins and
my best friend and they all love it they think they said they would buy it I did Google Patent Search and there I'm not
infringing on everybody so I'm golden it's so much deeper than that and I
think you guys all probably know that but it's almost like I think we get to a
point where we don't want to know you know we don't because we want to believe that it's
this bazillion dollar idea okay we kind of put our heads down and Carmine I mean you you work with so many inventors do
you see that a lot yeah yeah and I I tell you more you're so funny I'm laughing because I do it myself I call I
call it blind searching I'm searching but I really don't want to find my idea
so I'm going through the motions and but uh so yeah 100 I have a a closet full of
inventions that I thought were great ideas that weren't so I think we all do yes you know and
one of the things Marcy that you say and I'll and I know it all the time is that you know we also tend as you mentioned
to ask the wrong people now they're not bad people they want to help you but in some cases you know if somebody asked me
about a sewing machine tool I'm gonna say hey it might not be a good idea but it could be an awesome idea so
so when you're validating you should really ask the people who are in those
Industries the important questions yeah you want to talk to your grandma then your aunt and your cousins and they're
always going to give you but but you really gotta validate within the industry so that's one thing that I have
learned so you're right and again I think sometimes we're afraid to do that to make those inroads and what if they
steal my idea and what if they know what I'm doing and but um that information that you can get
from industry insiders is just so invaluable that it's worth that risk it's worth you know gotta gotta step
outside um to find out so I um with the time we
have are we a hard stop at 11
quickly and feel free I don't know how you handle questions Carmine whether you
want to hold that to the end or make it a little interactive up to you William Williams asking a couple but we can hold
some questions specifically for you and the people yeah anything that's specific for you all to make note of and then we
can Circle back at the end yeah and the people can raise their hand and they can ask individually or they can send the
question in and and William can read it he has trouble reading but
okay um okay so my five-step process and again this is what I do myself so it
might not pertain exactly to you but I think it's it's um Universal enough that
some form of this um I think is is something that everybody should do and
you should be doing this whether you just have an idea in your head and you're you're contemplating whether to
start investing time and money into it but even if you already have a product in development it's still important to
do it because as you'll see as I get into it the information that you gather during this process is so invaluable for
every single step in the product development life cycle on into the product launch now if you're someone who
is thinking of Licensing your product instead of manufacturing it is equally important for you there's so many people
say oh that's that's doesn't pertain to me because I'm just going to hand it over to somebody and have them run with
it but the truth is and these days if you are going in to a big company and
wanting them to license your product you've got to be a formidable partner
you've got to be an entrepreneur a CEO I always you know really recommend that people really think of their invention
is as a company and that you're the CEO of the company and you carry yourself that way and you do that market research
and that competitive analysis like a CEO would because you're going to better your chances of exponentially of getting
a licensing deal but also you're going to increase the amount of money that you
could potentially make on that licensing deal by handling your business in that way so this process will uncover so much
information that will take you to that level with your product um so step number one for me and this is
just a personal thing because of what I started out saying in the beginning about us being so passionate about our
ideas is I got to a point where I realized I needed to give myself a waiting period so I do as soon as I come
up with a great idea I impose a 48-hour waiting period before I do anything on
it because so many times I just dive in and just get going and I go down these
rabbit holes and then weeks or months later I look back and go what was I thinking like it just and so I find that
by giving myself a couple days to sit with it many of those bazillion dollar ideas end up going by the wayside I
always put every idea I come up with I always put it in my big white binder because who knows and I love going
through it later and going oh yeah that was a good idea or should I should I revive that one so I never really throw
them away but they're always there but I definitely that way period is important for me the next thing I do is I have
um a checklist of sorts that I go through and I do that with every idea I
have no matter how big or small and it's really quite simple but the questions that that I ask myself on on these
inventions are really telling and when I said I do this for myself because I am
in the home shopping space some of this is sort of geared toward that but when I say that now live shopping is everywhere
and so that's something that if you're not already considering you should be considering because that is definitely
the future of e-commerce in the future is now uh and it's a great thing for us
inventors uh I'm saying that about home shopping and live shopping because it gives us an opportunity to tell our
story it gives us time gives us the opportunity to demo our product and
really show that problem solution before and after to hear the stories about
different ways to use it there's just so much that can happen in that space so when you're designing a product be
thinking about that be thinking about what that on-air demo would look like I
often change the design of my product and the features of my product just because I think of that what's that
going to look like on camera and so it will change the aesthetic many times because we do need our products to pop
we need to stop the scroll in social media um and what's what is it about our
product that's going to do that um so it's that's a little bit of side tangent but it does go into these five
questions that I ask myself and the first one is for me um is
does this product solve a problem that the masses are having so I really do
look to cast the widest net I possibly can with my products and I do that
um partially because when you think of home shopping that's what they do they're not you know the the riches are
not in the niches when it comes to home shopping so that's really important to me can you be successful with a very Niche product
of course you can and even you know more successful in some cases because it's
very easy to find your target customer when you are in a real Niche so I don't
mean to dissuade you from that but that's important to me um the next one does go to that Niche I
ask myself does this product fall within a category a niche that is having success
is this category doing this is it staying this has it done this over the years but now it's flattening out that's
just really really important and as inventors I think we so often feel like
we have to invent something so novel and so unique that no one has ever seen it
before and many times that's a high risk factor I mean that's a high risk way to go
because because no one's ever seen it you are challenged with educating them
on this potentially it's a whole new Niche or a whole new category that you're creating and so that can be a
little a little dangerous if you find a category where things are just skyrocketing
obviously that's that's a great thing so I will um think about the category that
the product Falls within and I'll go do a real deep dive on Amazon to find out
what's happening within that category many of you might know of um a resource
that I use called helium 10 I'm not sure if that's familiar for most of you
um there's jungle Scout also but it's really like a detective app that's how I
use it that um that works with Amazon so that you can really find out what's
happening how things are selling and I can go into a specific product of a specific brand and find out how many
sold yesterday and what color sold what's that you know it just really gives you Intel that if you're
developing a product is so valuable to have you can also even find
um through those sources you can find potential manufacturers for the product that's the whole feature in there so I
do have a um a download of all of the resources that I'm going to point to during this presentation and I had asked
Carmine I'll email that out to everybody so you'll have all of those and you don't have to look for the links to
write them down also this whole five-step process so you'll get that too
um so I really want to find out about that Niche that's really important to me and if it if it is in not such a good
Niche I will put it aside at least for now because you never know that category could come back later
um so that kind of research is great and that's the research that is going to help you when you're meeting with
potential licensees as well the fact that you can come into a conference room meeting people with people and be able
to say look here's what's happening in the category and then also and we'll talk about this later but really
understanding your competition inside out and not being afraid to talk about the competition in those meetings
because it's you know they probably already know it because you're meeting with them because they're in the same category and the fact that you hit it
head on says a lot and you talk about how you're different and why you're better and that's really important and
so sometimes when you're researching the category and you're asking yourself that you'll find
um competitors that you didn't know were there so that's a good point the other thing for me again with home shopping is
does it have that wow factor and that sounds very infomercial drtv-ish I know
but it is really as I said before that is the world we're living in right now we did this Tick Tock shop it's
um you know all the live shopping is is just really key and if you're not doing live shopping I'm sure you're going to
be doing product video and so the same holds true for that so in all the different worlds that we're
considering launching a product there's always going to be either live or some kind of video so you really yeah oh so
Martin real quick and I know you probably get this and and some of our mentors that are on here we're always
tempted to say it um because you don't want to exclude a potential customer so a lot of times
I'll ask somebody as you said who is your customer and they'll just come out and say everyone and it's one of those
things that you know automatically instantly we say it's impossible even the iPhone isn't for everyone you know
there's I mean you you we really really and Marcy all the information you're given is so great but we really want to
stress to everyone that's listening that dig down drill down and when someone who
may invest or buy your product or put it on a store shelf you need to be able to close your eyes and picture who that
customer is and be able to explain to them who that customer is obviously it's
if your product's great like the iPhone it's going to expand out to other markets but it should do it on its own
so no that is awesome Marcy and and what exactly what you're talking about are things that I was at the Alibaba show
um last week and several people came up to me told me that their product was for everyone and they were having a problem
selling it and I said because you're trying to talk to everyone when you do that and I talk to everyone no one
listens so I'm so glad that you're going over that and yeah Carmen and all the trade shows that we do when we sit on
the product pitch panels it's so true when inventors come up I feel like they want to say they think it's a great
thing to say it's for everybody like because that is casting this really wide net really wide but really that's the
red flag because yeah how can you Market to everyone right
um and so when I work with uh inventors a lot of times well one of the first
things we do to your point is think about all those different markets maybe it is for a lot of people but they're
different markets and so the verbiage needs to be different for each one the video probably needs to be different for
each one even though it's the same product so that marketing piece is you
know thinking like a marketer from the beginning where I think typically with inventors
we wait until the product's done and then we're like okay now how are we going to sell this
and we really need to be thinking about that Target customer and because your
design is going to change when you think of who you're marketing to and how you're going to Market it and it should
change based on that really um okay so does it have the wow factor
the next one is is it and this kind of goes along with that is it easily demonstrable for me that's a big one
because of home shopping I'm doing these live shows all the time but again now it's relevant to everybody whether you
do home shopping or not so you know and again that goes to designing when
you're designing it of just making sure that that demo is going to be smooth on air on camera
um and having that you know does this product really have that problem solution element to it that's going to
be easy to share and for people to visually see quickly because
unfortunately our attention spans are getting yay big these days it's crazy and then
um the last one and really important one and again some so many times I'm surprised at how many people leave this
as an afterthought is do the numbers work is is the mar is there big margin
potential there and when there's when you can really and of course you're not going to know exactly what those numbers
are in the beginning but you can get close by using a tool like helium 10
um there's so many research tools out there that you can get a good sense of where it's going to land and for me
um I use the kind of rule of thumb of five times margin is what is when it
goes in the the green light pile for me um anything lower than that it's not going to work and I'm even finding some
of the people that I'm working with are doing seven times margin now because there are so many unforeseen costs today
that maybe weren't there before I don't know but I can speak to
um one thing that so many people don't realize until it's too late is that you
know God willingness is a successful product you need room for promotion of
that product if you were to get your product on QVC or HSN they do things that are either called the today's
special or Today's Special Value and that is a big win because you get to run
your product for 24 hours and they you know will look to sell between a million
and 2 million in that 24-hour period so when they come to you and they say we're going to give you a tsv like oh it's so
exciting but tsvs don't come cheap because they they need you to bring the
costs down because this is a special value for their customer and so if you haven't built that in then you might
miss out on an opportunity like that and then the retailers I'm sure many of you have heard and know that they're asking
you to do deep discounts allowed you know Bed Bath and Beyond way back when um you know did that 20 off almost
constantly and so it can really you know take a product that it can be successful
it could be selling like crazy but if the numbers don't work you're going to be upside down and you're not going to
be able to do these promotions that could and should take you you know really Skyrocket your business so build
that in and if those promotions don't happen it's extra margin for you why not yeah but
all the fees that Amazon are getting higher that warehousing shipping all of
that and so that's why those that margin is so important to think about early on
um the next uh step number three is really the search and that's the one I
think that we all do when we want to find out if the product already exists and we get so excited when we don't see
it and we know it's a home run and so we're gonna go for it um one thing I will say to that is
if I don't find anything remotely like a product that I'm getting ready to invent it's almost like I see that as a red
flag and not a green flag and I think in the beginning I naively was thinking of it as a green
flag but I've seen so much and learned so much over the years about if there's
nothing like it it could be because it doesn't work it's not going to sell
there's not a market for it that people have tried something like that and it hasn't worked so it's not to say you
shouldn't do it if there's nothing like it but it should give you pause to really think about the uphill battle
that you're going to be facing when you're having to educate your customer on a problem they might not know they
have and so it's it's just something and so when I find that something like mine
exists that's okay this is a green flag we have a category that's clearly working but I didn't know about this
product so they're doing something wrong and I'm gonna hit mine out of the park and so that's when I do put my detective
hat on and really dive deep to find out what is it about that product that isn't
working why didn't I know of it or maybe I did know of it but the reviews are
three stars and not five stars and so I literally will read every single review
I can find even if it's hundreds of reviews on competitive products to understand what people aren't liking
what's missing what they wish it had I I mean I believe in making better mouse traps I just do
in the beginning I thought well that's not an invention if it's a better mousetrap but some of the greatest most
successful inventions in the world are just better mouse traps right I mean how many phones are out there how many TVs
are out there how many um so just being an inventor that knows
how to take something to the next level that is a really important I mean that's
that's a way to go for sure so really don't be afraid of competition embrace
it yeah so real quick you're exactly right so a lot of inventors and you've learned this over over time you've been inventing for for a while like we all
have is that a lot of us inventors we want to be first we want to say this has never been done before but we don't
realize that it's very expensive to be first and let people know hey you have this
problem and I just haven't had the fix for it so if the people don't know they have the problem
then you can't give them the fix for it and that means you really sometimes don't want to be first
right because you've got to define the problem and teach them about the problem and yeah very very true
um and then the next the next one is the patent search right and and I don't
typically like to spend a ton of time on this for a couple reasons number one because I'm not a lawyer and so I don't
want to advise you although I do have a lot of videos on my YouTube channel about my thoughts on patents versus
trademarks and um I have one that's on 12 sort of untraditional ways to protect your
product idea uh wet while you're going through the product development process while you're going through the product
validation process so that would be worth taking a look at but the one thing I'll say on this subject is and it's
something that I started with in the beginning that a major mistake I believe that a lot of inventors make is that
rush to patent that the second you come up with an idea I mean I think we're just from the time we were a little kid
when you hear the word invention it's like peanut butter and jelly invention and patent so we just assume that that
has to be and what that does is we talked about it it costs a lot of money takes a lot of time and the thing you
really have to ask yourself is let's say I get this patent
what happens if somebody knocks it off because that's why you're getting it right and so if somebody knocks it off
you have to ask yourself do you have deep enough Pockets to defend that patent because these days I mean minimum
it's a million dollars to defend a patent and Vary infrequently do you win
unfortunately now I preface that by saying are patents
important absolutely and it's you know every situation is different
um I I was Consulting with someone this week or last week who has a brilliant
product by the way I don't know if she's on here [Music] um but anyway that's one where
absolutely I've said you've got to get a patent it's very clever smart it's in a I mean when I look at that list of the
five things it hits every single one of them in a big way and but the right play
for this particular product is absolutely a licensing play and so with that a patent becomes more important is
it crucial will you never get a licensing deal without a patent no it I've done several licensing deals
without any protection any legal protection um so it can be done it's but you're
you're having a much easier road if you do have protection when you're going into a licensing situation so if you are
manufacturing yourself that's when you really do need to think about can I defend it what will I do is it easy is
it going to be easy to design around are the claims that I would get for it meaningful enough to Warrant the time
and money that I would expend so all of that but that can be kind of the longer way to go
I mean that's down the road but in the immediate when you have this great idea just don't spend a lot of money early on
so you know a lot of times you want to get a provisional patent and that's great but just understand that it's the
12 months and that clock is ticking and it goes so fast there are
so many ways to do this on your own at this there's so many tools out there there's so much available to us to be
able to do that on our own so I would encourage you to save your money here because you're going to need it later
and um I think what I find in Carmen you
tell me if you agree with this is you know during the product development process so much changes I mean you you
the whole design can change and if you file the patent for your original idea
but all these features changed then many many times that is null and voided and
it's meaningless and you've spent time and money so if you can wait as long as possible if you are someone that you've
deemed that it's the right thing to do for your situation um really get that
design development fine-tuned as much as you can before you do that but Carmine
do you agree or disagree with that because I know there's lots I agree 100
um a lot of times we'll ask the wrong person I mean if I go to the dentist and
I tell them my two-thirds my foot hurts he's going to work on my teeth so if you go to a patent attorney one ask a patent
attorney business advice his advice is going to be to get a patent because that's what they do i i p attorneys are
great people we have plenty of them a lot of them are my friends but there's a time and place to get a patent and you
don't want to ask a patent attorney should I get a patent you know it's just one of those things that he's going to
say yes because he believes in it so much um so you can also get as you know Mercy provisional patents and if you start
early and get that provisional patent and as you said your product changes so much over the course of the year you may
be able to get another provisional patent because that idea has changed so much so there's really a strategy
there's a sequence and that's what I love about what you do Marcy you walk people through and you follow it
yourself you're not one of those people that I tell people these things to do but I don't do that I mean you follow
what you're talking about yourself that's what's so great about what you're doing thank you yeah and I'll say on on one
last thing on the subject of patents um as it relates to me is that I have developed I've commercialized over 40
products now and I have one patent and that patent was for my very first
product and in hindsight I wouldn't have even got that one so that's just my two cents because I I
would rather spend my time and money and energy on getting my product out there yeah like to me the money the money goes
to marketing somebody goes to figuring out how to find that customer how to reach that customer and how to tell my
story and um you know I I think that's huge protection right there like that's more
protection in my opinion than you can get many times with the most iron Cloud pattern because
you're you're you're you're really that brand awareness that you know authenticity making connections with
your audience um is important and so just Food For Thought on that one
and then the last one step number five is my favorite one um and that is the market research test
and this is the one that is scary for a lot of people and this is one where they say yeah but I already asked all my
friends and family I don't need to do that but you really do need to do that and you need to do it in my opinion in a
way where you're really finding out not just if people like it because can you
put a a Survey Monkey out and find out how many people like it of course and will they tell you how much
how much they would spend for it probably and that is actually really good information so I it's not that I
don't like the idea of surveys and Survey Monkey and all of that I actually really do and that's part of this phase for me
is really talking to people about what's important to them about a product
um that I'm developing and what features and things like that I'll even go into
the to retail spaces where products like mine are sold and I'll watch people as
their you know perusing and I'll even go up and ask them questions like what why
why'd you put that one down and you know you're stalking people I am still I'm
stalker I am online and in person I love it but um something that I
developed a while ago kind of just a gut thing well actually it wasn't it kind of happened by accident originally and that
was with my very first product that was the style and Go Hair Care valet that that was the one that was on Kelly Ripa
and all that and once I found out I won and I knew it was going to launch on
um HSN I thought I need to find out will people really buy this I mean the TV show people loved it but you know the
people just in the studio but what about outside and um I need to I'm gonna go on TV like
what if nobody watches and what if so I need to start getting this thing out there even though it's just a prototype
and what I did was I went on to Pinterest and I don't even think I
barely had heard of Pinterest at the time and so that was 10 or 12 years ago and but I took a really good picture of
my prototype and and kind of edited it and made it look like it was a real product and I put it up on Pinterest and
said because I wanted to build a wait list and wanted people to watch me when I launched um I said click here to join the
waitlist for when this becomes available and I was stunned to find that within a
couple days I had 8 000 people that had given me their email and were waiting
for this product to Launch and I'll take that a step further because that was 10 or 12 years ago
recently I did an audit of my Pinterest and realized that that pin is still my
most active pin to this day and I share that because guys if you're not
considering Pinterest for selling products you need to be because it is really good
for selling products because that alone knowing that a pin from 12 years ago is
still alive and thriving like getting thousands of reasons and per month is
crazy because you know Tick Tock it's it's gone in 30 seconds and Facebook I think it's 48 hours it's I mean the
shelf life of this social media that we spend so much time and energy on is
minuscule yeah at Pinterest and same with I have a jewelry organizer
um same thing that was probably six years ago and it's so in still getting people adding to the wait list all the
time it's crazy so definitely something to consider so now I've taken that a step further where
when I have an idea I will create I'll create even a video for it um sometimes
but if if if not I'll at least want to create some pins or some social media
assets and put it up and I will put it sometimes you don't
even have to necessarily spend money on you know promoting the ad or the the pin or whatever it is you're doing but I'll
want to put it out to a targeted audience or an audience in general and find out how many people I look for the
click-through rate how many people click to buy so when I said I don't just want to know if they like it
I mean it takes a lot for me to click on things nowadays we're so bombarded with so much that I'm kind of selective about
what I click on so if someone clicks that's pretty important but then I many
times take it to the next level where I'll actually have them go through the buying process to a point because I want
to know if they would take their credit card out and actually buy it because it's very different to just click on
something than to actually take action to buy it and then at that point I let them know it's still in production it's
scheduled to launch this date um no add your email address if you want to
be notified of the exact launch date and so most times you'll get the email address you'll get a very good gauge on
the interest level with your products and most people don't have a prototype
at the stage to even create that kind of a landing page or that kind of a social media post what I do is I create a
photorealistic 3D rendering I have that made um I use a company called vizsourced out
of San Diego they do a great job and typically for under probably five
hundred dollars and I've actually used that same rendering when I go in to find out from retailers because I do that too
would you sell this would you be interested would your customer like it why or why not really you know
taking fear to the curb and because it is scary to go in what if they say no that's okay because you're learning
something in the process but having that spending money if you're going to spend money anywhere during
this process it's to me it's that 3D rendering that it makes it look like the product
actually exists I take that rendering I'll go to a trade show with it I'll meet with someone I got I get
um I've had two licensing deals happen now at a trade show with a product that didn't exist and no protection or
anything but if you can make a really great sell sheet and you can have that 3D rendering in there and it really
communicates the value of the product it's amazing what you can do so that's really important to me because
a lot of times we try to tell people well this is my idea for the product but until you see it you you know that
rendering really takes it to a whole different level and so it's really important and you can
also create a landing page for that product as well um very for free nowadays there's so
many free tools where that rendering can live and where you can be collecting people for the wait list you can be
pre-selling a product so I recommend doing that landing page up front because it is so easy to do now
and there's so many resources um available to make that happen and then you're always you know you're
you're building your tribe as you're in development on the product and that email list most important thing you'll
you'll ever have so build that early on if at all possible
um so there's a lot more detail to the market test I know we're tight on time
um but you will I do have that um downloadable workbook that you can go through this process and as I said early
on I didn't know we were lived yet but I said um I am putting together a mini course because so many people ask questions
about how to do all these things that I have said so I want to really um it'll be both video and actual
workbook type of thing so that you can walk through every product idea you have
so it's not just you know it's not something that you do one time you can I mean I do this validation process
constantly and it does evolve because there's new tools out there and there's new you know there's new resources and
things that you can tap into [Music] um I will say there's there's a couple of new resources that I wanted to
mention and one is um and some of you might already know of it but there's a company called
pre-launch Carmen are you familiar with pre-launch any thoughts on that
I think it's great um one of the I love some of these programs that are popping up that are really helping people
validate as you talked about really test the market obviously they're collecting data and things too but it can really
save you so much time and money and you know it's one of those things where we
get so involved in it so quickly that we don't realize how much resources we're throwing out an idea that
isn't really going to be valid in you know it for a little while or it's just going to take us so much money and we're
not ready for it so the pre-launcher and other programs like that are great yeah I think so too and I was excited to
find them because what they do is very similar to what I just described and they basically create a landing page and
they see how many people click what they ask I think it's um they ask people to put ten dollars up
so they are asking for something because they want to know if someone would spend money and so if they will put the ten
dollars up then that goes in that pile so and with the with things like that when you're doing that kind of Market
testing I also test many times price points because I'm still trying to
figure out while I'm in this product validation phase will the numbers work and so
many times inventors we um we'd find out the numbers the cost of goods and all
that so we're like okay so we need to price it here well if this isn't the sweet spot where people are going to buy
it then it's a no-go and so you can't just make the numbers work because you
like the product you've got to find the first thing you got to do is find out how much is your solution to this
problem Worth to somebody what would they spend and unfortunately most people
do it the other way where they go well it's going to cost this and then the shipping is going to cost this and then the patent and then the and so here's
the price not a good strategy so with this process of doing that sort of a b testing in
social media you're able to find out and I'm always surprised how many times the
higher like I'll I'll price something at 59 and then I'll do a whole different
audience over here at 29 and sometimes the 59 does way better than the 29. it's
kind of a perception thing where if it's 29 that's going to be a piece of junk I'm not interested in buying it but at
59 wow this could be a really cool you know you just suddenly think it's going to be on another level yeah
so important to know that that sweet spot yeah awesome no no it's very very true
price is so important it is so important I mean it's everything because if yeah
and I am any of us wanted you made in America I mean that was one of my number one
goals when I started out and I still keep trying but I just in my categories I can't get
the numbers to work I can I could do it but my style and go I really wanted to
do that on and that I was it launched at 199. I wanted it to launch at 99 but if
I did made in America it was going to launch at 5.99 yeah and I just I'm certain my mom would have been my only
customer foreign
water quantities are so high that it's very hard to make that work so
um there's there's a like you said there's a sequence valve at some point you might be able to come back or bring
the product to the us when you're when you're selling a whole bunch but um you know start wear is feasible and
start where you can not that many people really look at the packaging and go oh this is made in America I'll spend an
extra 10 bucks there's not that many people that'll do it there are some there are some yeah not that many
um one thing I want to say about the click-through rate about if you were to to do that step
um that has been so valuable for me when I go in to
meetings with buyers if I can I mean you be will be amazed at
how people perk up when they see social social media stats so if you run something like this and
your click-through rate is high above the Benchmark you're going to go into this meeting and you're going to educate them first of all what is the Benchmark
for this category and then educate them on what your product did and that just I
mean they'll sign on the dotted line right there they've become so dependent on that click-through rate and so I all
the time will go into my HSN buying team after having run things like this on Pinterest and Facebook and different
places and I'll say guys you you can't say no to this because look at this I
mean and that's how I'll find out what colors to do too is I'll I'll get a
gauge that way because lots of times we're tossed up about you know I can do four colors and I just don't know which
ones and so I'll I'll put it out there and so that's a um a great way to gauge the market
beforehand Facebook groups also I'm a huge component of that hey um hey Martin
real quick I am I'm gonna have to run I'm Gonna Leave You in hands with William I'm actually going to do a Fox
News segment with the little pet products so I'm running out to uh the
new center now uh I know you got a bunch of questions I know you still got stuff to talk about I didn't want to cut you
off because you guys can stay on as long as you need to um I just got to get going if that's okay
hey when can we watch you is it is it live or is it it is live um which I don't like you're good at
that and I'm not yes you are well I'm sure they'll post it on the fox um on
the fox site to web you know uh Facebook or or Social Media stuff so can I ask
what products you're featuring um there are pet products um I they don't have in front of me I
forget what they are but uh we got them from the women adventures club well yeah I actually most of them really
it's leash ball one beach ball is not uh spleach uh took
take um what was the last one pasta
really cool product um I forget what the other one is but yeah yeah so so yeah most of them most
of them I always look to a woman in veterans group right for all kinds of stuff so we will be uh next month I do
want I do a Fox News thing once a month so next month we'll be looking at um holiday decoration products inventions
and then and then uh October November probably gifts uh how you know how event
to holiday gifts um I'm running out of things but there was always with invention there's always great stuff so
um yeah we'll we'll be we we do we do one segment a month so we're just a lot
of fun again live that I don't know how you do it that big camera stare at me in the face when they say they count it
down I always think how does Marcy do this
well I can't wait to watch you I haven't seen one yet yeah I don't tell anybody because I
don't I don't really want anybody watching things but yes we'll be on I think 420 right
around there today okay I gotta zip out there and get uh I guess you get all ready and um so I will leave you guys a
good hands with Marcy and William and uh I'll see you all soon great thank you Carmine bye guys
hi William um so I have to apologize because I've
been ignoring you I thought I thought you were um not I didn't know everyone could see
you I thought you would no you're fine I've been going through the I mean the chat's been going kind of crazy so I've just been scanning that so I've
definitely been um busy over here but um we do have a lot of questions for you
I don't know if you still have more to your presentation um and then we can kind of go through the questions afterwards
you know I think questions will be probably the most valuable I always love that okay awesome we have quite a few
and I want to take up too much more of your time um so we'll go through get through what we can
um the first one asked was what if you want to make a different version of something that already exists is it
still the same process of patent product validation uh like a new car ketchup
diapers refrigerator Etc um so I guess what they're asking is the process if you're making something that
already exists is it the same as if you're making something that may not really have anything that already exists
I would say yes that it's the same I mean I have found and I've done this for
so many products that those five steps kind of work universally they really do
um the one thing I would say is if it is a better mousetrap I would spend more time on step three which is the the
markets research basically and so what I would do is and I do do on I'll pick the
top three competitors in that Niche and I'll do a true SWOT analysis and for
those of you who don't know what that is it's strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats so I can really take a close
look at what they're doing right and maybe you know not steal from it I would
never um condone that but get ideas about and
it could just be things they're doing in social media that's right what you know maybe they're using certain tags that
you or hashtags that you wouldn't have thought of and you can kind of capitalize on that um so something as simple as that but
what are they doing right what are they doing wrong that you can you know this
is your chance to you know Forge your own Niche and also what are those
threats like what could they be doing down the road that's ahead of what you would be doing and so when you take your
top three and then you lay it out and you look at it it'll give you a good sense of if it's worth you diving in
financially and time commitment wise and energy and all of that because maybe these three competitors are just so far
ahead and are doing such a good job that there's no room
that can happen um I mean I would say every again every situation is different but don't shy
away from looking at the competition really fine-tooth comb read every review spend a long time on their website read
every blog read every you know really know what they're doing and what's working
yeah not exactly that that's great it's basically like um keep your friends close put your
enemies closer your competition you really know want to know what they're doing because they can help you out a
lot more than you think they're not just your competition um so next question is do you recommend
using chat gbt to help you do research on your product or even help you draw up a PPA
um I haven't used it for a PPA I do want to for those of you who don't know
provisional patent application is a PPA um I did want to mention a resource having to do with that that I meant I
meant to mention earlier on and that is something called if you're not familiar it's called patent hacks
I love this because it is a website that basically educates you on the whole
patent process and empowers you to be able to do your provisional patent on your own or even the design or Utility
Patent as well and it was created by um people that were inside the patent office doing the patent examiners
basically that saw independent Ventures and how much money they were spending and thought with everything they know
from what they do and all the resources that they could put together a program that could really help people learn to
do it on their own and people that have gone through the process really say how valuable it is to because you understand
even if you're gonna hire an attorney down the road but it teaches you so much
that you can save a lot of money down the road because you've you you'll know the right questions to
ask you won't go down rabbit holes that are going to take a lot of time and hours and money with patents so I do
recommend that and again I'll have all of these resources um in an email sent to you guys after
after this so you can you can find them all very easily but that is a good one
um chat GPT in general there's so many good uses for it uh I mean I really like
it when I'm I mean there's a lot I don't like about chat GPT that's another webinar but um when it comes to just
coming up with a title for something for social media and I'm stumped if I I'll type something in and I'll be amazed at
how many good things come up that in this will at least Inspire so I would say when you're thinking about the
marketing of your product when you're thinking you know putting together a pitch deck or something like that I think it could be really helpful
um I don't know I have to think about the the legal part of that with the
provisional patent in general I think it's something it's here to stay and so let's let's wrap our arms around the
good stuff and and you know use it in that way yeah I would say like you said
it's extremely useful to help spur creativity because a lot of times I'll ask
chat qbt something and what it gives me is not what I'm going to use but it gets me in the right thought process and gets
me started on that right Road I have to say tell a little side note
um my mom is 82 and she has some form of
dementia so really struggles to write now like just brain wise but she knows
what she wants to say and so she had a friend that was in hospice getting ready to pass away and so I said let's try
chat GPT because I want she wasn't going to write the letter to this friend that she wanted to write and so she she just
we put one or two sentences in and I was blown away at the letter that came out
I would have thought my mom wrote it I had tears as I'm reading it and I'm like wow this chat GPT is dangerous because
it's so good that's amazing that's an amazing use of it I never thought of that but yeah and so that's when I think
of when I go outside the box I think well that and so my Mom feels so empowered now to be able to communicate
to people she'll take the letters or emails and like you said it'll Inspire
and she'll change things and make it her own but she would have never written the email or the letter without it and so
it's really great yeah yeah so basically there's a whole lot of uses for chat gbt
but I wouldn't say put something in there what it says copy and paste it I would just use it as a tool
um but not your only Avenue for doing things I have to say I was I
I can tell like that when it's a chat GPT article a blog or something it's uh
oh Jen hold on someone's at the door it's okay
oh I think it's really quick
sorry the painters here
um yeah it's so be careful with it because I do think it's pretty obvious sometimes
so you know don't rely too heavily on it yeah for sure um
yeah we're running short on time so maybe just rapid fire some of these other questions and then whatever we
don't get answered here I haven't mentioned it yet but after the webinar ends everyone will receive a form to
their email that will ask if you have any other questions so if you put your questions in there we'll get back to you
uh with either an answer or direct you to the right person uh however we can
help but we'll try to get through at least a few more um
would you recommend surveys and if so would you send them directly to the Target companies or consumers or both
I do recommend surveys I love surveys um and I know I talked them down a
little bit during but didn't mean to talk him down just meant to say they're one piece that there are
other pieces that have to come into play um inside the women Avengers Club many times women will and I'm so happy to see
this because I think once one does it then another does it and people are getting more comfortable with it but
just I mean that is such a great way to connect directly with your audience and
but really think through when you're doing the surveys and there are so many companies out there that do it in our
platforms out there whether it's Survey Monkey or type form is a great one um I many times just do Google forms and
it's free and and I get great information but really think through
what's going to be valuable and the end game because you don't want to send a whole bunch of them so
thinking through what you really need to know and not being afraid to ask I I highly recommend that you make it
anonymous because you do have that choice um because people are just not gonna be
as upfront um so that's a really important thing but uh yes as early on as you can get it
finding out what that price sweet spot is is so important and all the different features that you're thinking of putting
into your product how important having them rank them in order of importance because many times as you start getting
into the manufacturing you realize that you're way over the costs and so what are those features that you can let go
of to make the numbers work and by having reaching out to
um your customer or companies or whoever it is with the survey you have that hard data to help you make those decisions
and so I mentioned that so many people are doing it in the women adventures club I highly recommend Facebook groups
for surveys because there is a Facebook group for everything these days so if
it's a pet product if it's a whatever it is it can be very Niche but getting in there are people are so willing and
happy they like kind of being a part of the product development process and I think it helps you kind of build your
tribe too for when you do launch because now they're like you know you've connected with them and they now know
what you're doing they know that you're coming up with something interesting and they want to know what's next and so
it's a great way to start building your email list and all of that so I highly recommend
okay awesome um so probably just gonna do two more
questions here like I said um anyone we don't get to if you fill out that form we'll make sure to answer
it for you uh but the next one is what are some ways you find people to advise or partner with you what strategies you
use to make sure you all are a good fit with each other in the mission
foreign [Music] I'm I take that to mean so you're
wanting to know so you finding someone to advise from a company
um I'm kind of struggling with the question but I I if you're looking for a um a partner
for your company um do you have any type of strategy to validate that person to make sure their
mindset their end goal is the same as yours um I'm not sure if you have any advice
yeah um I know I mean I'm just thinking up on a
personal level is just that I try to to really kind of sit back and wait as long as possible
for that like really kind of if I know that I'm going to be seeking out some kind of a partner really looking at all
different kinds of people or organizations or whatever it is that you're going to be part that you have in
mind to partner with um to understand you know if you're wanting to have that partnership because
of finances because you're wanting funding um or if is it something that a
leadership kind of a thing that you're looking to bring in that you're really really vetting each person and thinking
about what they bring to the table Beyond maybe just that initial thing that you want
um and then what you're bringing to the table for them as well I do love the idea of partnering I just
I think going it alone sometimes can be I think the world of inventing can feel so
lonely and be so lonely and that is why I think so many inventors end up kind of getting
distracted and you know putting things on the back burner and things you know even though they got the patent the
product never made it Forward because you know we can doubt ourselves and we
need that person to kind of connect with every day to help push us forward or or that company where it just becomes more
real and you you're accountable to somebody so I just really I mean there's
something to be said for being a solopreneur but it's challenging as well when you're when you're going it alone
and that's why whatever group I mean you guys know I love the women adventures club but whatever group you find just
find a group because that can really Propel you and can keep you accountable
and that's so important and not to mention all the resources and tools and things that you can
um get from being a part of a group like that but um yeah I hope that answers your question
that's a tough one because it's so individual each situation is so individual yeah no I hear that and
to touch on that obviously um we're putting on these webinars for basically that case is when doing
something alone can be very overwhelming at times because you don't know everything yourself no
one knows everything themselves so that's why we're trying to do these webinars to answer some of those questions to give you a little more
confidence to move forward on your own um because sometimes you don't really need a partner you just need some
questions answered do you need some guidance um right why we're trying to put that on
that's why the UA UIA does what it does is try to answer those questions and point you in the right direction
yeah and it's so great the UIA was I was um right when I became an inventor when
I won that show I started looking for resources and I found the UIA and it's just been my trusted
you know it's I just believe so wholeheartedly and what they do and especially now I mean I think it's I
love that it's being taken to a whole nother level and it's really exciting yeah for sure all right so last question
here um Marcy what is your take on demonstratable product that is on a
retail shelf and don't have the ability to have that demo wow factor so I guess products that you kind of to
get the wow factor you have to see it in action you could just seeing on a shelf doesn't really do it complete Justice if
that makes sense well that's I mean for me that goes back to what we talked about earlier on about
live shopping is here and it's such a gift to inventors and people with products product-based businesses
because you can go live and reach the entire universe if you want to not
universe but world if you want to any time of day 24 hours a day if you want to be able to tell your story and to be
able to demo it and that demo is so important for so many products and some I always think like that when I'm in a
retail store I'll walk I feel sorry for some products because I'll know they're great but people will just walk by them
because it's so hard to communicate that with packaging or you know that's really tough but live shopping is in my opinion
it is the most affordable way to get your product out there get your
brand out there tell your story to the masses and it's you could do it tomorrow
and you can reach huge audiences you can connect with your audience directly to
find out what they're liking and not liking and all of that you're creating that connection that keeps you know
lifelong customers it's just I can't think of anything more valuable for a product-based business than that and so
getting on board as quickly as you can and there's you know there is The Tick Tock shops and Amazon live and things
like that but you can also do it on your own website there's so many different options nowadays and
um that's just anyone that's struggling that's the first thing I just I say and
I've been such a believer in it because of home shopping for the past 12 years and and seeing the value of that and now
knowing that it's so accessible to everybody is just a gift so I highly
recommend that and many of you know I have a live shopping Academy course um and so that can kind of fast track
you to know how to do it and what platform to do it on and what equipment and all of that and I did that because
it was such a challenge for me to figure it out and I thought let's put something together that can help everybody like go
live quickly yeah no that's that's extremely useful sometimes it's really the best to have
people go to the whatever retail store it is with your product in mind to purchase because I saw it online or
somewhere else than to try to capture that buyer while they're in the store obviously you're going to get that percentage but if you can send people to
the store for your product from something online if it's in the situation like you said where it has to be demonstrated that's the best way to
do it and like Marcy said there's so many different options to do that now and a lot of them especially social
media don't really cost you that much you can advertise some or just keep posting videos and hope you go viral and
then you know it's Off to the Races then um but yeah we have gone over a little
bit obviously we didn't start until a little past one um but I will probably cut it off there
I know we could go all day but um thank you so much Marcy I know that
was very beneficial for everyone that logged on this webinar was recorded we're collecting all of them and we're
eventually going to post them on the UA website um but for now yes thank you very much
Marcy um anything you want to send out to the anyone that was part of the
webinar if you can send me I can download the list of everyone's email that joined and I can send it out to
them um but yeah thank you for sticking with us through those technological errors
and uh I hope everyone has a great rest of their day thank you everyone for being here hope
it was helpful oh I'm sure it was thank you William for bearing with me with our
Tech of course of course it's always something we might have to switch over to zoom because it seems to always be a
problem on Zoho um but we'll get it figured out thank you everyone for sticking with us and yeah have a great rest of your day
bye-bye
