Diary of an Inventor, Part 1

It's the most brilliant invention ever, completely necessary and better than anything else on the market. I have run into a problem though. I have created it, but I don't know what to do with it.

The first thing out of your mouth may be "get a patent, crazy girl!!", and of course that was my thought too... until I read up on what was required. It could cost between $4000-$10000 to get a patent, and once you have that, it doesn't really get you anywhere. You see... patents, like copyrights, are not policed by some highly-skilled task force specializing in crimes of intellectual property. No... they are policed only by the person who holds the patent... in other words, little old me. I need to see someone rip off my idea, and take them to court, where I will need to have additional money to fight for what was mine to start off with. It's a nasty world. I am sure they are rare, but there are many dirty folks out there who prey on people like me, who have a great idea, but no means to fight to keep it mine.

So you say: "don't get a patent, manufacture and sell them yourself!" Well, in my make believe world, I do have all the capabilities to do that. I can buy all the materials, make them myself, take pictures of them, design a website and sell them all from the comfort of home, but alas, there are more snags to be wrestled with. The biggest and baddest of them all is the CPSIA Regulation that says that all products made for children under 12 need to be tested for lead before they can be sold in the US. Being the largest nearby market, butting of the US as a potential sales arena is insane, but lead testing is extensive and expensive, and would need to be done on every component of my product and every time I make a new batch. This could run upwards for $4000, and in order to sell enough products to make the cash required to pay only for the testing, I would need to make 200 pieces before seeing a profit. At 10 pieces per day, I'd be working 20 days to pay for the lead testing, and I would need to invest at least $10000 into materials so that it can all be classified as one batch (as soon as you change the material it needs to be done all over again).

So, you see my dilemma. I believe the third option is the only realistic one. Find a big business who is willing to pay me royalties for the use of my product. I don't have the foggiest as to how to do that, nor do I even know the first place to look to try to sell my idea. It scares me to show my design to anyone who has the capability to rip me off, but I know that I'll never get any kind of market share on my own.

All I know, is that I ever want to say "if only I had done something with my idea when I had the chance, then it would have been ME"