24th October

I just want someone to buy my idea from me…

by Stephen M. Nipper. | Posted in Info For Inventors   3 Comments »

I just read Marc Warnke on Entrepreneurism is not a Lottery Ticket. He nailed it right on the head. It is not a lottery ticket.

The analogy I use in explaining it to clients is that an idea is like a recipe for barbecue sauce. KC Masterpiece has no interest in your recipe…they have zillions of their own. BUT, if you take that recipe and build a business around it (e.g., catering, restaurant, bottling sauce for stores), THEN you have something that someone else would want to buy. [yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but in my experience it is generally true]

It reminds me of Guy Kawasaki’s post on “Defensibility” wherein he discusses his belief that startups overvalue the fact they have a patent application pending (or patents issued). While Matt/Doug/Me’s wrote a response to Guy’s Defensibility post (which he posted), Guy’s points are valid.

Ideas are not (typically) lottery tickets, patents are not (typically) the most valuable thing a company owns.

Related posts:

  1. TGIF, Cooking for Engineers
  2. Questions from readers…published patent applications vs. patents
  3. Accelerated Examination of Patents. Good idea? Bad?
  4. Approaching Licensees…patent application or confidentiality agreement
  5. Last Call…Boise Idea Market

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under Info For Inventors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “I just want someone to buy my idea from me…”

  1. Fashion Incubator » Blog Archive » Best sentence I read all day Says:
    October 28th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    [...] people write the best titles such as Entrepreneurism is not a Lottery Ticket and I just want someone to buy my idea from me…. With titles like these, you don’t even need to read the entry. If you’re a consultant [...]

  2. Digol Serhei Says:
    November 9th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    Hello , i also have 5 ideas for cars , 1 for technics and one for cigarettes and nobody answer me lets do smth together , please reply me *

  3. paul steer Says:
    January 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 am

    i am selling an idea for a babys dummy that i know every parent will want one so if u interested please email me at (p_steer@hotmail.co.uk) if u are serious about buying off me thank you