In order for you to reap monetary and/or other rewards from your invention or idea, it must be made valuable to others. People must be willing to pay a price greater than your invested costs to be able to provide you a profit (read reward). What is the real reason anyone would pay for an invention? To reap the benefits the implementation of your invention provides. Therein lies the key to the your success.

The difference between a great idea and a bad idea is implementation. Any idea that is implemented is a good idea. Being the originator of an idea is not as important, as being the first to implement it. How many people before Christopher Columbus came up with the idea of sailing west from Europe to find a new course to India and riches? In being the first to implement the idea, Columbus found a whole new world, and was greatly rewarded.

Wilbur and Orville Wright were the first to fly and, as a result, they reaped bountiful rewards, even though many others before them generated the same idea to develop heavier than air machines for manned flight. Most people do not know these others existed, let alone what their names were.

Galileo drew some remarkable plans for a helicopter in the 16th century. Yet, 19-year-old Igor Sikorsky was credited with inventing and implementing the first helicopter in 1909.

Chester Carlson developed a copying system, which he took to IBM for evaluation. IBM "Experts" projected limited use of the bulky machine when carbon paper was so readily available. He pursued the business of his xerography process with a company to be known as Xerox.

By knowing and understanding the business game, you will be in the enviable position of making informed decisions, which will greatly improve your chances for rewards. You do not have to totally participate in the business game to provide a much better product for implementation. Educating yourself on the process of what eventually needs to be done will help you decide what steps to perform personally and what steps to engage the service of others.

The entire process can be broken down into 2 stages. The invention stage, culminating in the written, documented creation of an invention that fulfills a need, and the business stage, culminating in the sale for profit of the delivered and/or implemented invention.

I will describe each step that must be accomplished for you to reap rewards from your invention. More importantly, I will also list your options about performing each step, because you most likely will NOT want to perform every step to final rewards. This is key, because contrary to most other how to lists, I encourage you to only choose completing the steps that you want to perform, and to select one or more of the options I list to have others perform the steps you want to avoid. All of the steps must be completed, but not by you. As the inventor, you want to orchestrate the implementation of all steps, and get quality trusted help from others to complete the implementation of many steps you chose to avoid performing yourself.

There are ten (10) steps that need to be completed to generate rewards (profits to you for your invention). They are separated into two stages because each stage is a completely different process.

Stage 1 is the Invention Stage.
There are three basic steps, which must be completed before attempting the second stage.
Step 1. Find a need and fill it
Step 2. Record the invention in writing
Step 3. Research the invention
Part 1 of 5 of this continuous blog describes these first three steps

Stage 2 is the Business Stage.
There are seven steps included in the second stage.
Step 4. Complete a Feasibility Study.
Step 5. Complete a Strategic Plan.
Part 2 of 5 of this continuous blog describes these two steps

Step 6. Attain Money to Finance the Business
Part 3 of 5 of this continuous blog describes this step

Step 7. Produce and Package the Invention for Implementation
Step 8. Promote the Invention to Entice Others to Buy.
Part 4 of 5 of this continuous blog describes these two steps

Step 9. Sell, Install, and Collect
Step 10. Manage the Whole Business Stage and Disseminate the Rewards
Part 5 of 5 of this continuous blog describes these two steps

Stage I The Invention Stage

1. Find a need and fill it. Virtually all inventions are created to fulfill needs or desires. The statement "Necessity is the mother of Invention" is as true today as it was when stated.

The Chinese language has over 10,000 symbols. Yet, the symbol for "Chaos" is the same for "Opportunity." The entire process starts with a problem, to which the inventor creates better solutions. The solutions should focus on the value of the benefits provided, and the costs to those who acquire and implement the solution. The greater the value of the benefits compared to the overall cost in time, money, and hassle for someone to use it, the greater the opportunity for you to reap considerable benefits. For example, you will reap considerably greater benefits from providing a safe and effective diet pill versus providing a new paint color.

There are three different processes of inventing.

Process #1: Create a new or revise an old product (thing) that produces solutions to fill needs or desires.

Process #2: Create a new or revise an old process (way of doing things) to fill needs.

Process #3: Implement (use) an existing product or process in a new way to fill needs or desires.

The process of marketing begins with this very first step. The final objective is a creation that provides valuable benefits at a low cost in time, money, and hassle for someone to implement it.

Personal Options for you. This is clearly what inventing is all about and you will want to perform this function yourself. You have and enjoy using unique skills, like being able to think out of the box, and knowledge to create very valuable solutions. The practical application or implementation of solutions to problems should become the main focus, if you intend to reap the greatest amount of rewards.

2. Record the invention in writing. This step is vital for several very important reasons. Recording the invention organizes the entire process and is the basis for educating others about the invention. The recording process also provides a form of documentary proof to help protect your rights to your invention through the legal process.

The recording process means documenting in writing, the invention itself, its purpose, how it can be produced, the benefits it provides, how and why it provides these benefits, and the process you took to develop it. This is where you define what will eventually be implemented.

Personal Options for you. Once again this is a function that you most likely want and should perform yourself. Especially to protect your work, keep it private, and to assure that the invention is accurately portrayed. This is quite often the best time to apply for protection under patent and copyright laws, to limit potential damages from having to reveal the invention to others later on.

One of the key ingredients to protect an inventor, and maximize his rewards, is to somehow gain exclusive control over the use of the invention. You should pursue all available legal steps that will provide you exclusive control of the invention.

However, legal protection can be very time consuming and expensive and might not always protect you. One of the most effective ways to reap the most rewards from an invention and, in essence, to protect you is to be the very first to provide it to others for implementation. Wilbur and Orville Wright did not have to patent their airplane, they just implemented first. So the rapid completion of this whole process is in your best interest.

3. Research the invention. This entails 2 different purposes that often follow very similar paths. One purpose of research is to discover if others have recorded the invention, to investigate other similar attempts and implementations, so you can learn how to be more successful in the implementation of your invention. This is also part of the patent process. The second purpose of research is to learn about the potential benefits the invention will provide and the potential value these benefits will provide to others.

The feedback you will receive from this research will provide extremely valuable knowledge to be used to revise your invention to become more valuable to potential users. This is one of the best times to tweak the invention to make it more valuable.

Once again, this step is part of the Marketing process because you are revising the invention to create greater value to potential users. For example, Richard James developed an invention to produce an anti vibration device for ship instruments to instantly counterbalance wave motion rocking a ship at sea, but failed. However, further research showed that his invention had considerable value in other fields and it has been implemented millions of times as the famous toy "The Slinky."

Personal Options for you. You most likely want and should perform this function yourself to gain direct unfiltered information and to be able to discuss the aspects of the problem. You might want to have others help in gathering information, but this will diffuse the knowledge gained and eliminate the give and take with the potential users.

Frankly, most people will openly discuss their problems an invention will solve and will gladly describe their value of the benefits from the solutions. You will be amazed how others will be anxious to help.

Once you have completed all of these three steps, you are ready to begin Stage 2, the business stage that will be outlined in the next four editions of this blog.