How Long Do You Stick With An Invention?

One of my pearls of wisdom to every inventor is that they should find the one thing that will cause them to give up and attack that thing first. If they get past that first killer, move on to the next and then the next. Typically those things are:

#1 Confirm there's a market
#2 Confirm it can be manufactured at a profitable price
#3 Confirm intellectual property opportunities/risks

Jump those three hurdles and you probably have an invention worth fighting for. The question then becomes, how long do you fight for it?

My answer: forever.

With the caveat that those three hurdles remain jumped. If things change, such as market interest, then you should leave it for dead. And the further caveat that you don't keep fighting so much as keep an eye open for yet another opportunity to try again. Even if you built a business around the invention and the business failed - depending on the reasons for failure - the invention may still be commercially viable.

That's my answer as an independent inventor. Even if your invention has been turned down 100 times, keep an eye open for that 101st opportunity*.

We stopped manufacturing our first invention, the SqueezeDriver, nearly 30 years ago. We licensed it for a second time 10 years ago (it failed). We're now working on another version with the hope of commercializing it - again - in a year or two.

Likewise, our 12 year old but still fantastic design for slip joint locking pliers is being presented today to a very promising licensee. It's an invention that has been licensed three times before but never yet commercialized.

Never give up. Never give in. So long as the fight is worth it.

- Mike Marks

*As president of Invention City my answer is a bit different. When we take on an invention we make an initial concerted effort to license it. If that effort fails, we give the rights back to the inventor unless they want us to keep it in our portfolio for a possible but uncertain future opportunity.