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THE ONLINE INVENTOR – April 16, 2007 issue
(c) 2007 Market Launchers, Inc.
http://www.marketlaunchers.com

Editor:  Paul Niemann

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FAMOUS / INFAMOUS Quotes …

“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do,” by Walter Gagehot

“You’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” -- The Great One, Wayne Gretzky

Article # 1:    “Two Sources of Help for Inventors to Consider” by Paul Niemann of MarketLaunchers.com  

Article # 2:    “Back that sucker up!” by Paul Niemann of MarketLaunchers.com

Now, on with this issue …

 

Best Regards,

 

Paul Niemann

http://www.MarketLaunchers.com

800-337-5758

217-224-8194

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“Two Sources of Help for Inventors to Consider”
By Paul Niemann of MarketLaunchers.com  

People ask me why inventors succeed, and why they fail. I tell them that, in my humble opinion, there are 2 main reasons for failure. Here are those 2 reasons, along with a solution for each one.

 

#1:       One of the main reasons for failure in the world of inventing is that the new product isn’t marketed correctly, if at all. If you’re licensing your new product, then you’re probably calling potential licensees about your product, which is all fine and good.

 

But this is where many inventors get stuck. They know they have a great product – if they can just get their foot in the door, yet they don’t feel comfortable calling companies. So what can you do?

 

One option is to hire a local telemarketer to open those doors for you. Telemarketers can be good at making the initial contact for you, then turning those leads over to you. The companies who are not interested will tell the telemarketer, so you won’t have to face the rejection yourself. Telemarketers can usually be hired for around $10 – 12 per hour.

 

#2:       Another reason why inventors fail is … (continued after the ad)  

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ADVERTISEMENT:  

INVENTORS: Get your own web page, so you can show it to companies when you contact them. MarketLaunchers.com builds web pages for inventors. Having your own web page allows you to show your invention to companies when you’re unable to present it to them in person, serving as your own “online brochure.” Plus, there are companies who search the MarketLaunchers.com invention database for new products. Visit http://www.marketlaunchers.com/forms.html for details and pricing.  

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(continued) …

 

because there is no market for the invention. A source you can turn to for help with this is your local college or university. Talk with one of the marketing instructors (either at the undergraduate level or in their MBA program) about having some of their students do a market research study for you. I teach at the Quincy University, and I often assign group projects to my students, so I know this from experience.

 

The students can analyze the market for your product and make recommendations as to whether you should proceed, or how to proceed. They are not professionals, but if your market research has been lacking, this might be just what you need.  

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“Back that sucker up!”
By Paul Niemann of MarketLaunchers.com

This story is for you if …  

1.         You have your own web site that you run, or

2.         You have a web site and you’ve hired someone else to run it for you, or

3.         You have a web page on someone else’s site.  

We avoided what could have been a disaster last week here at MarketLaunchers.com when more than 100 customer web pages (out of approximately 350) were lost – they just vanished into that big black hole known as cyberspace – never to be seen again.  

What happened?  

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ADVERTISEMENT:

INVENTORS: Get your own web page, so you can show it to companies when you contact them. MarketLaunchers.com builds web pages for inventors. Having your own web page allows you to show your invention to companies when you’re unable to present it to them in person, serving as your own “online brochure.” Plus, there are companies who search the MarketLaunchers.com invention database for new products. Visit http://www.marketlaunchers.com/forms.html for details and pricing.

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(continued) …

The problem began when a customer sent me a 100 MB file to upload to his web page. It was a video in which he was interviewed by a local TV station. (The funny part of this story is that as he reads this issue of THE ONLINE INVENTOR, right about now, he will realize that it was HIS file that caused the problem.)  

I had a problem uploading the file, so I decided to get to it later when I had more time. In the process, it caused a slight glitch in the web site, so I called the web hosting company’s Tech Support. They told me that the server extensions need to be re-set. This has happened before, and they always re-set them for me. This time, though, the Tech Support guy asked me to do it myself, and something went wrong. As a result, I more than 100 customer web pages.  

The disaster was avoided, though, because they told me a few years ago to back up my site – just in case something like this happens. Once it happened, the only thing that was required was to copy and paste all the lost pages from my backup file to the web site – thus saving me weeks or months of re-building all those web pages, not to mention all the tears and *@#$^%&(@# that would have accompanied it.  

The moral of this story?  

If you have your own web site that you run, or if you have a web site and you’ve hired someone else to run it for you, or you have a web page on someone else’s site, then get your site backed up. One more thing … get a backup on a CD as well as on your hard drive, in case the hard drive crashes.  

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