An Inspired Reader writes:

“I have been looking at what you guys have come up with as far as your company is concerned and are absolutely in love with the concept.

I would like to come up with a company that patents ideas and sells them to companies (in the near future). To be in the business of creation is something I aspire to.

I am wondering if one of you guys could take the time to reply back maybe some pointers or words of wisdom, because, one, coming from someone else any such advice would seem unjustified, and two, you guys rock.

Thanks a bunch,

Inspired Reader”

Dear Inspired Reader,

I am flattered that you think we ‘rock’, although I suspect you may have some misconceptions about what we do here. Since the days of Edison the concept of the pure inventor has been held up as a romantic ideal. This inventor just sits around in a plush chair coming up with brilliant ideas which are eagerly awaited by the world. This is a myth, so you should dispel it from your mind. In reality the business aspects of being an independent inventor require far more effort than the technical parts of the invention process. Successful independent inventors may spend 80% of their time on entrepreneurship. This is certainly frustrating for those of us (like myself) who are more interested by technical challenges, and in such a case it is often much more rewarding to be an inventor within a larger organization where people who enjoy entrepreneurship can focus on it, and people who enjoy technical challenges can focus on those. We do a bit of that division of labor here at Squid Labs.

As an independent inventor, you are often starting from a position where nobody is very interested in you or your inventions. In order to sell something you need far more than just an invention, you need a solution that meets both technical and business needs of a specific customer. In order to meet those needs you generally must have a good understanding of a potential customer’s entire business, not just a technical enhancement of possible interest to their customers. Your potential customer is also unlikely to recognize the value of your invention without significant effort on your part.

Here at Squid Labs we develop new technologies, but we can only do that by keeping a close eye on how they fit into a business solution:

• When developing a technology for a specific client, either we have identified how the technology will fit into their business, or else the client has initiated contact with us after identifying themselves the approximate parameters of their desired solution in both technical and business areas. In either case it is essential to work closely with the client to ensure that any solution we develop continues to meet their needs, particularly since those needs usually change over time.
• We also develop technologies internally, in which case a variety of different business strategies are considered. Sale to a specific client is just one type of business strategy. Sometimes a technology is very beneficial to end users, but detrimental to existing companies. No existing company will buy this solution and the only alternative is to start a new, competitive company.

After all that, I should point out that we started Squid Labs because we are all idealistic inventors who were disillusioned with many of the other job options available to us. We believe that our current business model is optimal not just for developing new technologies, but for getting those technologies out to the world where they can have as large an impact as possible.

I highly recommend you read Clayton Christensen’s books - The Innovator’s Dilemma and the Innovator’s Solution.

Good luck!

-dan-

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.