Indiana Inventors Association

SCORE Indianapolis mentors Bill Petrovic (retired vice president and treasurer, Roche Diagnostics) and Steve Click (retired national sales manager and DigiNet manager, WTHR) dazzled us with a description of all that SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives, a nonprofit organization supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration) provides.   Entrepreneurs and small businesses with all levels of business experience benefit from expert advice given through confidential individual mentoring, group workshops, and a well‑stocked, vetted library—for free or low cost. The 45 mentors at SCORE Indianapolis (including a retired patent attorney) point a variety of people in the right direction.   Someone thinking about starting a business is shown how to focus on the appropriate sequence of essentials, how to develop a successful business model, how to find customers, how to raise startup money, and how to develop an exit strategy (based on a positive brand, loyal employees, a

On matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of substance, stand like a rock. —Author unknown Jared Adams (COO, Canvas ) showed us how to profit from using the lean startup method to add substance to style.   The founders of Canvas started with two things: a background in information technology and the observation that many young adults prefer to interact with others indirectly.   Knowing that this lifestyle increases the efficiency of some kinds of communication, the founders wondered if employers and young job applicants would rather text than talk. To find out, they developed a text-based intelligent interviewing software program and raised $2 million in seed capital.   Because the founders needed help to know what to build and how people would use their product, they asked trusted senior human resources (HR) people across the country to find flaws in the original program.   The HR people found several embarrassing flaws but, surprisingly, also ask

For creative individuals who hope to profit from their ideas, invention is only a small part of the story.   Consumers buy products (material realities), not inventions (ideas).   John Ritchison (intellectual property attorney from Anderson, IN) offered us advice on how to best market our products: be patient, stay focused, and don’t get frustrated.   Bottom line—be bold.   Go big or go home. An inventor typically has 3 marketing options: make and sell a product or method, sell the invention to others who will use it to make and sell a product or method, or license (rent) the invention to others who will use it to make and sell a product or method.   For all 3 options, learn all you can about your product’s market, study your business opportunities, and draft a basic business plan that can take you from point A to point B. Here are some useful steps for learning how to take your product to market. Find out how others have marketed a product similar to yours.   For exa