Although the idea was not an original one, Kalika Yap discovered a niche to catapult her purse holder business to success.

On a trip to Italy, Kalika the idea for a table top purse holder when she was dining at a fine restaurant and had nowhere to set her purse. One of the proprietors came to her rescue when he gave her a hook to hang her purse on.

Kalika had never seen anything like this before and thought if she could make it more chic, more luxurious and user friendly they would be a hot item for women.

She was right. Read more

Are there enough people that would be interested in buying your product?

Below are some ways to gather crucial data to find out if there is really a market for your new invention idea.

(If you are concerned that someone will steal your idea, you can have them sign a non-disclosure agreement before you ask them questions about your product)

Trade Magazine research – There are trade magazines covering just about every interest, industry, gender, and ethnic group you can think of. If you go to Amazon’s magazine search just about every magazine out there will show up for your keyword search. You can do a quick search for magazines in your product idea niche below:

Internet research - Below are some websites where you can do research to find out if you have a large enough target market for your new invention idea: Read more

Another important initial step in making money from your new invention idea is to find out if your product idea is something people want! YOU think your idea is great and that every person will buy one….but, you need to get concrete data to find out if people out there will actually buy your terrific product.

The last thing want is to get stuck spending a bunch of money creating your product and then find out that it won’t sell. So doing thorough research before you invest any money into your new invention idea is crucial. Read more

14 Essential Questions To Ask People About Your New Invention Ideas

You’ll want to find out what other people think about your new invention ideas.

If you are concerned that someone will steal your idea, you can have them sign a non-disclosure agreement before you ask them questions about your product.

1. Do you like the product?

2. Does it solve a problem that you have?

3. Would you buy the product? Read more

If you have a great idea that you want to invent, you’ll want to know that your idea is original.

You first need to find out if there are already existing patents for your idea. If you have the funds you can hire a patent attorney to do a patent search for you.

Or if you have little or no funds you can do a patent search yourself online. There is a great website called freepatentsonline.com where you can register for free and do patent searches.

You will want to do a search with as many keywords that you can think of that relate to your product idea. For example if your product idea is for a new design for an ice chest, you’ll want to do searches for “ice chest” and words that relate like “cooler”, “ice box”, etc.

You can also do a patent search at the US Patent and Trademark website. If you click Patent on the left hand side, then scroll down and click Search, you will come to a page where you can choose how you want to do your search. The Quick Search option is quick and easy. Read more

Lisa Rothstein began baking brownies as a hobby while working as an elementary school teacher. She and a sorority sister started a business called Brownie Points baking brownies in their apartment.

Soon their business took off and they moved it to a manufacturing facility in Cleveland.

Unfortunately, Lisa had to move to Colombus, Ohio because of her husband’s job. Growing tired of the commute and the time it took away from her family she decided to sell out.

Soon after going through a divorce, Lisa realized that her true passion was her brownie business. She contacted the new owners and they offered her a position at the company but Lisa wanted to take the company back. Eventually the new owners agreed and she once again was the owner of Brownie Points. Read more

There are many invention promotion firms who will advertise that they will take your idea to market for a fee that can range from $1,000 to $40,000. They advertise that they will contact manufacturers for you, give you a website to promote your product, and to promote your product in magazines and other media.

Unfortunately there are companies that are scams. They conduct inventor fraud by operating in unethical ways.

Here are some tips for determining if an invention promotion firm is legitimate or a scam.

1. Check the U.S. Federal Trade Commission website. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s job is to protect consumers. If you type “invention promotion” in their search box on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission website, you will come up with some very helpful articles on what to look out for when dealing with these firms. Read more

Okay, so starting a daycare from your home probably won’t make you millions, but it will give you some extra cash flow to invest in other money making opportunities if that is your goal. Read more

Julie Aigner Clark, founder of The Baby Einstein Company has the ultimate million dollar mom story.

Julie’s idea for making educational baby videos came to her when her daughter was 18 months old, she searched the market for videos that were both educational and appropriate for her daughter’s development but soon realized there were no videos on the market like this. Having a background as a middle school and high school arts teacher, she came up with the idea of making homemade videos herself using hand puppets and her cat as a prop. Borrowing a camcorder from a friend she began making Baby Einstein videos in her basement. Read more

Sheri Schmelzer a stay-at-home-mom is one of those moms who made millions from a “Why didn’t I think of that?” idea.

In the summer of 2005, Sheri was playing with her kids one day in her basement when they decided to use clay and rhinestones to decorate the holes of their Crocs shoes. Her kids absolutely loved the decorations and began wearing them to school where other kids noticed them and started asking for them.

Sheri realized this could be an excellent business idea. So she along with her husband began a company called Jibbitz creating snap-on charms for Crocs.

They began by running the business out of their basement but after they sent out a press release the orders began pouring in, they realized they had to expand their business. Read more

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