My wife is my first focus group! If a product idea doesn’t fly with her, I suspect it needs to be “tweaked” (or “discarded”). But she and I are very supportive of each other in everything we do!

My family likes my ideas, so they are extremely supportive. I have been behind them in everything they have done, so I think they see this as giving back to mom :-)

If I wanted tons of money, I’m sure I would hear a different story, but that’s not something I would ever ask for or gamble with :-)

I think it’s their dream too that mom makes a lot of money, or becomes famous lol. Their dreaming is actually bigger than mine!

I just don’t say anything anymore. #1 I think it jinxes me, #2 – sometimes I get the “show me the money” face.

My husband supports me in everything I do- no matter what. As long as I’m enjoying myself, then he’s behind it. But I can’t use him as a focus group, because he just doesn’t “see” new products the same way I can.

I’m in the unfortunate/fortunate position of knowing a lot of people who became wealthy through innovation and hard work. My wife sees the result; the people are now quite wealthy. And she wants us to get there too. But she really doesn’t agree with undertaking the requisite risk.

I was able to convincer her to let me buy a restaurant a couple of years ago, which we promptly sold, after it ate up our whole life. Even though I was doing a great job of turning the restaurant around, we considered it a failure because of the low returns and huge time requirement.

I could never convince my wife to let me invest money into a business venture that is not already established; not even a fraction of the money we put into the restaurant. She needs to know it will make money from day 1. So I’m limited in the kinds of entrepreneurial ventures in which I can engage.

Thankfully, EN came along. Now for just $25 I can enter my ideas into these contests. Even if I make just $2500 off of one of them, I think that may be enough to get one of my other products off the ground. So far I’ve made it to the finals in 3 searches. Hopefully I’ll get a win soon.

Rafael, regarding the LPS’s, last night I did some quick math: if I submit 100 product ideas at $25 each, and just one of them hits, then I’ve made my money back. Those are great odds!!

Now you get it Brett, why would you want to give
some good ideas away, when for just $25.00 you
can enter them in the LPS contest.

For the most part, I am on my own in my inventor’s dreamland. My children are terribly excited about it all, and my oldest daughter is always helping me come up with ideas. But my husband, well…..not quite as supportive. Sometimes I think he is starting to get on board, but mostly I get the “oh, that’s great honey….show me the money face” too. He would not be willing to take a big financial risk on one of my ideas (yet). He’s like an angel investor, I have to prove that it’s a sound business venture first :). I’m not a fan of borrowing money from other family. I’ve seen how that can ruin relationships. Since I’m a stay at home mom, I am financing myself with birthday money, Ebay and garage sales. That’s why I am so thankful that EN came along when it did. It’s really the only way I can be in the game at this point.

Support appears to take many form…..in my house it’s “that’s great honey”…..and then the “Show me the money” look. But that’s ok…we all go through that at one point or another. Maybe it’s the way our brains work….that tenacity and faith that keeps us moving down the road towards what we know we can accomplish.

Not everyone sees things the way we may see them I guess – so we have to carry that part of the load for them.

My husband is scared by the statistics of successful inventions/inventors. He’s supported all of my ideas, even helping prototype on occasion, as far as them being great ideas, but the money aspect always scares him. He would rather invest that money. I felt it important that I get his outright verbal approval out of fear that it might come back to bite me in the backside should an idea fail….I’ve always shared the truth about this dream of mine. I explained it once in a way that he could relate to…..he thinks nothing of spending $36,000 or more on a car that does nothing but depreciate in value over the 10 years maximum that he has it, more like 6 years….how bad would it be to take the money he would spend on a car to pursue my dream, which may have a return, whether minimal or substantial, just as I supported him to pursue his, albeit much less risky and expensive. He gets it, even if it does scare him or make him nervous.