It was all my fault….sorry for the confusion..

That was a great story in your book, I remember it!
As far as a compliment—-I’d love to have the EN legal team return the favor!

It’s amazing though, isn’t it? I remember knock offs of the Snap Capps. Same packaging, etc. One store here began to carry them and we had to write them and say “you don’t want to go down that road” and they stopped.

The funny story was being at a large trade show in Guangzhou and we walked into a booth that had our knock-offs. Bill, the President of Snap Capps, asked the guy there who made them, and he said his company was the exclusive manufacturer of them. Chinese dude was all proud when he said that, as if he invented them himself. So Bill pulls out his business card, with the images of the caps on them and let’s just say that guy wanted to go crawl into some hole somewhere.

I think it is actually a great compliment to your idea Betsy, when companies on the other side of the world are trying to copy it.

EN/Allstar and their attorneys know all about those. They are on it. I’ve even seen the websites. They even have the nerve to use our box and product! One company even calls it’s knock off ‘China Eggie’s. :-/

I too love your ending much better! Though as soon as I saw you write about knock-offs, I got to wondering.

alibaba.com/product-gs/518510555/Eggies.html

alibaba.com/product-gs/525446614/Egg_dividers.html

It was inevitable Betsy, though stores here will never carry those.

And an even better scenario Eric is this…..
Betsy has the idea, has no idea how to make them…can hardly draw them, but then who can’t draw an Egg?
She submits the idea to Edison Nation, and spends $25 dollars, and never another penny.
EN shows them to Allstar, they pick it right away. They spend the money, manufacturing, patenting, shipping, marketing, etc.

Betsy NEVER had to steal from her 401k, or child’s college fund. She never had to shlep her product to fairs, or plead with stores to stock them. And the best part, EN and Allstar Blitz the market with 5 million units to help keep would be knock offs away.

I love the real ending to my story. And, I can’t say it enough—-Eric, your personal story is so eye opening and chilling. I just wish EN had been around to help inventors years ago. EN really is my and so many other Inventor’s fairy tale.

Eric, the original singing bass flopped in a certain way and only sang lines of songs. Telebrands made one that was bigger, flopped differently, and sang entire songs. I remember researching how they can do this back in June of 2009 and was astounded at it all. For example, Google EZ Combs. At the time, Telebrands was coming out with this product, then I found a gal who had invented them and had been selling them for a few years at fairs and trade shows. I spoke with her and her attorney one day and she was hopping mad—but Telebrands had changed the style “just enough” to be different.

And Frank, at that time, I was of the exact same mindset as you on this. It was numbing. I spent weeks asking myself “how in the hell can they do this?” And there’s stuff I cannot divulge, as I did sign a confidentiality agreement at Telebrands’ headquarters once upon a time. But in the end, it all made sense…pure capitalism and legal. I walked away with a great deal of respect towards Telebrands to be honest.

Let’s take Betsy’s Eggies for example. Say there was no EN, she developed them, got her patents (design and utility), and took them to trade shows, fairs, etc., trying to market them. She signs contracts with brokers to take them to the store chains (who aren’t likely to take them on—my book explains that fun game). She sells them to a few stores, but not to the mass market. What are her options? If a large ASOTV company quietly renames them behind her back and runs a $50,000 commercial campaign just to see if they sell, what’s the harm to her? She just got exposure. People have been educated at what this gadget does. The company then calls Betsy, they meet and she’s given two options.

For those following the singing bass and the Ez Combs, let’s just say those inventors chose the wrong option. Let’s say Betsy agrees to allow them to take them to the market for royalties, she wins big time (as she actually is doing right now). Instead of selling 10,000 units a year for full profit, she’s now selling 10 million a year for some royalties. And then here’s the bonus: After 2-5 years of commercials running, product everywhere…she gets it all back, as they only promote and sell a product they can make a lot of money on, and after time, the big bucks dry up, but the residuals in some store sales will be there for years to come.

Did they “steal” the product from her? Well, yes. But in the long run, she’s darn lucky they did. Just my opinion though.

Here’s a review by Jordan Pine of “Sticky Wicky”, an older version of this product. He states that maybe this stands a chance of success if they can fix the campaign… so I guess that this is their attempt? This one mentions a patent, too. http://scimark.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-stic...

“Sticky Wicky” ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j87uTm-lFD8&...

Still leaves you wondering where the original inventor/patent-holder/client stands in all of this w/Telebrands, Predict-a-Hit, etc. And what about “Mr. Sticky”? https://www.buymrsticky.com/Default.aspx

Thanks for sharing this story, Betsy! Interesting stuff!

Eric Kaufman wrote:
“One day out of the blue, one of our distributors on the east coast calls and says Telebrands has launched a commercial for our product under a different name, which is here: youtube.com/watch?v=AKtpQTgxvaY (note: this is the original commercial they used to do a “test market analysis” of our product).
It was the weirdest thing, as they were running a commercial with our product, daring people to call their 800 number to buy them, when they did not even have any in stock.”

I think Yolanda is right…maybe there is some kind of deal going on with this “sticky” stuff! And to me it smells like a rotten deal! If Predict-A-Hit is really trying to get a response from the popular targeted age group (being middle-aged + women as the highest call-in buyers of these ASOTV products) just what kind of response do they expect to get from that Vince Offer spot?

Wondering if these consumers will be a bit shocked and swear off/boycott buying ASOTV products for awhile as the younger crowd (lovin’ it) is already hard at work making plenty of YouTube parodies to pass around to anyone who might have missed this “risque” ad?

Bad business for others currently trying to bring ASOTV products to market…makes the industry look ridiculous IMO…do they plan on showing that during Super Bowl?

Eric, I read your link and to be honest…..I’m astonished! What went wrong here? Should the inventor have been a little more descriptive in his work during the patent process or is the concept of a singing fish mounted on a plaque not patent protected?

While I read your book Eric, I knew Eggies was about to go into stores. After every chapter, I heard myself saying ‘Thank Goodness for EN!’ And I was wishing Eric, that you had found them too. Your book is a must read for anyone who hopes to have an ASOTV product. It’s a competitive, Billion dollar industry that has it’s own rules….and Eric’s book reads like a spy thriller!

Yes, the singing bass Betsy…a lesson for many inventors to be aware of. Some guy invented it, got a copyright, was selling it at a decent clip, but not large scale. Telebrands came along and test marketed it, (I won’t put a middle part here in writing of what I think went down next) and made their own bass. Inventor took them to court, and to me, this is a fun read: rulings.cbp.gov/detail.asp?ru=469770&ac=pr
(just cut and paste into browser, as I cannot post a link)
My favorite line is: “Telebrands claims that the only similarity between the Boogie Bass and the Big Mouth Billy Bass is the fact
that both are bass.” Soooo funny.

And Frank, this is where I think you might have it wrong a bit. Sure, the inventor had “their dream” as you write, but the inventor was never going to get it into tens of thousands of stores and all over TV. Go by the ASTV section at CVS, Walgreens, Target, etc., and you’ll see 20-40 items. Only a handful of companies place these items, such as Telebrands, and Allstar (who places the Eggies for example), etc.

This is why I think EN is a brilliant idea, as it matches inventors and products with these companies and everyone wins.

Frank, Thank goodness EN and it’s top notch team headed by Rich Holmes and Chris Clark, love shutting down the knock offs and frauds, and actually love the battle! I read ‘tweets’ from Rich and he’s hysterical! It’s like his mission! ;-)

It’s an old product. My parents bought one years ago and I picked one up in a 2nd hand store. As in most ASOTV products I’ve tried, it does not work as well as it does in the infomercial. It has limited schitickiness so it can’t pick up layers of hair, just a few hairs. It does not release in water that easily, you need to rub the hairs off. But as usual, there will be people who use it once but then swear it is the greatest thing they have ever tried. The material is interesting, though, and could be the source of other inventions.

That means after the inventor realizes the “busnessman” has stolen their dream, the inventor
confronts him and releaves him of his eyeballs!

I do remember that in your book. I have your book almost memorized, I loved it so much. Wasn’t there also a part about the singing bass…. that sang, ‘take me down the river’?

Frank, I think I’m slow today…trying to get the Stevie Wonder reference, but I’m still ‘wonder-ing’. ;-)

The constructive business man who seems to get a legal pass at behaving like this sure would look funny trying to do
one of their informercials with black-out glasses on, swaying his head back and forth like Stevie Wonder!!

Hi Betsy, you don’t remember this part of my book?

We had a product with a patent, and started doing commercials. The link to that commercial is at this website: snapcapps.com

One day out of the blue, one of our distributors on the east coast calls and says Telebrands has launched a commercial for our product under a different name, which is here: youtube.com/watch?v=AKtpQTgxvaY (note: this is the original commercial they used to do a “test market analysis” of our product).

It was the weirdest thing, as they were running a commercial with our product, daring people to call their 800 number to buy them, when they did not even have any in stock.

looks like a s(ch)ticky situation. he he he

Yep, They are battling for market share. Sticky buddy is more dynamic though, or so it appears. The commercial is more demonstrative as well. That scraper/petbrush on the front of sticky buddy makes it just that different enough. I wonder if they have patents on them or if they are just battling it out for market share on the strength of the products minus the cost of patents.

Yep, I read one very funny blog that hinted at that. I hear ya sis’, so HAPPY EN is behind us! I have a feeling these products aren’t patented or patentable.

Betsy..could be some foul play involved as you’re hinting, too! (I read Eric Kaufman’s awesome “Snap Capp” book BTW!! What an eye-opener for me! Super glad we have EN behind us!)

Sher, Google Schticky versus Sticky Buddy and there are articles about it. I’d post the links, but I’m writing with my phone and am not that good. :-) It is definitely 2 different companies going head to head!!

(Those A/B tests…measure audience response with slight differences in basically the same spot. But both A/B versions still have the consumers order from the same company. This is apparently a bit of an Infomercial War) I guess they’re both trying to ‘Stick It’, or ‘Schtick It’ to each other! Ha, ha

I don’t think it’s a copycat but the same basic product being tested with two different media spots/pitchmen/styles/names/prices/colors to see which one performs better and gains the most consumer response. Predict-a-Hit and Telebrands is probably together on this project. Just my guess anyway!

That is to weird! I would hate that to happen to anybody. Come up with a good idea and next thing you know a copycat pops up nearly the same time line as yours.

Betsy! I think they have a deal somewhere in the making,with both companies. I think it all boils down to the power of $$. I will love to know the outcome, thanks for a great story..

Predict A Hit is a company in California. Telebrands is on the East Coast. This is definitely a story I want to find out more about. The 3 things in each commercial are exactly the same. And both Vince and Sully are big dollar pitchmen. I’ve never seen anything like this.

It’s scary Betsy….

At the bottom of the “other companies” page, in the small print on the left hand side there is a link for inventors… it leads to
a submission form for “Predict a Hit”.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the proximity of the two commercials… that HAD to be orchestrated!

You’re right Frank, EN/Allstar have done an incredible job with my product. But, as far as these lint rollers—- on the same night, I see a Sticky Buddy commercial and then one for Schticky. Which one is the copy cat? Even the offer is the same. However, Schticky costs twice as much. Sticky Buddy is by Telebrands, the other is from a different company. My guess is… the one that lands in stores, ends up ‘The Winner’.

I reckon that’s where we can all see the absolute importance of saturating the market with the original product, ie, EN/EGGIES style marketing…. advertise EVERYWHERE!! The knock-offs may take some of the market, but the BRAND name being constantly seen in print and on TV will “outrun” the knock-offs at the end of the day.

maybe they have a deal, to see which pitchman sells more LOL :) whatever makes money I guess

Maybe I’ll come up with ugglies. I’ll have mean looking egg faces cast into the silicone molds. HAHA

At least the Eggies knockoffs haven’t hit the streets yet……..or have they?

lol… welcome to the world of money.