Hi all,

If you are reading this you must really like me or something. Nah, I know you just learned I had another of my ideas chosen to be produced in the ASOTV LPS! I am so excited about it. You all know from my posts and earlier ramblings that I want to do this full time. I’m sick of working on Dimmer instruction sheets…my day job. It took a lot of back and forth with EN when they asked for a prototype of my idea. My father-in-law really came through for me and practically built the whole thing himself. I made one part but he did the rest. I drew up the plans, we debated it and he made it. They then requested a few modifications and for a while there it was looking kind of touch and go from my end, but ultimately they chose it and I am now riding high on adrenaline! My dream of doing this full time may actually be starting to happen. I’m really trying to put that out of my mind so I can focus on the work needed to make that happen. I don’t want to feel too confident otherwise my next ideas will stink.

I don’t think I covered this yet but I thought I’d jot down a brief history of my adventure thus far and how I got to this point in my life.

I think what really started it all for was when I made it to the filming stage of season 2. I got to present my idea to the panel of judges but was ultimately rejected. They all seemed to genuinely like it and I was getting excited about all the great things they were saying about it. Then the Lawyer came in and said a dreadful 2 words amongst all the praise “limited market”. After being told my idea was a good one, just not a good one for the show I was determined to come back to the casting call for season 3 with an idea they couldn’t possibly reject. I went home realizing they wanted something everyone uses…a tooth brush. In my mind that meant either a kitchen product or bathroom one for obvious reasons. I chose the kitchen as my inspiration,went home and set about working on the problem. Nothing came to mind immediately. Then when I finally stopped thinking about it it just came to me in a flash. I built some prototypes, with my father-in-laws help and went back and presented it at Season 3’s casting call in Providence. I made it onto the show. I was 97% sure I’d be chosen right then and there the day I presented it from the very positive reactions I was getting. One of the judges was involved in direct responce television, I can not remember her name, but as I was speaking and demonstrating my idea I saw her leaning in and smiling. I think the dollar $ign$ we flashing in her eyes. After it was all over Dave, Everyday Edisons, head of commercialization whisked me off the set and said “put that away” you don’t have any protection on it and then went on to ask if I realized who “she” was…the DRTV judge. It turned out she’s one of the biggest names in DRTV and to this day I still don’t know her name. He then said he had never seen a reaction like that out of the judges in over 15 casting calls. My item has a big time WOW factor. He then had me present it to the retailers which looked like a congressional hearing and was very intimidating to do with so many people all focused on me and my hand built prototypes. It took months until I found out for sure about the show but in my heart I knew it would happen that very day I presented it.

Then the EN site followed a few months later and I’ve taken every opportunity to put any idea I have into the LPS’s. Right now I have 10 different ideas in 3 searches, most of which are G4 or higher. It’s telling me I really have a shot at this. I’ve been through some very hard times in the past and I was finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

I went through a divorce a few years back, I didn’t want it and I was the one being that was rejected after 16 years and three beautiful children. It was a very very low period in my life. I honestly had thoughts of just ending it all at times as I was going through it, it was that bad. I was totally beaten down and destroyed emotionally.

At some point in all of that something clicked in my mind that I could either let myself die inside, or I could try to learn from it and be better and stronger for it. I decided the latter. I picked myself up and started making me and my wants and needs a priority, something I hadn’t done in years. I met a wonderful woman…Barbara, on a speed date believe it or not, and we’ve been together ever since. We married in 06 and I couldn’t be happier. She fully supports me in all that I do and is pretty much the exact opposite of my first wife. My life has really changed for the better and I owe a lot of it to her.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it matters. I had to rise from the ashes of my life to get to where I am today and have the faith and courage to believe I can be something more. I’ve always known I had it in me but it took being on the brink of disappearing altogether for me to do anything about it.

Sometimes it takes great adversity to motivate. I don’t know if either of my ideas will ever make me wealthy or let me retire early or any of that, but I do know that the possibility is now there. I cracked the door so to speak and now it’s up to me to step through. I am trying my hardest to take that door off it’s hinges and throw it away altogether.

As for how do I come up with my ideas, if there is a trick, I wouldn’t say there is one but there are things you can do to help yourself think and get into the inventing mindset.

I do some of them naturally, it’s just the way that I am. I’m very mechanically inclined and also an artist. I tend to notice the aesthetics of things and how they work which is a very good combo.

Techniques I use are that I’ll go into a store such as walmart and I’ll just stop and look at what they are selling. I go in with no real purpose in mind, I just walk the aisles looking for anything that jumps out at me. Believe it or not if you do this, in any given aisle maybe 1 or 2 things will catch your interest. Why? Maybe it’s the packaging, maybe it’s it’s color or size. Maybe it’s the materials. Whatever it is you can use all of this info to your advantage on your next idea or design. Now you know orange pops out, or it’s better on a shelf than hanging etc…

The other technique I use, which I find invaluable, is to go into a hardware store, or home depot or a place like that and go to the hardware section with all the different door catches and slides and drain covers and just all the technical hardware kind of stuff. I’ll pick them up and look at how this flips this way and that turns into there and I’ll imagine what would happen if I took this one and combined it with that one, how would it move? What could I do with that? I just question things.

The last technique I use is the Love it Hate it technique. I’ll find a product that I either love or one that I hate and I try to figure out why I like it so much or hate it so much. I’ll take both and try to think what I could do to make them better. Could I add a feature to it to make it do more. Could I change the shape to make it look better or work better. Does it need to be made lighter? I really analyze them. It’s good to do this exercise with both items you like and ones you hate. You really have to think differently to do each.

It’s not really a technique, but it’s always good to start with someone’s need, want or problem. It doesn’t have to be yours, just something you see that is honestly needed. I fell though that the best ideas are needs that people don’t even realize they need.

I can’t go into detail but my ASOTV item is one of those, a need no one realizes is out there because it’s just always been done this one way. My idea gives them a new, and I think better, way to solve a common problem.

I can’t say what it solves or how it solves it, but hopefully around Christmas time after the test marketing is done you’ll be able to buy one and see for yourself.

I think you all need to hear it can be done and I wanted you to understand that this is all new for me and I am way out of my normal comfort zone but that is why this is happening. I’m am determined to MAKE it happen and I’m taking it very seriously. I see this as my chance to buy a better house, move into a nicer neighborhood and do one thing that up until this point I never saw any possibility of happening. I want to be able to put my children through college. I just don’t make the kind of money needed to be able to do that. That is my biggest goal and I think it’s one worth fighting for.