Howzabout…

The most typical reaction I get when people first hear about the concept behind Howzabout.org is one of disbelief. Nearly everyone seems to think that creating a website that invites corporations to steal my concept is foolish, and they usually then inform me that they would never be dumb enough to let someone else get rich off their idea. Which has led me to the surprising revelation that everybody and their brother has a can’t miss innovation that would make them fabulously rich, if only they could find the time to work on it. But like Nathan Arizona says, “If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass a- hoppin’.”

So therein lies the rub: most of us simply won’t ever make an attempt to bring our ideas to life. The reasons are varied, but once you get past lack of conviction you usually end up at time and money (or the lack of both). What constrains an individual doesn’t necessarily constrain a business, however, so many of the obstacles between an inventive thought and its realization are removed if the appropriate people are made aware of the potential innovation. So if you really are interested in creating something new, corporations are a terrific resource. And besides, your idea can’t be stolen if you give it away first.

But it is understandable to question why someone else should profit from my insight. Don’t I want one of my ideas to hit it big and bring my family wealth and financial independence? Of course I do, but I would like to win the lottery as well, and I probably have a better chance of that panning out for me, and I don’t even play! By the time I secured some sort of patent, created a legitimate prototype and gained the audience of a decision maker that actually saw the promise of my proposed innovation, I would have made it closer to the inventor’s Promised Land than most. Yet at that point I would barely be out of the gate! Untold amounts of cash and energy would need to have been poured into the idea, and still the chances of my being ripped off outright would probably be greater than those of my securing a big pay day.

Inventors all have their involved explanations of The One That Got Away, sad stories of how their fame and fortune were unfairly taken from them. I certainly can’t blame anyone that has had that happen to them for feeling resentful and bitter, but I have to be honest, I don’t ever want to find myself commiserating with them.