Patent Pending Made Simple is a podcast for inventors who are looking to learn more about the patent process
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Patent Pending Made Simple Podcast. I'm your host, Summer Shaw, and with me is Jamie Brophy. Jamie, how are you? Hi, Summer. I am good. I'm excited about today's episode. We have a guest on today. Peter Drakulich. Peter, can you, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do?
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you guys for considering me to be on. The podcasts are so important to helping people understand what's next, and what they're about to get into, but yeah, I'll give you a quick. background. My company's called 52 launch.
I'm one of the co founders and partners here. What we emerged out as, because when we started off, we were really just getting phone calls from people that ideas, but didn't know where to start, didn't know how to execute on it. And the people that were calling us had the intention that they wanted to actually bring their own product idea to market.
My partner has the manufacturing background. There's a lot of manufacturing overseas as well as domestically. And my background was the marketing side and [00:01:00] sales side. And, really in our world we are very selective. It sounds maybe a little bit arrogant, but it's not selective on the person or the idea it's more selective on, is there a market for it?
If someone comes with an idea, we're looking to go into consumer product goods. Anything that any of the consumers are buying, we really evaluate is there a market and is there a need for it, right? And is that product really serve a solution that people are looking for or something that makes people go, wow.
And so that's how we started. And then really what we had to develop is the wherewithal, right? What we thought was an A through Z process really started off with a very small part. And what we really discovered is that, we needed to bring people on board. So eight years later, we are full blown team of product developers designers, marketing experts manufacturing experts, and really understand the fulfillment and logistics side as well.
So that not only is the product. Get made and delivered, it goes to a warehouse where then can be shipped out. And then, of course, we have an [00:02:00] entire content creation team that builds out websites and creates the e commerce business. So we equate it to money ball, right? Our goal is to get everybody on the first base.
And for that first base is a, is an e com business that can be automated and easily managed by our clients, or even us that we can keep managing for our clients. Wow, I love this so much. This is exactly what I tell our clients to look into all the time. I think Summer has heard me say this many times, our clients come to us with an idea and we, might help them file a provisional patent application.
And I tell them all the time, this provisional patent application secures your filing date and it's good for a year. And in that year, you need to be doing all of these things that you're talking about, Peter, you need to be doing marketing research. You need to do further development on your product.
It sounds like 52 launch is. A one stop shop for all these things that I tell our clients all the time, to look [00:03:00] into, to determine whether it's going to be worth their time and money and energy to continue on with the patent process, because the patent process does get so expensive. It's the entire process.
It's very expensive. So collectively, I agree. I agree with you, right? I think the first two questions that have to be asked and answered are, number one is, and I think they're both relative and I can interchange easily, but, Is this a good idea and is it something I can patent or am I stepping on someone's patent, right?
So that to me is where quite frankly, I reached out to to Summer because I, I'm looking to get more early stage and work with the patent attorneys that are out there that you guys are facing these calls. But answering the other question is let's work together to make sure that we're optimizing.
When to put a patent in place, and, again, in our world, we usually find a part of the process that is patentable, something that, how to make something work in a certain way, that becomes either utility or design, and it gives [00:04:00] us a lot more ability to give you guys something that's got some teeth and got some ability to actually prevent other people from maybe not knocking off the concept of the product, but not doing it the way we did it. Yeah. This is so helpful, for, especially for independent inventors. There's so many things for them to think about, not only our part, the patent side of things but all of those things that you're thinking of, developing a product and bringing it to market.
There's so much that goes into it and, there's never one place that they can go to for help. They need to go to maybe a patent attorney and maybe, a product developer and maybe a marketing person. Yeah, I think this is so helpful for the independent inventors.
Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, and I would echo that too. I would say that if you're an independent inventor, the odds are stacked against you, right? And it's tough. And I think you need as many of these things working for you to help you succeed. So that's why I really wanted to have you on, Peter. I think [00:05:00] this kind of information is really important.
Part and parcel of the patent process. And if you're an independent inventor, you're thinking about patenting what you're doing or proceeding with your invention. I think you need to be thinking about both the IP and the go to market strategy. So yeah, hopefully this will be helpful. Yeah, I'll I could add a little bit more, but I talk too much.
Let's go through some questions that you guys probably have that we can get your listeners to really get some information here. Yeah, definitely. So Peter, can you talk a little bit about how 52 launch is? Maybe different from some other companies in this space. What is unique about 52 launch?
Yeah. What's unique about us. And again, I think it's because our origin started with the phone calls versus us saying, let's start a business that's in this space. Like I didn't know this was called the invention help space. We were getting calls from people that were extremely frustrated, and I'm not going to throw names out there, but they're the two big players in this market and their frustration was they just spent a ton of money with them, [00:06:00] and they got dropped off short of the finish line and quite honestly, it was nowhere close to the finish line what they had was We want some very rudimentary drawings.
They had some sort of, patent application in place, which was either the provisional or non provisional. And if there was a non provisional, they were like really up against the clock to try and figure out what their next steps were. We set ourselves apart we actually, our goal is to get our clients to revenue.
And that means everything from the napkin design to figuring out how this is going to turn into revenue, like where's the sales at the end of this. So that's, I think where we're very different there's no such thing as a licensing deal that, in doing this for 10 years, I have not seen one.
I get more phone calls from people that have, been sold that bill of goods and still holding on to their patent after 20 years trying to sell it to somebody. If you want to execute on your idea the reality is you have to do it yourself just like anything else. And there's a cost effective way and affordable way to do that.
That's what we've developed, but really it's eliminating the costly mistakes along the [00:07:00] way and having the courage to understand that sometimes your solution that you could, that's in front of you, isn't your best solution. You have to dig deeper and find the one that is cost effective.
I start from the beginning, and the beginning to me is the end. Does this idea sell? And if so, where does it sell? Is it in a sporting goods category? Then you work backwards from there, and it's really a retail or online scenario, right? In retail they call it Keystone so something on the shelf is 29 that, Retail organization generally will buy it for 15, which means you've got to figure out how to make your product for about 8 in order to make some money or less than 8.
If you don't start with that formula in mind then you can't go to market with something that has a market value of 30 and it's costing you 45 to make. So that's really where product developers are different. It's also understanding that there's only so much equipment out there that manufactures and the way it's manufactured.
is about more efficiency time is time and human labor even overseas [00:08:00] and in other parts of the world where labor is cheaper, it's really not that much cheaper anymore. It's starting to get up there. So it's really efficiencies, right? How do I make something in the most efficient way that functions well, that looks good and that has a value of 30 that I can pay 8 for and.
The adage is and I can't remember the guy's name, but he's the one who invented the Ethernet cable. He's the one who's quoted as saying, you don't make money on the invention. You make money on selling your invention. And that's where we fall into. We're all about getting a product to market so we can start selling it and growing that business so that it can do more sales.
And that's really how you make money in products. Wow. Yeah. This is really good. There's so many times I feel like when, people come to us or come to me and say, I've got this great idea. I'll provide the idea, but, and then somebody else can take it and make money with it.
And it's exactly what you said in the beginning there, that doesn't happen. If you want to make money on your idea, you've got to develop it and bring it [00:09:00] to market yourself. Yeah. I'm very glad to hear I'm not the only one that gets that first comment for most and look at, as 52 launch, we've been hearing that for eight years I've been, dealing with entrepreneurs and inventors for probably about 10 to 12 years, maybe 13 years at this point, it's natural, right?
And it really comes down to, maybe the word is a lack of confidence, but it's a lack of experience, probably the best word. They just don't know how, and, I think most people, Once they overcome the why not me?
And this is what I think people need to understand in today's world. 10 years ago, this was really hard. People don't realize that Facebook advertising is only about five years old where I can actually take an advertise something on Facebook and get it out to the billions of people that are on that platform.
So let's talk about all the things that have changed that really have come together in the last 10 years. 20 years ago, though, 25 years ago, this thing called Amazon. That started right now. It's progressed into my marketplace. I can actually go and take a product and put it on the Amazon.
They have what's called an FBA, which means I go and buy products that 50 million other people are buying and try and make nickels and [00:10:00] dimes on being a better advertiser, or I can work on bringing my own product to Amazon and compete in those areas, but I own that market because no one else is competing with me on my idea.
So there's a huge value to now being able to say yeah, why wouldn't I do that? I think it's just a mentality shift. And I think the younger generation's getting it. I think they just got to figure out how to come up with some money then and to start doing that. And that's what we're starting to see as well.
The second thing is 3D printers, CAD modeling, all this stuff that was very high technical requirement and required a lot of schooling, and it still does require a lot of schooling to learn the intricacies of it. My son was 3D printing in grade 8 and, this generation can actually come up with an idea, 3D print it, and go and sell it to somebody.
That whole channel just. It used to take years and it's done. And really, I'm going to say the last one is COVID. COVID changed the world the way buyers now interact they used to go to trade shows. They used to go to trade shows to find new product ideas, talk to [00:11:00] people traditionally.
In those three or four years that COVID kind of corrupted the world or changed the world it really forced the buyers to look somewhere else. So where are they looking now? They are no longer looking to go and buy something at a trade show. They are now looking at Amazon. They're looking at reviews.
They're looking at your online sales. They're looking at your online reviews. Again, the first base of getting a product to market is really about making a product that you know is going to be consumer intuitive and really accepted. And it's got to be a good product. Consumers don't buy crap these days.
So you got to bring a good product to market. You got to get it on a first base and let the audience and the consumers purchase it, use it, review it rant and rave about it. It doesn't have to be perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect product other than maybe McDonald's French fries or ice cream.
In, take your comments and realize that, okay, that those are good comments. I'm going to iterate on my next version. We're on what? Apple 12, 13, 14, 15, right? Products are about iterating and growing with your audience so that you can improve it.
And that's the process that we've [00:12:00] really honed in on. And I say that we've perfected it. It's really early stage, but there is no reason why everybody can't bring their own idea to market these days. I love that. As a framework, Peter one of my personal pet theories is that products have to be timely relative to what the marketing opportunities available are.
So if you are Colgate or Palmolive or one of these companies, like a big CPG brand. TV is a great medium, right? Cause you're selling mass market products and you need to reach a mass market audience, but those brands don't do really well on social media. And if you're a smaller brand, that's more customized has a specific target audience.
Those brands tend to do really well on social media. I think there is a shift and an opportunity here. For the smaller players, for smaller businesses and smaller innovators to really crack that market where before, if your only option was to get into Kroger or Publix or on [00:13:00] TV, it was not going to happen.
You had to be somebody as big as Palmolive or, one of these big companies to break through. Sorry, you nailed it. And that's my number five. I don't usually bring it out into a, into podcasts, but since you nailed it I will tell you exactly why it's because you hit it.
Mass consumer products means that all the other good products that don't meet that mass audience identification get shelved social media and Amazon now give you the ability to get really nichey and in those niche products, like just a simple garlic press for left handed people that peel upside down is now a market that you could crush it in because A company like an XO, they can't bring that to market because they're going to invest too much money and they need to have it do billions of sales, in our world, I'm okay being number 8, 637th in a lunch bag category on Amazon.
I'm [00:14:00] still delivering over 150, 000 bags in sales a year. That's a 3. 5 million company. Yeah that's a massive company for an individual inventor. It is nothing to a big CPG brand. Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly, and that's automated. That's like on first base. I have one season that I crush it in and I have the rest of the year.
It's just I don't even look at it. And at the end of the year, I'm like, Oh, okay, did pretty good. I'll say one more kind of macroeconomic theory that I have China and the Chinese economy has gotten a lot of press . It's not doing really right there.
The economy is predicated on on making things right. And I have clients who will ask me this all the time. It's like, how can I compete with lower cost offshore products. And I always tell them that the U S economy is not predicated on building things. It's on building demand, right?
That's our secret sauce. And if you can tap into that demand, you're going to do really well. [00:15:00] That's our American competitive advantage and being able to tap into that and access that it's a big part of being successful. The entire world focuses to the United States for, I want to bring a product there, right?
Cause we have the consumer demand. We've got the consumer economy. We're not the manufacturing country. We were. Pre World War II or post World War II, we've become a country that developed unique ideas. I equate it this way, look overseas is always going to be whether it's China, whether it's other countries, the work has to go where people are willing to do the work and, again, China 25 years ago was very different than it is today, right?
They're they're coming into middle class and getting out of poverty because of all the manufacturing that goes on there. That's same with India. It's same with Taiwan. Taiwan's probably the best example where they have like really become, , a. First world nation based on manufacturing and now just do high end manufacturing.
So it's a matter of, there's still a consumer retail space. People [00:16:00] say, I want this main in the United States. And quite honestly, when I show them the difference in cost of tooling, or when I show them the difference in cost price, then it doesn't make sense.
And look, there's a way to do it. There's a way to do it. And I would say that. You start off where your costs are lower and you get started. And then when the volume of sales is there, you can bring over the tool and the equipment and you can start making pillows in Wisconsin by bringing all the stuff in and just putting it together there.
There's ways to do it to make it USA made, but it's really hard to start there unless you've got deep pockets. Yeah, this is really good. So to switch from macro economic theory, maybe Peter, when you talked about the mindset a little bit earlier, can you walk us through what it takes in terms of time and effort commitment?
So let's say I'm an inventor. I've invented something I'm thinking about bringing it to market. What kind of time and effort and energy expectations should I have in order to be successful? If I was not willing to do certain [00:17:00] things, I, would you recommend I don't pursue this path?
Cause it's expensive. It's a time commitment. What are some of those kind of frameworks or what kind of expectations should I of themselves if they're going to make it to the finish line. Yeah. So that's a loaded question for me. I'll give you the spectrum of what I've encountered.
And then, cause obviously look at, I, to bring a product to market, I think really where it comes down to your decision on. Is this a good idea? And is this something I want to actually own and build a company around? And again, it's not necessarily like I got to go buy property and I got to go build a building and I got to put people in place.
I'm talking about just, do I want to bring this to an e commerce platform and start selling my own? That's really the first question that I think you need to answer. When you agree that is the goal, that's when I think you absolutely need to get involved to start talking about when's the optimal time.
What are we patenting? Is there a patent process? To me, trademarks are just as important as the patent, right? So it's about protecting the [00:18:00] brand and developing the brand again we spend just as much time building brands as we do building products because when you launch a company, And you're a new brand.
You better look like you've been a brand that's been in existence for at least six to seven years because the first sale is on trust because there's not a lot of reviews. It just goes hand in hand. But the decision is don't go it alone. And again, we're 52 launch really is different than everybody else.
Is that? It's an a la carte market out there. If you're going to bring a product to market, you've got to go to one place or another. And by the time you get to me, it's so hodgepodge because, it's like anything else. I prefer to yell at one person. When one person is the general contractor, it gets done the way it's envisioned.
We take on that general contractor role. And I just have happened to have The people that we've learned the hard way need to be on the team to execute efficiently and effectively to get everything done on a launch pad with all the rollercoaster rides of ups and downs and ebbs and flows of product [00:19:00] development or what happens in content creation and all that stuff.
So I would never go it alone. The spectrum that we've heard, I've had people that have moved to China. They spent 200, 000 in terms of not making income, going to China, spending two years there, dealing with factories. And guess what? Because they're so focused on just getting their product made, their product is overpriced.
They did not look at the efficiencies of the product. They didn't look at the market. And now they're sitting on a garage full of product that is way too expensive for people to buy. I don't know how you recover from that financially. Our goal is to always start the other way.
What are we making? What's the MVP? And how do we make it a really good MVP? The product has to have a wow factor. It has to make someone go, Wow, how come no one thought about doing this sooner? Or just, automatically, intuitively fits a market or a new need or a new niche.
Like a golf products that help you improve your game. That's an easy one. Everybody in the golf world is willing to spend money on that hardware, right? If you're in the construction [00:20:00] business, bringing a product to market that you recognize that isn't at Home Depot or Lowe's that needs to be is exactly the product you should bring to market.
The reason why we're successful and I don't mean to sound that as braggadocious or that we're bragging, but we're successful because really, the entrepreneur and the inventor they're the knowledge, right? They've spent the time, they figured it out, they know what works, they know what doesn't work.
We're the execution team. We know how to manufacture, we know how to reduce our costs, we know what to do and what not to do. And we have that ability to actually analyze all those different ways that you can make something. Our job really is to find the 10, 000 ways not to make something.
There's only one way that you make something that is efficient, that works, and that is within the cost guidelines that I set out earlier. If you're doing that on your own, I can only tell you that it's taken me a team, and my partner a team of people, and it's 30 years of experience between both of us.
And even then we're still learning every day how to get better at it. So I could never imagine anybody learning to do it on their own. [00:21:00] I've also had 400 clients at this point, or just under 400 clients that I've done this with. So we're beyond the expertise. We're more mentors in this process and we're still learning.
Yeah. I love the general contractor analogy that you made. That's, exactly what this is. You have all of the knowledge and all of the resources to. Execute on everything and it's so funny that you mentioned golf products and construction products because we have clients in both of those spaces right now.
Yeah. Look, I'll give you a few more fishing, golf, skiing, hockey look at household consumer goods, right? Anything that makes the house more efficient makes the kitchen easier to do. The laundry faster to clean these are all things that are huge out there.
Reason why like the, I say liquid products, right? Those are the big corporations. They provide a very lucrative business because most of what they're selling is water plus whatever chemical for cleaning is in there.
If you have a need at your home and you're looking for it on Amazon and you can't find it, [00:22:00] you probably want to figure out how to invent it, because that's a gaping hole that's missing.
If you're looking for it, there's. Thousands of other people looking for. Yeah, absolutely. So besides the, marketability analysis and the analysis that goes into determining how much it's going to cost to make the product. Are those the two main things that you would evaluate before?
Advising somebody to proceed with taking their product to market. There's a third. If you're not a business person, I would highly recommend that inventor bring on a business partner. Because it's really hard to educate an inventor to become a business person.
And really that's what the journey is with us. And, even with seasoned business owners, when they're inventors, they stay in this fun zone. It's like playing in the sandbox. You could stay there forever. I get the design. I get sketches. I get to see my product come to life. I see it on a 3D print.
The minute you have to write a check to turn to get a 20, 000 tool made or a 10, 000 tool made, that's when you become, [00:23:00] that's when you get your CFO hat on. You're like, wait a minute. Now I got to put money out. Do I really want to do this? And to me, those are decisions you should make right from the get go.
If you're going to do it go and do it and get it done right. And then really the last one is, okay, now the product is here and it's in the warehouse and it's in my hand, you got to pick up the phone and start calling potential buyers or meet brokers or meet people that can help you sell your product.
And that scares people. Sales of this part is what scares people. And I like to lay that out there because that's your journey. If you're going to bring a product to market, and it's a good journey because everybody should learn.
I think having your own product forces you to go and learn important. Yeah, I really like that as well. I work with a lot of software startups as well. And in the software world, there's a lot of writing around this, and I think there's a lack of it in the product space.
But a software product is usually 20 percent of the journey, right? The other 80 percent is bringing it to market, marketing it, identifying a [00:24:00] real need and solving for that need. All these things that need to happen. And there's a lot of literature out there about, coders who will spend all their time coding for something and then they forget to do the other 80%.
And it's not a good recipe for success. Yeah. I struggle with the word pre revenue. That's not in my world. We got to go out and start selling to make a living, right? It's hard, but the upside of having a product in market, first of all, if you're an inventor, congratulations, you invented a product that's out in market.
That, that's a huge legacy for kids, family, whatever, once you understand that, like you're leaving a product behind and that there's product out there, it's revenue. Nothing happens overnight, but. The fact that you have a product out there, it's just really knocking on doors and getting more people to find it or being a little bit more patient online and learning how to find the audience that is most likely going to buy your product and have more of them buy it. When you wake up in the morning and you've done the hard work and everything is starting to click it's nice to wake up in the morning going, wow, we [00:25:00] sold 500 or something last night. That was a pretty good day. What, what caused that and how do we do more of that? Yeah, that's a good point.
So I think you've done a really good job of giving us the framework for, how to think about your product in relation to the marketplace and whether, you're going to be successful in terms of bringing it to market. But let's say I'm an inventor listening to this podcast, I have a product out there.
What kind of advice would you give them in terms of iterating on that product or is it marketing or is it finding a better niche or a different niche? What kind of recommendations would you have for inventors who have a product out there? Amazon and Google. When you have a product that's out there your first thing you want to see is what else is out there.
And a lot of people. I think they've got this invention that they came up with and then they find out there's other things out there I don't stop there. I think competition's good Like i'm one of the people that i'd rather be on the street where all the car dealerships are Because I know I'm going to be busy every Saturday and sell a lot of cars just by the amount of traffic that's coming through.
[00:26:00] Versus being, in an obscure location where no one walks by and I've got it constantly advertised. In this world, competition is healthy because it brings more dollars to the actual category or product then you really become, how do I make myself different than that product?
And what's my value proposition against it? So in our world, we do look at light products when we're making something. We try and find reviews, which are extremely helpful to find out that someone didn't like the way that handle felt, right? And then saves us from actually designing a handle similar to that, because we liked the way it looked, but maybe it didn't fit right.
So it's really just looking at reviews. And again, it is a lot of work for one person to do, and we have a team that breaks down those tasks so that they can all do a good job of it in their specific role to make sure that we're getting the best information to our designers so that we can now design a product that we are confident is going to be a 4.
5 star, because that's really what it takes. Awesome. Yeah, someone just asked you about somebody that might already have a product out [00:27:00] there, but I'm curious about a fresh new client that they have an idea. They might have a patent application pending. What is the general, I'm sure it varies from client to client, but what is the general process that you would take them through?
Where do you start? Do you have to do a bunch of things at once? Or, do you generally recommend that they start with a marketability analysis or what process do you take them through? Yeah, that's a really good question, Jamie, and again, As we are growing as a company as well, we just introduced what we call our pre launch program.
What I highly recommend for people and it's probably very similar to your patent search start and then maybe figure out when to pull the trigger on a patent application or a provisional, our pre launch program. Is designed to put you out there quickly
Bring your product to market does require investment in capital. So if you have the money, great, that's an easy answer to say that I'm going to go do it if you don't have the money. What we [00:28:00] have found is that once you get to a certain point, friends and family hit that fear of missing out stage, and they've been able to get products, families have been able to get products launched or friends have been able to help friends get their products launched.
So what we developed is a pre launch program because I really think it's important to get out there to understand. A few things. We do a deep dive market research. We actually, do a pretty good rendering of the concept of your product so that people can ask questions, understand it quickly, but not ask too many questions about how it works and how it functions because we haven't gone through that process yet.
But it's really designed to get you out to pitch events that we host. We usually host pitch events around the country that are either investor events or buyer events. So those are the two styles that we have. So buyers would be obviously, Hey, I've got this product and I want to bring it into target Walmart.
We have days that buyers come to our event and they will actually assess and try and help you get a contract or get you through that process. We have also an investor pool that. We, bring out to [00:29:00] these events they're good at giving you feedback as to what they would need you to do to be investable.
It answers the sales question. And so in our world, short answer is people either have the confidence and say, I think this product is really going to work and we'll just go to market with it. Now, obviously my partner and I are the only two that actually talked to.
Those clients before letting them hire us, because I want to make sure that if we're going to take somebody on, our goal is we have to succeed. We can't out have failures in our camp. If you are on the cusp of the idea and you're not sure, and you want to build your own confidence, our prelaunch is perfect for you to, get out there, get conversations going, have a little protection with the patent, and it gives you about 12 months to then decide.
I'm gonna do this or I'm not gonna do this. And it might be the right choice to not do something sometimes because you don't have it in you. It takes a lot more work than you thought, or it takes a lot more money, or there's other people that are already ahead of you.
Wow. Those pre-launch events sound pretty cool. What a great resource for inventors and our clients. That's [00:30:00] awesome. When people come to you, do they normally have. Patent protection in place. We find a lot of times people are, scared to disclose something. We all know that once you disclose something, you have only a limited amount of time to get a patent on it, do you find that they normally already have protection in place?
Do you advise them to get patent protection? How does that normally look from your side of things? Yeah, sure. Part of the way that I'm at summer was, I do contact patent attorneys on a regular basis to have this dialogue both ways. I'd say 50 percent of our clients come to us with some sort of patent.
And to be quite truthful, what some people write up for patents are really just shouldn't be there. If someone calls us without a patent, What we do is we go through the process.
No one knows about it other than us. So the disclosure is within us. We don't put anything on the website. We don't put anything on social media. We don't show anything about this idea. Once we are ready to launch, this is where somewhere prior to that, I would actually, have my client. You guys [00:31:00] to say here's what we got. Here's the technical specs. Here's what we've been through. And what's the right strategy? Hey, they got money. Let's go to a full patent because we want to go quickly or it's going to take them a year to get some funds together.
Cause we're just paying off the inventory. We're just getting through the manufacturing process. So let's now apply for the provisional patent. So it gives them 12 months to then. Get some revenue coming in so they can get a full patent on it. That's our auctions.
Usually someone's that's come to us with a patent. All of them like referrals from you guys and the patent attorneys I vetted out. Usually we've got to go back to them and have them do an amendment or change the patent completely. Yeah. That makes sense. Summer, do you have any more questions? This has been so great. Yeah, this has been fantastic, Peter. I think the audience is going to really appreciate getting this information. I feel like I've learned a bunch of stuff as well, so this is very helpful. Lookit, these are no longer opinions.
This is all facts that I'm sharing. We've done, we've been there, done that. We've done it the hard way. And that's really, that's [00:32:00] one piece of advice I can give everybody is that, if you expect someone else to do the job as good as you, then your parts going to fail automatically.
If you're confident and you believe in it and it's not out there. Confidence and tenacity are the two things that make things successful. I equate it to this way. There's a million really crappy products on Amazon that someone had the confidence to bring to market that are doing millions of dollars in sales a week.
Yeah, that's a good point. And actually what you said, Peter is universal across more things than maybe even we can imagine. When I started this law firm I looked at Reviews of other patent attorneys and other patent law firms. And I, made a list of the top five complaints that people have about working with their attorneys.
And I just said, we're not going to do these things right? It was like, One is we don't know what things are going to cost. So we were very upfront about our pricing the other one was, Hey, I don't know when the documents were going to come. We just left in the dark about that.
So we're very clear about, and Jamie is amazing about this communicating with the client about when they're going to [00:33:00] expect to receive a response from us or a draft from us and things like that. It just makes a huge difference. Our clients are incredibly happy, I think. And it's been a more fulfilling.
Journey as an attorney, as a patent attorney. I think that advice you gave is timeless and maybe universal across a lot of different things. Yeah, we all have those same periods of time, like in our world, when you're shipping something from, China to here, that's 40 days of there's nothing to report, you're on an ocean but those 40 days, you still have to communicate with customers, I couldn't imagine in your guys world where, you know, how long does it take to get any feedback or communication from the patent attorney or from the patent office on what's going on, right?
It's you're in a government agency, so good luck getting any status report. That's right. But tell that to a customer who's excited about their products and to them it's a very difficult part. And look at, this is where I think Summer, when I introduced myself to you, like I know that will, once you have filed a patent [00:34:00] and again, you passed our test cause I'm looking for.
That symbiotic relationship, you guys are not just filing patents to file patents, you're filing patents because you want to actually see them get to market. We're very aligned that way. When you get that part done I'm happy to talk to any of your clients afterwards about their options.
I look at it and I'm very upfront about a lot of people. They have an idea and they think the easy route is to just get licensed. Someone else is going to do the work for me and I'm not here to bust anybody's bubble. Anybody that has found that person, please call me because I would change my business model in a second to be a broker between me and someone who can get those products licensed on someone else's dime.
Because I would have a million clients. It's just not the way it works anymore. Companies now buy products that have proven themselves in market, and that's when it turns into royalty agreements. So your Procter and Gamble's and your big companies, they've all gotten rid of their research and development divisions, cost too much money.
They are much better off acquiring somebody that's hit that niche on the head and delivering at a high rate [00:35:00] and then being acquired. Yeah, and that makes sense. That has happened in the software space. I work with a lot of clients in that space, like I mentioned, and a lot of software companies will, instead of developing products from scratch, even though software is maybe easier to create from scratch than some physical products.
They would still prefer to acquire another company and get that customer data set, then go from scratch. So it makes a lot of sense. That has trickled down into other industries as well. And I give you the reason why, what's the number one question on Shark Tank? Always, what are your sales? And every business that you're going to start has to get to revenue. And our goal is to get our clients to revenue. You have to be a little bit careful.
Not every product can get to revenue. And those are the ones I have to say no to. And sometimes that's an awkward conversation to have with someone who believes in their idea and their product. But if I have to go to get a government contractor and I don't have those connections where I have to go through FDA approval, or I have to go through a medical kind of clearance, that's a whole ballgame that, unless you've got deep pockets and heavy investors [00:36:00] and connected people we should stay away from and that's what we do. But, for everything else, it's just a process to get your product onto a shelf somewhere, onto a Shopify page where.
We can start putting some Facebook ads out there or get some keyword advertising on Amazon. So people can find us. Yeah, that makes sense. You have to be able to do some of that work in order to, Do some market validation, right? And that would justify spending more money on to the patent process or any other parts of this process.
And if you don't have that feedback mechanism, you can end up spending a lot of money without really having a hit product on your hand or even mildly hit product. I like that approach. I'm a big believer in iterating and dumping money into the product based on the profits that you take out of the sales.
I really like that. It's, it reduces your risk overall. And look at the end day, I have to reduce my client's risk, your client's risk as well, because, I look at on average, our clients, [00:37:00] I'll throw the number out there, between our fees and the inventory and product.
On average, it's just under 400 clients. The average is about 65, 000 for non electronic items and probably about 85, 000 in total. Now, again, you got to keep in mind that includes inventory, right? There's two items that are on your books that are assets.
One is your tool, which means, you have something that continually makes your product the way no one else can. And you actually have, a thousand to 5, 000 pieces of something sitting in inventory ready for sale. If you paid 20 bucks for it and it's worth a hundred, I just equate it to imagine sitting in your bank, you had 20 bills that were worth a hundred
that's how you make your money. And so inventory sitting in stock is good. It's converting it to sales at the right time when it's optimized. Yeah. I think that's actually one thing that I wish all my entrepreneurs understood better understanding balance sheets and cashflow is the blood of the business.
And if you don't understand those two things you're starting at a handicap. So I love that. I think that's really good. [00:38:00] Peter, I think we have covered a lot of really good ground and given lots of really good advice. If listeners want to get in touch with you or your team, where would you send them or where would you recommend they go?
Or even if there are resources that you wish they'd check out what direction would you send them? Yeah. Look, if everybody wants to reach out to me directly, my email is my initials pd at 52 launch. com. Welcome to reach out to me there. I do get about 300 emails a day.
So just be patient. If you are actually very interested in learning more, I would go to our website, 52 launch. com. It's got a great amount of resources. You can actually reach our podcast. And I will reciprocate to you guys. I'll have you guys on one of our podcasts. We're trying to educate the consumer before they decide to make this, or the client consumer, whatever you want to call it.
There is, there's a process, it's hard, but there's no reason why everybody can't bring their own product to market. Sarah Blakely says, everyone has, a million dollar idea in them. I actually believe they've got at [00:39:00] least two because we've seen the results of the second idea.
Sometimes they're better than the first ideas. Thank you. But the reality is the process of bringing brought to market from 20 years ago to today is a thousand times easier. It's quicker, we can actually get YouTube revenue, in that 50 week period. So that's where the name 52 launch comes from, 50 weeks to launch a product.
And that's something that just, again, people have to overcome. I think the older generations like Boomers and Gen Xers need to realize it can be me. And I could do this and there's an easy way to do it and there's teams of people that can help me do it.
Awesome. Peter, thank you so much for your time today. I think this has been educational and I think this episode in particular is going to be a great resource for our clients. So we really appreciate your time today. Appreciate you guys having me on again, and I look forward to doing more with you guys in the future, just to start, and yeah you guys are in the Texas area, or where were you about?
Yeah Jamie is in California I am [00:40:00] based out of Texas, yeah. We're looking at doing something. Again, in and around that area for one of our events, I'd love to have you guys come out. Yep, we'd love to do some. Cool. Yeah, that would be awesome. Thank you guys again. I appreciate this.
This was great and I think we covered quite a bit, I agree. Hopefully the audience learns from it and we can take some steps from there. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Peter. All right, guys. Have a great afternoon.