3 Inventor Mistakes to Avoid

Choosing the right path to successful inventing means avoiding the pitfalls.

“Do make mistakes, just make them cheap and make them fast.” – Fred Durham

Being a successful inventor is a lot like starting your own business. Like an entrepreneur wanting to start a small business, lots of people talk about doing it, but many let the time and opportunity pass them by. In many cases, being a financially successful inventor means actually going into business in one form or another. And no matter whether you are an inventor, an entrepreneur or an entre-inventor, you will gain experience and wisdom from making mistakes. This is what they mean when they say you’ve been to the school of hard-knocks. While painful, earning a degree from Hard-Knocks U. can be an essential part of a successful inventor’s journey.

It is much less painful, however, to learn from the mistakes of others who have gone on before us and have blazed the trail already. With this in mind, here are a few common inventor mistakes and how to avoid and/or overcome them.

1. The “Castaway” Inventor Syndrome

Inventors and entrepreneurs are typically what you would call independent spirits. Most of us started with an idea ourselves, have developed it on our own, and we tend to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. And while that is the natural tendency of inventors, there is a downside that can pull you into the ditch if you let it. Do you remember the movie where Tom Hanks is stranded on the deserted island? Too many times inventors end up identifying with Tom. We feel like we’re in this all by ourselves. But truly, no successful inventor works in isolation. When you look at inventors who are successful, they are always connected to people. People matter and your connections to them are important to both you and your invention’s well being. The more connections you have and continue to make, the more opportunities you will have to learn, to stay motivated, and when the time is right, ultimately connect to the right buyer or licensor for your invention.

2. Inventor Paralysis

Too many inventors have been stuck and are right now still stuck in this place. Typically there are two reasons for this: One is that we just don’t know what to do next (a lack of education or wisdom), and two: that we let fear take over and paralyze us. Fear that we’ll make a mistake or fail. While a small amount of fear is healthy and makes us stop and think before making decisions, letting it hold us in one place in our invention’s process can be a huge problem. We end up feeling like the needle on a record that’s stuck, playing the same part over and over again. But how do we overcome being afraid? First, step back and look at the reasons you are afraid. Yes, a wrong decision could end up costing you time and money, but you can’t let that possibility drive you to do nothing. The best way to deal with fear is to come up with a system to deal with it. Gather all your facts and options, work out the worst-case scenario and develop a plan on how you will deal with it if it happens. Then set a deadline to make a decision and move on to the next step of your invention’s development. These are just some of the ways you can face and overcome the fear that holds you back.

3. Where Fools Rush In

As I mentioned earlier, a small amount of fear is a good thing. Healthy fear, that doesn’t permanently stop us in our tracks, helps to keep us safe. This is the kind of fear that keeps you from touching the hot stove or crossing the street without looking both ways. On this end of the scale, with paralysis on the other end, we see the inventor with the great idea that wants to rush in without giving any thought to the path they are on or the direction they are going in. This is where we see so many inventors fall prey to inventor scam companies, who promise they’ll get rich quick without having to do anything but send them their idea and a lot of money. These inventors are usually in a really big hurry, and have convinced themselves that they have to do something, usually spend a lot of money, right now before learning anything about where or why they’re spending it. If you find yourself wanting to rush in, stop and take a breath. Stop and learn what you need to know first. You put 3 things you’re your invention: your wisdom, your time and you money. But if you don’t stop and learn, putting the wisdom in first, you won’t spend the time or money correctly, and will likely pour it down a hole never to be seen again. Successful inventing is not a microwave oven, it’s a slow-cooker. Do you ever notice how food tastes better from a slow-cooker than a microwave? So will the end result of your invention process if you take the proper time to learn all the facts and then decide what you need to do in the right order.

As painful as learning from your own mistakes are, when they happen (and they will), when you learn from them you will be able to look back and call it experiential wisdom. Learning from the mistakes of others, however, is called learned wisdom and is much less painful. When possible, however, I think both you and I would much prefer to avoid a lot of the pain with the learned kind.

Why Are You An Inventor?

The motivation of why you do what you do can have a big impact on the outcome of what you do.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” – Simon Sinek

As we go through our life as an inventor, if we’re honest with ourselves every once and a while we need to stop and ask ourselves what our motivation is. In other words, if I stopped you right now and asked why you were pursuing your current invention, project or business opportunity, you might give me any of a number of answers. Many inventors may blurt out, “to make money”, or the popular “I want to make a million dollars”. But this being the primary focus of why you want to be an inventor can be a big mistake for a number of reasons.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not one of those who have jumped on the bandwagon of thinking that making money is evil. On the contrary, I believe that there is both a great dignity and morality to business when it is done with integrity. In his book Thou Shall Prosper, Rabbi Daniel Lapin says that making a living is much harder if, deep down, you suspect it to be morally reprehensible activity. I firmly believe that the ability to make money is an important tool that provides for yourself, your family, and additionally gives you the opportunity to give and help others. And while making money is important for the aforementioned reasons, alone it is just not enough reason to keep you motivated enough in order to truly win at inventing. There has to also be the reason that it is something that you love doing, something you truly have found a passion for, and/or a vehicle to help others in some way. This passion will give you the fight and fire on those tough days and give you that reason to fight on another day.

Many people make the “money only” mistake when choosing any career, whether it involves inventing or not. Seth Godin said it best, “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Business, and particularly the business of inventing, is way too hard to work at just for the reward of money. You won’t work at it and keep that high energy level that is sometimes required to get to the desired payoff if the payoff is only money, because working only for the money ends up being an empty goal. No matter how much money you could make, the work becomes a prison cell if it has no meaning. A good example of this is observing certain people in a business where you are the customer. You can’t miss this comparison, and see it in almost any industry. The first “employee” we see is just there for the money, and you can see it on their face, their body language and in their actions. You can almost smell it on them. The second example is not what you’d want to call an employee but would think of more as a member of team. They believe that they’re there for a reason, believe in what they are doing and it also shows on their face, body language, and in how they perform, which usually results in a great experience for the customer. Both of these people are being paid the same amount of money to perform the same tasks. The difference is the WHY of what they’re doing. And that is the same difference that can make or break a successful invention, business venture or both.

The WHY of inventing is also truly a balancing act, and I’ve personally seen failures caused by extremes on both ends. On the one hand, if you are only inventing for the love of tinkering and coming up with new ideas, that is great, unless you have an expectation of making money at it without doing the things necessary that cause money to be made with an invention. On the other, if you’re focusing only on the money without any of the passion or fire of the “why”, you will most likely fizzle out when the going gets tough. The trick is to have both, tempered with wisdom, to truly win at inventing and/or business.