Welcome to the tenth and final installment of our 5-Minute Inventing series. In this article we’ll learn from someone who has been there and done that, successfully.

Lisa Lloyd, inventor of “The French Twister” and six other successfully licensed products, has been down the licensing road. Her products have grossed an estimated $30 million in sales.

It is estimated that only 3-5% of inventions are successfully commercialized. While there are many reasons that can be attributed to success and failure, the most common cause of failure are poor choices. Most first time inventors don’t know what to do with their brain babies and aren’t sure where to go to get those answers. In this article you will learn what worked for Lisa and the potential pitfalls that you could avoid.

Working for the local CBS affiliate in Tucson, AZ Lisa often wore her hair in a French twist. Several of her co-workers asked her how she did it and complained that they could never make the style themselves. It was then that it occurred to her that if she could create a barrette that helped women put their hair up in a French twist it might be worth millions. Over the next 13 months she created, patented and manufactured a small quantity of the product for sales and ultimately licensed the patent to Scunci.

So what did it take for her to succeed? Lisa shared with me that the process was discouraging at times and she had been tempted to quit. In the end, she always knew that quitting never produced success, so she stuck it out and plugged away at bringing her product to market. So, persistence is one of the most important traits of a successful inventor. You must be willing to face the No’s on your way to the Yes’s.

Why did she decide to license all of her products rather than make them herself? She explained in her Why I License blog post that retailers want a line of products, not a single item. In her experience, “They [retailers] do not, as a rule of thumb, buy from single product companies.” She goes onto explain “They [retailers] prefer to have less vendors with more lines of goods. That makes it difficult to manufacture and distribute with just one invention. However, by licensing my item to a distributor who has a brand name that consumers recognize and a line that the item fits nicely into for the retailers, I can be in 10,000 stores overnight.”

For those who want to license, what tips can Lisa pass along? In her audio course, Lisa specifically talks about how inventors can find and convince licensees to license their invention. This file and the rest of the 5-hour audio course are available to members of IdeaTango.

I’m sure you still have lots of questions, that’s why we specifically setup a section where you can ask Lisa your questions about licensing, inventing, manufacturing, whatever ails you.

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