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My invention hit it big so now I'm gonna buy a couple of McMansions

L

Lucky Seven

Banned
open_mouth_ said:
There is a problem with becoming a workaholic, though... it's hard to shut it off. The mind constantly races. When you're doing something non work-related, you always think "I could be doing something more productive right now". It's pretty messed up. I feel most alive when I'm creating something, so I'm probably going to step away from this project sooner than later. Just thought I should share while I had a free moment.
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Ouch, looks like you got the bad ending. Hope you can kick that productiveness out and learn to slow things down. Might turn you bitter if you don't get to enjoy success.
 
C

Captain Tuttle

Member
Oxn said:
Neighbors are one of the most annoying things in life. Would be glad to live in a community where everyone keeps quiet and to themselves.
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You must be a blast at parties. Invent something cool and you can just buy enough land where you won't have to deal with anyone. What's the point if living in a community if you don't want to have neighbors

Congratulations OP, your story is kind of inspiring actually, I hope you make the best of this opportunity
 
sono

sono

Gold Member
Congratulations on your success.

Ignore the other guy he doesnt know about the three shells

hehe
 
Prax

Prax

Member
Cool.. knowing a guy that uses gaf.. made the tub shroom! hahah

I am no entrepeneur, but I'm glad they exist to invent cool stuff.

I dunno about the mcmansion thing though. I guess having a giant "home base" of sorts is cool if you think of it as a giant treehouse kind of thing. lol
 
open_mouth_

open_mouth_

insert_foot_
thoseAREmySHOES said:
Very nice work OP. Such a simple idea (retrospectively) that somehow hadn't been put to market yet and you are making bank.
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Thanks to everyone in here for the congratulations. It means a lot and it feels good to tell people about it, other than my immediate family.

Lucky Seven said:
Ouch, looks like you got the bad ending. Hope you can kick that productiveness out and learn to slow things down. Might turn you bitter if you don't get to enjoy success.
Click to expand...

I'm definitely trying. I've had to give up some extra-curriculars (like gaming) so I could ensure that I have ample time for my family in all the craziness. They have to come first.

....well looky here, another counterfeit seller just popped up on the amazon listing as I type this... seller name "VicYa". He took his listing down previously after a cease & desist but I knew he'd be back because he craftily sent in a few thousand counterfeit units to Amazon's warehouses before he activated his sales listings so that we wouldn't see it and respond to it until all stock was fully available for sale (instead of showing up as back-ordered while it was filtering through Amazon's facilities). Now gotta got through the procedure of test buys, complaining to amazon with proof, etc. etc. for Amazon to lift a finger. I always tell my partner, if you're getting counterfeits of your products, then you must be doing something right =)
 
X

Xyber

Member
I don't even know how it's possible that there wasn't something like that available already, but I guess that's how it always goes with something like this.

Congrats on the success!
 
I

ionitron

Member
OP YOU ARE THE BEST

I was JUST going to buy a thing like that for my shower (trying to go down the drain for hair ranks amongst the grossest experiences in my life) and I bought a terrible one I'm unhappy with, I will have to get one of these myself, especially since my drain has a stupid metal rod down the middle that other shower things cannot accomodate for and this seems to.
 
open_mouth_

open_mouth_

insert_foot_
malfcn said:
Who was Shockwave?
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Wiki

thegreyfox said:
I need something like this for the drain in my backyard. Can you make a way bigger one?
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making a bigger one for 2" shower stall drains... Is yours *pause*... 2"?

JeTmAn81 said:
Congrats OP. I have an idea for a small bathroom product as well. I've even gone so far as starting a design of it in Unity. I really need to do something with that.
Click to expand...

If you really think it's a winner, then get either a provisional (ie temporary) utility patent on it's unique function and/or get a design patent on the overall design. After that, work on a kickstarter campaign to "test" the market for it. A kickstarter campaign isn't as simple as putting an invention up and hoping it will catch fire. There's a ton of work involved and lots of promotion (and investment!) that needs to be made. I was actually going to post about this project during the kickstarter phase and do a sort of live blog on here to get peoples' thoughts and have my fellow neogaf'ers go on the journey with me but I didn't want to self-shill my product... I guess kind of like I am doing now ;)

Feel free to ask me for advice. I'll answer whenever I get a free moment.

The Lamp said:
If you don't mind sharing, I would love to know a bit more insight/detail as to how you moved from concept/idea stage to kickstarter to then getting investors on board and the patents and stuff? I have some ideas I would love to take to the market but I have no idea where to begin. I know the general steps, but the transition to each step seems vague and unknown and some insight on how it actually happens in reality would be really neat!

And thanks for sharing your success story. I don't even have the hair problem that often but as soon as I saw your product I was like "wow, I could use that, because it would have immediately paid for itself in Drano bottles I don't have to use."
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I don't mind at all. Prior to this Kickstarter, my partner and I tried, on the side, a kickstarter for a kitty litter box. That failed and it taught us a whole lot. For one, you can't just have a decent looking kickstarter page and a nice video and put it out there and hope that it will explode in popularity. That RARELY happens. In truth, all those kickstarter successes you see with $1 mil in pledges spend a good portion of those pledges on marketing (ie driving traffic to the page). So that $1m goes to KS's fees, CC processing fees, marking costs, production costs, building the kickstarter page and video costs, and any extras you spend on.

This one lady that got on shark tank with a back straightener product while you sit raised over a mil on kickstarter and got a shark to invest big money as well. The interesting part was that I heard that idea was someone else's who didn't patent it and who failed at their kickstarter due to lack of proper marketing/preparation. So this lady took the idea and spent a ton to make it huge on KS and on Shark Tank and basically got rich off someone else's idea. And that sort of thing happens all the time online, and off. It's a sad ending for the original inventor.

Anyway, once we were confident that we might have a winner on our hands, we started with a provisional utility patent (it's protection for a year while you decide whether to convert it to a real patent application which costs a lot more). We also got great feedback from some friends. So that's when we put a few K of our own money together to "test" the market on Kickstarter. We knew we had to have a better plan than we did before with the litter box. See, the litter box was a good idea but either the market didn't want it or we didn't do a good job with the KS or both. It was going to be too expensive to see it through despite the failed kickstarter, so we had to scrap it and take the loss of time and resources we already put into it. So we learned from that and it was worth it. We kept improving our TubShroom KS page with better copy, better images, and better videos (at least whatever we could afford on our budget) throughout the campaign and early on we signed up with an experienced pr firm that took a percentage of the pledges in exchange for promoting the listing and generating traffic. So they had incentive to get traffic to the listing. The product and listing would determine how well that traffic would convert. That's the other key, if we had a dud, conversion would be bad and the firm wouldn't invest any more time/money into driving traffic to it. So that was the test right there. And thankfully we passed.

Dunlop said:
Cool invention.

Was going to order one (wife and daughter refuse to take out their nasty hair lol) but it's listed as $45 in Canada (vs $12 US) so I will have to pass unfortunately.
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We're working to get it available up north at a more reasonable price. In the meantime, you can order it from our website for much less, shipped to CA... www.tubshroom.com

Socreges said:
Not sure how there's a market for this. Only people who own bathtubs or showers would be interested. Plus they'd also all have to be losing hair at times. It's otherwise completely irrelevant.

Good luck out there.
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hah! :)

Gallbaro said:
Wait, you have not even broke $1mm in sales and you are buying a house? Unless your margins are insane you are getting a head of yourself.
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margins are healthy and I was joking about the mcmansions, of course...

The Technomancer said:
OP I am literally in the same boat as you. Did a Kickstarter. Raised six figures, turned it into over seven figures in revenue across the last year. Got two major retailers with POs for this fall

Just

Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Shit can get precarious at the drop of a hat
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I hear you. Do you mind sharing what the product is?

NetMapel said:
Need this distributed in Canadian Amazon. Right now it is available for an outrageous $45 on Canadian Amazon :(
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see above.

SolidC213 said:
Congrats OP! That is awesome.

I just about bought one but my wife and daughter enjoy their baths and it doesn't look like it would be possible to plug the drain with this. Shame since you can imagine with two girls how often I have to snake that drain clean.
Click to expand...

when the bath's done, you can remove the stopper and quickly replace it with this--all ninja like-- to filter the water through while the hair gets caught.

Twilight Princess said:
@Op How did you manage to expand sales to 1m+? Your kickstarter was modest, so that can't be the reason. You do have a lot of reviews on amazon. How did you manage to stand out on amazon and was that biggest component of your sucess?
Click to expand...

We followed up KS with an indiegogo "on demand" pre-order campaign which is a popular route a lot of new inventors go with as it almost doubled the intake. Amazon launchpad was good in showing off our product to people who were looking for innovative things. It helped that Amazon allowed us, through launchpad, to really customize the page to maximize conversion of the traffic. That's a big key. Then we got lots of traffic going to the Amazon page from stuff like that viral facebook video that got 4 mil views. Once you get high up on amazon's rankings, and if it's a good converting product, that usually means sustained high level sales. Amazon is the #1 place to be online, as everyone knows, so, yes, they provide the bulk of revenue at this point. We also managed to get accepted to other popular online retailers like Touch of Modern, TheGrommet, and more. Again, it was a lot of hustle involved and it definitely helps having a product that people like. We did the national hardware show back in may and that got us quite a bit of attention from different buyers and built up our contacts. It helps when we're pitching it to a buyer of a big retailer and we're able to point to Amazon and say, look, it's overtaken the giants in this category (OXO, Danco, etc.) in just a few months. There's something to it. Give it a try.

Kreios said:
I actually have a few ideas of my own. OP, how was the patent process and finding ways of production? I don't know where to start
Click to expand...

It's doable. Nothing worthwhile is really all that easy. Google has most of the answers for a lot of questions early entrepreneurs may have. It's helped me tremendously. Just need the time and patience to make use of it. That means sometimes forgoing that second viewing of Batman vs. Superman you want to go to so badly. Then sometimes you just have to go through the process and falter and learn from it. The best way to learn is to get yourself to do it. It's hard sometimes and scary too. Fear of failure, fear of wasting time or money, or even fear of success and the change that comes with it. That's the thing, it's rarely a waste if you take something from it. What I suggest is focusing on the one idea that you feel has the highest probability of market success, so that's not necessarily the one you feel is the best or most useful. Those are often times different things. Then hone in on that. If you really believe in it and you plan to do something with it soon, then go to the patent phase first and foremost. A provisional utility a couple of hundred (thoughtstopaper.com is a reasonably priced company to deal with) or you could go the design patent route. If you're really set on a unique name for it, get the trademark (which isn't that much, either, but it is absolutely vital if your invention goes big). If you don't have a name just yet, you can wait on the trademark until later.

There are websites where you can list your invention (once it's protected) to look for investors or buyers. There's also companies that want inventors to come to them so they can pick the best ones and make a deal with those people. It's usually a royalty deal where the inventor gets a % of every sale and the company getting the exclusive to make it actually does all the work. Sometimes that % isn't all that much and it's better to go on your own or to find investors to help you build out. Having a successful KS campaign can only help convincing potential investors. QVC and HSN have inventor programs where you can submit an idea. There's a bunch of others as well. Not all are reputable so be careful. The cool part is if you really believe in your idea, you don't have to drop everything to pursue... you can do it in the evenings and weekends which is enough time to prove whether it's a winner or not. If it's not, you move on and learn. You'll do better next time and the time after that.

Breads said:
How do you go about locking your idea down, making sure noone steals it while shopping it around and, well, you know, getting investors to notice?

I have a pretty genius idea that seems so obvious but noone else has done it that is also bathroom/ shower related and I have no idea how to get it off the ground. It's a simple tool that, if marketted well enough, can make a mint since it's a huge convenience/ quality of life tool but has to be incredibly simple to manufacture/ distribute because of the simplicity.
Click to expand...

see my advice above. If you want more advice on this, feel free to PM me or ask here and I'll respond whenever I'm able. I've got another project in the works that's almost ready for Kickstarter. It's entirely different, but I think it can be pretty big. If it does go big, it will be knocked off to mars and back, man.

I should probably also mention that the bathroom sink version is also up on kickstarter for anyone who cares
 
P

Polioliolio

Member
So you worked your butt off and the first thing you want to do with your success is blow it on something extravagant that's said to be a poor purchase?


Also, what the fuck is a McMansion? Big cheap house?
 
J

Jonogunn

Member
If ur making more money than u know what to do with it why not use some to give back to a good cause? Help the less fortunate and shit
 
NOLA_Gaffer

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
Gonna be honest: Envious of your success.

My wife and I will live the rest of our lives decently but who knows what could possibly arrive to bring us financial ruin in an instant?

I could only dream of a "seven figure income". It must be awesome to be able to live the remainder of your life unconcerned about everything crumbling beneath your feet in an instant. Living life with that level of security sounds just...amazing.

Edit: Christ, multiple millionaires in this thread.
 
R

Raging Spaniard

If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
Such a cool thread, congrats OP!

My wife quit her day job a couple of years ago to start her own business, so this is definitely good inspiration. McMansions are def not my thing but by all means, go take advantage of them ;)
 
S

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
As someone who owns a small business who is doing pretty well right now,

do be careful with your money.

You don't want to be that guy during the real estate boom making 2 million a year who lost everything because the spent like it was never going to stop.

We've had a board game in Target for just over a year that has sold a couple hundred thousand copies, and while I hope it will be evergreen and sell forever and ever, there isn't a lot of guarantee that will be the case.

I'm in the position where our product (board games) is repeatable and we can publish more. Your invention may be less repeatable.
 
L

Lambtron

Unconfirmed Member
So this is a constant problem for my wife and we've never been able to find a good solution. I am going to buy one for sure.
 
Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Member
StoOgE said:
As someone who owns a small business who is doing pretty well right now,

do be careful with your money.

You don't want to be that guy during the real estate boom making 2 million a year who lost everything because the spent like it was never going to stop.

We've had a board game in Target for just over a year that has sold a couple hundred thousand copies, and while I hope it will be evergreen and sell forever and ever, there isn't a lot of guarantee that will be the case.

I'm in the position where our product (board games) is repeatable and we can publish more. Your invention may be less repeatable.
Click to expand...

This. You don't want to wind up like MC Hammer.
 
C

Copenap

Member
Damn I might need that to stop the arguements with the wife about the clogged drain.

Congrats Op and don't believe the haters in the McMansion thread, just go for the most ridiculous house imaginable and put a big Tub Thingy on top of it.
 
Rran

Rran

Member
Really enjoyed reading about your success, OP--happy you were able to bring your idea to profitable fruition, and it was kinda inspiring to boot! Hope your able to run as far as you can with that ball, yo
 
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