An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Simply Google or Duck Duck Go your product or service. That’s your first, no cost step. Non-existent? Great! Does it already exist? Don’t stop there — dig deeper. Who is the competition? What are the competitors’ products strengths and weaknesses? What does your idea offer that existing products lack? Feel like you might be on to something? Time to get excited! Although, don’t get too emotional. Don’t allow visions of grandeur to fog your thinking. Think pragmatically. How big can this get? What is the upside? What is the down side? If up is bigger than down, that’s exactly the way to go. Think big.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bruce Clark.
Now at the age of 67, Bruce Clark has learned many hard-earned, valuable lessons as a serial entrepreneur. From those lessons he has built a track record of several successful and varied inventions and start-ups. Without a degree, the product of a broken home, and with little money, Bruce has amassed accomplishments in the varied fields of retail, automotive, safety, finance, and distribution. This includes 2 auto repair facilities, 5 retail stores in the major malls, including the Mall of America, and an In-Home Tutoring Service with 100 certified teachers. His most famous invention is the cupholder. Yes, the cupholder — something that is now found mounted on the seats in most every sport stadium and movie theater in North America. Something that is routinely taken for granted, but did not exist prior to Bruce’s inspiration. From another invention, a safety accessory for ladders used in the construction industry, Bruce continues to enjoy the royalties to this day.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood back story”?
My father was a typical, tightfisted Scotsman. He would save money or avoid spending it anyway he could. When a TV, radio, washing machine, phonograph or lawn mower died, he would never just throw it away. He took apart every nut and bolt from every machine and saved them along with brackets, belts, motors, levers, electrical parts, pumps, widgets, pulleys and gears. Our garage and basement were full of these parts, allowing me to build anything my inventive mind could come up with. An electric toy car made from an old phonograph motor, a motor scooter using an old bicycle frame and lawn mower engine, an airplane glider using wood molding, bed sheet and newspaper, a design for a submarine using an old washing machine door for the window, a spaceship using a washing machine tub. Some were working models and others an immediate failure after realizing my idea was too lofty. Upon building my motor scooter, I gave up after starting it for the test drive, engaging the clutch and going backwards. I had failed to note the direction the engine turned, thereby mounting the engine backward.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Never, Never, Never Give Up! By Winston Churchill
During my invention phase, I faced many brick walls which threatened the vary life of my creations. Many times I felt like giving up. It didn’t seem worth it. The one thing that kept me going was the vision I had of the product being used by the masses or saving lives. I learned to dig under the walls, climb over them, find a way around them, or legally dismantle the wall. Each time breaking through a wall provided more confidence to endure; and it taught me to take a negative and turn it into a positive. As an example, I received a phone call one day from another inventor who claimed I was infringing on his patent. After many discussions with the man denying his claims, I finally turned the case over to my patent attorney. Both attorneys went back and forth denying each others claims and got nowhere. The other inventor finally said, “fine, I’ll await your success in the marketplace, then sue you.” Knowing the costs of fighting patent infringement could start at over $100,000 I asked the man what he wanted. I ended up buying his patent for $10,000. The upside was he couldn’t sue me anymore and my patent protection was even stronger than before.
Is there a particular book, pod cast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Tucker the movie with Jeff Bridges was huge. Harvey McKay’s books including How to Swim with Sharks Without getting Eaten Alive. Shark Tank is about the best show for inventors and entrepreneurs and the importance of doing their homework prior to asking for money.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
Finding the right company or people to partner with is key. One example — I was fortunate enough to find a distributor who loved my cupholder invention. They happened to be a large distributor of sport stadium and movie theater seats, sound equipment, projectors and other products in those industries. A perfect match. After showing them my $250.00 prototype, we struck a deal allowing them to have the exclusive rights to sell my idea. In exchange, they gave me an office, warehouse, secretarial assistance and paid for all marketing costs including trade shows and advertising. Not a bad deal considering it had only cost me $250.00 for the prototype. Then and only then did I spend the $55,000 for a mold to make my product. Seemed like a safe bet as I was now like a racehorse jumping out of the gate.
A second key element — know your market. For another invention, we decided to jump into the world of marketing and manufacturing by ourselves. Applying the first key that I mentioned, we found the right companies to make various parts of our safety product and assembled them ourselves. But then we applied this second key — we advertised in national trade magazines applying to our market where we knew what we had created would have value. Sales started coming in almost immediately.
Knowing when to sell is a another key. We had only been manufacturing and marketing our safety product for under a year when we received a call from our #1 distributor, asking for exclusive licensing rights. Considering we were too small of an operation for a giant like Home Depot with over 2,400 stores to properly supply, we decided to license out the product. Even though we received less money via royalties, we never had to spend another penny. Product Liability Insurance alone had cost us $30,000 per year, a cost we no longer had to pay.
There is a long list of other keys to successfully bringing a product to market, but these are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
Simply Google or Duck Duck Go your product or service. That’s your first, no cost step. Non-existent? Great! Does it already exist? Don’t stop there — dig deeper. Who is the competition? What are the competitors’ products strengths and weaknesses? What does your idea offer that existing products lack? Feel like you might be on to something? Time to get excited! Although, don’t get too emotional. Don’t allow visions of grandeur to fog your thinking. Think pragmatically. How big can this get? What is the upside? What is the down side? If up is bigger than down, that’s exactly the way to go. Think big.
For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.
Build a prototype. Make certain it works. Doesn’t have to be pretty but it does have to be functional. Then shop for a Patent Attorney. Initial consultations are usually free. A patent search can cost $2,500 from the attorney. You can conduct your own patent search for free, at uspto.gov. The search criteria is critical. Search for all aspects, concepts and features of your invention idea. Costing you nothing but time. Although, a patent is too important to search and file yourself. There are many claims to a patent. Each claim has to be specific enough for protection yet broad enough to apply to many other variations. Leave it to the professionals.
Upon noting the components of your prototype, you have to consider the manufacturing process. How can this product be built in massive quantities? Should you get this product into a Home Depot-like monster outlet, you’ll have no choice but to seriously seek manufacturing expertise. Sourcing a good manufacturer, as you say, takes a lot of leg work. I mean a lot. It’s easy to identify the high-end players in a field, but finding the up-and-comers who are willing to grow with you just takes a lot of research; look at adds trade magazines, read your local business periodicals. I’ve known of many inventors making deals with a manufacturer whereby they include manufacturing, warehousing and shipping all for a percentage of sales. No up front costs to you, the inventor. If you find someone who can do the complete job, get at least 2 more estimates from others to keep them honest.
This is more important than you might imagine — Attend trade shows. They’re costly but critical to meeting all the players in your field. From buyers to competitors to distributors and manufacturers. Gather business cards, make appointments and follow-up on every lead to move forward with your dream.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
I wish someone would have told me about not assuming competence. Just because someone is a professional in their field, does not mean they’re competent. I ran into too many pros in their field who caused me time delays, extra money and going in the wrong direction. Don’t ask “Who does this type of work” you may need. Instead ask “who are the top three” in the field you’re seeking. I was working with an injection mold company and their engineers for one of my cupholder designs. They had it down quite well but failed to explain to the third shift the details. Hundreds of the product were produced and delivered with obvious problems. They would fix one problem and another would creep up. Sometimes they couldn’t even get the color right. We finally switched companies twice and ended up with a competent injections molder who was brilliant and never made one mistake.
I wish someone had told me it takes longer and costs more money than I had planned. Had I paid more attention to the details of my business plan, it would have been more accurate. I jumped into things to get the ball rolling too many times, without proper expertise, which cost me extra time and money. I went from believing millions of dollars were just around the corner having to spending thousands more than anticipated. One product was the Ladder Dolly. Wheels for ladders. We worked with insurance companies and safety engineers for large construction companies and sold the product for 4 years upon realizing it couldn’t go much further. It had to be abandoned. Had we done more extensive market research we would have seen its problem. A $5,000 investment in hiring a focus group to comment on our product would have shown us the problem. The focus group should have consisted of construction workers, the people who would actually use our product, to comment. We found out the hard way the construction worker wouldn’t be caught carrying a ladder with wheels. Too often we heard later, their comments; “If you can’t carry a ladder over your shoulders, you shouldn’t be in the business.”
I wish someone had explained to me how to beware of emotions. My first invention, the cupholders for stadium and theater seats, was my baby, my creation. It was a simple hoop which would fold up and down. I was completely mesmerized by where it could lead, to the point of allowing my emotions to cost me 1 year and $50,000 of mistakes. I was warned of the potential of the product not being strong enough for public use. I worked around the potential problem by adding a snap-away feature of the hoop, to alleviate those concerns. Upon our first test market, the theater owner noted how many hoops were snapped off and thrown at the movie screen after each feature. Only then did I realize the folding hoop idea was an absolute flop. A more robust, new design had to be created. A new mold, new advertising campaign and with my tail between my legs, was the order of the day.
Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
As stated earlier, do a Google search for all aspects of your idea and hire a patent attorney after your own, free patent search at USPTO.gov.
Build a working prototype and consider all the components which have to be manufactured. Seek manufacturers to understand costs involved.
Research. Research. Research. How large is your market? Who are the buyers and why would they purchase your product? How much would the buyer be willing to pay?
Too often people would come to me for opinions about their idea and the market was just too small. No matter the price point, no matter the market size, the work involved and your costs will not be that much different. The key is entering a large market where you can make millions, not just a few hundred thousand dollars.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
The Small Business Administration has a wonderful, FREE service called SCORE. These are retired executives which will help develop a plan and follow you through with your plan. They are very wise and helpful.
We had an idea for a product which I worked for weeks attempting to design such a product. It was clumsy, heavy and expensive concept. I knew it couldn’t work. We hired a design company, paid them $5,000 and they came up with a fantastic, simple and low cost design. They required no intellectual property claims and did a great job thereby their design is still selling very well today.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
As we were on the road to success because our product was selling, we knew in order to get into Home Depot and other large distributors, we realized we were way over our heads and just too small. We needed an investor. We had meetings with a number of Venture Capitalists who all wanted controlling interest of over 50% in our business. We were not willing to give up that much for a measly million dollars as we knew our products potential was much greater. I highly respect the folks on Shark Tank who are willing to take a much less and reasonable amount of ownership, unless they see the inventor is not up to the task. Luckily, we received a call from our #1 distributor one day wanting to license the product, which we eventually, did just that.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
You know, like most people typically do, I’ve helped out others along the way, in different ways. But that is between me and them and God. That said, I am writing a book about my mistakes, experiences, and successes. It’s written for common folks with an idea, little money, and a dream to create a successful invention or business. I hope that this will be a great help to many.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
That everyone in this great country, young and old, immigrant and citizen alike, would believe in the American Dream and pursue their version of it.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Mark Cuban, Patrick Bet-David, Donald Trump, Steve Wozniak, Joe Rogan or Harvey McKay.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Making Something From Nothing: Bruce Clark On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
