Guide to Sell Billiard Products!?

Cue-Z

Cue-Z

Billiard FingerSlides®
Silver Member
(PocketChalker) Doug Montgomery's Guide on "How to Steal Others Intellectual Property" in 6 Easy Steps:

1. Compliment the New Billiard Product. Tell the Inventor how great it is.

2. Contact the Inventor and buy a few asking for a reduced price. Say you want to buy them Wholesale and sell them in Europe. Act like a Distributor and don't forget to be his BEST friend. Gain his confidence.

3. Announce to the Inventor that you've reversed engineered them and can make them cheaper in Poland. Try to get the Inventor to buy them directly from you.

4. If the Inventor refuses, offer to go into business with them, a Partnership...But stress the importance of NO WRITTEN CONTRACT. Offer a "hand shake agreement" ONLY. Make sure you ONLY offer to pay him one to three percent of your sales of his invention. Explain how written proof of your total sales won't be available because of the extra cost to you. But assure him not to worry...Tell him, "Trust Me"!!

5. If the Inventor still refuses, tell him that he can either work with you and get a percentage of the sales or you will sell his invention without him and keep all the profits. Assure him that this is not a threat.

6. If the Inventor still refuses...Just STEAL the invention and sell it.
 
hllwnmagic said:
(PocketChalker) Doug Montgomery's Guide on "How to Steal Others Intellectual Property" in 6 Easy Steps:

1. Compliment the New Billiard Product. Tell the Inventor how great it is.

2. Contact the Inventor and buy a few asking for a reduced price. Say you want to buy them Wholesale and sell them in Europe. Act like a Distributor and don't forget to be his BEST friend. Gain his confidence.

3. Announce to the Inventor that you've reversed engineered them and can make them cheaper in Poland. Try to get the Inventor to buy them directly from you.

4. If the Inventor refuses, offer to go into business with them, a Partnership...But stress the importance of NO WRITTEN CONTRACT. Offer a "hand shake agreement" ONLY. Make sure you ONLY offer to pay him one to three percent of your sales of his invention. Explain how written proof of your total sales won't be available because of the extra cost to you. But assure him not to worry...Tell him, "Trust Me"!!

5. If the Inventor still refuses, tell him that he can either work with you and get a percentage of the sales or you will sell his invention without him and keep all the profits. Assure him that this is not a threat.

6. If the Inventor still refuses...Just STEAL the invention and sell it.
Click to expand...
You are doing two thing wrong. 1. you are drawing attention to him. No one knows him or you in general. You even mention him in your ebay ad. What is the point, you not going to win any kind of argument and no one is going to care but you. They will certainly look at his ad's since you have now directed them there and maybe buy from him. 2. you are selling your item as an auction when it is a retail item. Just list like 50 of them and set a fair buy it now price and wait for the orders.
 
I'm not trying to knock your product, but once your invention goes public you're open to copies or improvements. Look at Henry Ford and everything that came after him. You can complain all you want but there are areas in China devoted to counterfeiting everything from Ping Golf clubs to American car car parts, ect. It's just the way it is. You yourself had help for your idea from pool gloves which came first. You adapted them by offering just the finger portion of the gloves Are the pool glove companies on here complaining? Suck it up and come out with a new product.....that's the American way!
 
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javi2 said:
I'm not trying to knock your product, but once your invention goes public you're open to copies or improvements. Look at Henry Ford and everything that came after him. You can complain all you want but there are areas in China devoted to counterfeiting everything from Ping Golf clubs to American car car parts, ect. It's just the way it is. You yourself had help for your idea from pool gloves which came first. You adapted them by offering just the finger portion of the gloves Are the pool glove companies on here complaining? Suck it up and come out with a new product.....that's the American way!
Click to expand...

There are very few new things under the sun. New products are outgrowths of other products. Generally the way is, copy 90% and improve 10%. That is what most products are from fishing equipment to jet planes. Everything is based on something that came before.
 
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Well, Doug doesn't have to worry about Advertising - you're doing it for him.

FYI, when launching any new product, you have from 3-12 months to gain market share, and have the general public or your target audience associate YOUR Brand with the thingamajig.

You didn't accomplish this. You chose to "advertise" for free on AZ, via the For Sale section. Less than 5% of the worlds pool players frequent AZ (or any forum). So you missed 95%++ of your potential customers. You never established your Brand.

Now someone is selling a similar product, perhaps close to identical to yours?
And they're selling considerably higher volume then you ever did?

THAT'S BUSINESS.

Here's a tidbit from Biz School: if your thingamajig doesn't have any competition, then you don't have a market that will sustain your product.

No sympathies for bad decision making.

(Did you know that most Biz School Grad Students would have developed a Marketing Strategy for you that would have prevented this - for about 1% equity??)

Live and learn.....

-von
 
VonRhett said:
Well, Doug doesn't have to worry about Advertising - you're doing it for him.

FYI, when launching any new product, you have from 3-12 months to gain market share, and have the general public or your target audience associate YOUR Brand with the thingamajig.

You didn't accomplish this. You chose to "advertise" for free on AZ, via the For Sale section. Less than 5% of the worlds pool players frequent AZ (or any forum). So you missed 95%++ of your potential customers. You never established your Brand.

Now someone is selling a similar product, perhaps close to identical to yours?
And they're selling considerably higher volume then you ever did?

THAT'S BUSINESS.

Here's a tidbit from Biz School: if your thingamajig doesn't have any competition, then you don't have a market that will sustain your product.

No sympathies for bad decision making.

(Did you know that most Biz School Grad Students would have developed a Marketing Strategy for you that would have prevented this - for about 1% equity??)

Live and learn.....

-von
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That's Fine...Doug has taken an interest in the new invention on AZB called Dockit. This is the only reason I brought it up again.
My sales are great...I did do just what you mentioned...funny...over 6,000 sold
as of 12/2009 (730 days).

I value all the opinions here. Thank you to everyone who took the time to post on my thread. I appreciate it!!
 
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You actually don't have to have a patent attorney, you can do it on your own. I'm not saying it's easy, patent laws can be pretty complex, but if you're creating a product that you believe in and think will do well, it only makes sense to protect it any way that you can.
 
It doesn't matter what you make, all the business comes from building relationships with dealers. If you do that then those who sell cheaper knockoffs have a hard time cracking your network.

So the guy knocked off your product. That's sleazy but it's business. When I refused to give up my attendance at shows to a potential dealer of Instroke cases he went and knocked off my cases and even had the gall to show them to me at the next show and ask me my opinion of them.

The fact is that in only very very very rare instances will the world beat a path to your door to buy what you have to sell. In the other 99.99% of situations you have to do the legwork and stay on top of your network.

There will always be knockoff artists and the ones who cozy up to the actual inventors/creators of the products are the sleaziest. But competition is what fuels innovation. If your thing is easy to duplicate then people will duplicate it if there is a market. Welcome to free market capitalism.

If you want to protect your thing then patent it BEFORE it's made public. Because once it's out there then it's fair game for anyone who does want to reverse engineer it.

Although I find it hilarious that anyone would say that they reverse engineered a billiard glove.

A patent ONLY protects you if the resulting product relies on your novel invention to exist. Many people patent things that are not really complicated to make and don't involve new inventions. Think about cutting a slice off a billiard ball and making it into a paperweight? Should I be able to patent the Billiard Ball Paperweight and reasonably expect protection?

Von Rhett is right though. Why are you calling attention to this guy? Why don't you simply form a group between you and whoever else he is knocking off and sue him if you can?
 
hllwnmagic said:
(PocketChalker) Doug Montgomery's Guide on "How to Steal Others Intellectual Property" in 6 Easy Steps:

1. Compliment the New Billiard Product. Tell the Inventor how great it is.

2. Contact the Inventor and buy a few asking for a reduced price. Say you want to buy them Wholesale and sell them in Europe. Act like a Distributor and don't forget to be his BEST friend. Gain his confidence.

3. Announce to the Inventor that you've reversed engineered them and can make them cheaper in Poland. Try to get the Inventor to buy them directly from you.

4. If the Inventor refuses, offer to go into business with them, a Partnership...But stress the importance of NO WRITTEN CONTRACT. Offer a "hand shake agreement" ONLY. Make sure you ONLY offer to pay him one to three percent of your sales of his invention. Explain how written proof of your total sales won't be available because of the extra cost to you. But assure him not to worry...Tell him, "Trust Me"!!

5. If the Inventor still refuses, tell him that he can either work with you and get a percentage of the sales or you will sell his invention without him and keep all the profits. Assure him that this is not a threat.

6. If the Inventor still refuses...Just STEAL the invention and sell it.
Click to expand...

So this proves not all from Poland are not dumb!
 
JB Cases said:
It doesn't matter what you make, all business comes from building relationships...

The fact is that in only very very very rare instances will the world beat a path to your door to buy what you have to sell.

If your thing is easy to duplicate then people will duplicate it if there is a market.

If you want to protect your thing then patent it BEFORE it's made public.

A patent ONLY protects you if the resulting product relies on your novel invention to exist.
Click to expand...

These are words everyone should consider when bringing a product to market. Fortunately, I am in the service business, so I don't have to deal with these particular issues, but of course there are always competitive pressures in business.

Chris
 
I work in a large US corporation as an engineer in product development. I can say based on my experiences that patents are absolutely worthless. Both to protect your product from being copied, or to sue someone when your product is copied, or to prevent your own team "me" from copying someone else's product for the following reasons:

1. There are so many ways around them
2. Even a very broad patent will not protect everything and can be designed around
3. It is very expensive to go to court over a patent, even for a corporation.
4. If you do go to court, both sides are usually infringing on each other's patents, and the sides often agree to just let it go.
5. Lawyers are the ONLY ones who consistently benefit from patents.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I work in a large US corporation as an engineer in product development. I can say based on my experiences that patents are absolutely worthless. Both to protect your product from being copied, or to sue someone when your product is copied, or to prevent your own team "me" from copying someone else's product for the following reasons:

1. There are so many ways around them
2. Even a very broad patent will not protect everything and can be designed around
3. It is very expensive to go to court over a patent, even for a corporation.
4. If you do go to court, both sides are usually infringing on each other's patents, and the sides often agree to just let it go.
5. Lawyers are the ONLY ones who consistently benefit from patents.
Click to expand...

Having said that, most people who invent stuff never produce the first item. The real value of a patent is to sell it. Once you have it you can sell the rights to your invention lock stock and barrel to a real producer who will bring it to market. The average person can't protect their rights even if someone blatantly rips them off. It is civil law and is just to expensive.

The best thing one can do is put their item out there at a reasonable price and get a foot hold in the market as well as name recognition. You do this with the reality that if you are successful others will enter the market. You just need something new on the back burner as your next product. Hard to get rich on one idea.
 
JB Cases said:
It doesn't matter what you make, all the business comes from building relationships with dealers. If you do that then those who sell cheaper knockoffs have a hard time cracking your network.

So the guy knocked off your product. That's sleazy but it's business. When I refused to give up my attendance at shows to a potential dealer of Instroke cases he went and knocked off my cases and even had the gall to show them to me at the next show and ask me my opinion of them.

The fact is that in only very very very rare instances will the world beat a path to your door to buy what you have to sell. In the other 99.99% of situations you have to do the legwork and stay on top of your network.

There will always be knockoff artists and the ones who cozy up to the actual inventors/creators of the products are the sleaziest. But competition is what fuels innovation. If your thing is easy to duplicate then people will duplicate it if there is a market. Welcome to free market capitalism.

If you want to protect your thing then patent it BEFORE it's made public. Because once it's out there then it's fair game for anyone who does want to reverse engineer it.

Although I find it hilarious that anyone would say that they reverse engineered a billiard glove.

A patent ONLY protects you if the resulting product relies on your novel invention to exist. Many people patent things that are not really complicated to make and don't involve new inventions. Think about cutting a slice off a billiard ball and making it into a paperweight? Should I be able to patent the Billiard Ball Paperweight and reasonably expect protection?

Von Rhett is right though. Why are you calling attention to this guy? Why don't you simply form a group between you and whoever else he is knocking off and sue him if you can?
Click to expand...
Sueing is in the works....Thanks!
 
hllwnmagic said:
My FingerSlides are Patent Pending. Waiting on final examiner. Could be any day now.
Click to expand...

Ok. Well then comes after that the cost of defending your patent.

Did you happen to know that the cue tip covers were invented by at least two other people before you?

Ralf Souquet's father has been making and selling them for I think about 15 years or so.

And a while back about ten years or so there was a guy from the NorthWest who did a lot of knick knack items for pool, among them a Foam Bridge head that was pretty good. I believe he had cue tip covers as well.

Not saying you didn't come up with these on your own independently of the others but just making you aware that other people have had the same idea on the market for a while now.

Even with your patent though I don't think you will be able to do much about someone making them in another country.

But good luck with the fight. Sucks to have a good idea and put a lot of effort into it and see it knocked off.

I still think you not draw attention to the other guy - because IF his product is a better "value" than yours then a percentage of people will gravitate that way. Telling people to stay away from something pushes them to go look at it and if they like what they see they might end up buying that and telling all their friends to buy there instead.
 
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