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Have you ever had a flash of inspiration and thought, "I could make a million dollars with this idea?" Sure you have. We all have, but few of us follow through and turn our ideas into real products. Three Illinois inventors have and they share their advice with us. Story and photos by Jack Halstead
The people who make bleachers for gyms tell us that their products are made of hardwood, and anyone who has sat on them can certainly vouch for that. Fred Compardo of Loami sat through many school events as his six children attended school. Like most of us, he spent a lot of time where the seat of learning meets those hardwood planks. Unlike most of us, all that agonized sitting triggered a light bulb in his head one day. "Why not," he asked himself, "build a seat that's padded and has a back to lean on, and can be folded and carried to sporting events?" Fred, a member of Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative Co., Auburn, decided that people might buy such a gadget if it looked good, could be folded for convenient carrying, and did a good job. So the Bleacher Recliner was born. He set out to determine if such a gadget could be
10 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING APRIL 2000 made, if it would sell, and if he could get a patent on it. "Before you even think of getting a patent," he says, "you need to do a lot of research to determine if there's a market for your product, or you're wasting your time." He approached major department store chains first. They told him he'd have to make his product cheap enough that they could mark it up at least 100 percent and he decided to self-market Bleacher Recliners. Also, before you get too far along, he notes, you need to come up with a working prototype. "I built models from steel tubing and wood to get shapes and sizes and folding mechanisms right," he says, "but the final product is made of plastic." With a working model in hand, he contacted Kevin McDermott, a Springfield patent attorney. "I worked on the manufacturing and marketing aspects," Fred says, "while Kevin did a patent search to see if a product like mine had already been patented, and to get a patent on mine, if possible. It turned out that I had a clear field." Fred decided to fund the process himself. He decided to have his seats built from injection-molded plastic, and sought bids from prospective manufacturers. He settled on a maker in Washington, Illinois. He advertises in a lot of publications, but one of his best advertising tools is built onto his Bleacher Recliners. He had his toll-free telephone number molded into the back of the seat, along with the instructions. Many of his sales come from people who got the number off the back of seats they've seen.
"If there's one reason people fail, says, "it's that they fail to market aggressively and persistently. I estimate that getting the product patented amounts to about 10 percent of the effort, 30 to 40 percent goes into manufacturing, and everything else goes into marketing. "I keep track of what my ads do for me," he continues, "and I can see the results of publicity, too. The local paper did a short story on my operation a few years ago, and I could see a small increase in my business from their area." In addition to advertising, Fred goes to trade shows. He has a van with pictures of his products on the side, and address, phone number and e-mail address, too. In all, Fred notes that he took some six months to a year to get a patent search done and a patent-pending status, and another year to actually get the patent. He spent a like amount of time getting a registered trademark. During that time, he looked for a manufacturer, so the time wasn't a total loss. Now, with all that behind him, Fred now sends out a steady stream of seats out by UPS.
Dippin' Dots places are all over the country and in several overseas locations. Here, young people in a central Illinois mall check over the product line. APRIL 2000 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING 11 company as a microbiologist, was involved in a project that used liquid nitrogen to quick-freeze feed. One day, while cranking an old-fashioned ice cream freezer, he was inspired. At the time, his sister, Connie Ulrich, had an MBA and a year of doctoral study, and he called her with his idea. She takes the story from there. "He gave me a quick outline of the process," she says, "and asked me to do some research to see if such an idea had been patented. He was kind of excited, and the words were tumbling out. I had trouble following him. "Anyway, after a quick search of ice-cream making patents, I was pretty sure nobody had even come close to making ice cream that way." No wonder. It's an unusual process, to say the least. Roughly (very) the process goes like this: Using liquid nitrogen at -320 degrees F, the system is chilled, and regular ice cream mix is poured into a hopper. It goes through a sieve-like plate and drops a few feet. During that short drop, the change takes place that makes Dippin' Dots the novel kind of ice cream it is. The mix isn't just frozen, it's super-frozen, instantly, and arrives at the bottom of the "shot tower" in little balls — or dots — about the size of baby peas. Dippin' Dots caught on, Curt patented the process, and the operation went from a family operation in a tiny garage to a business that sells ice cream in several countries around the world. Now located in a 26,000-square-foot building in Paducah, Kentucky, and looking to expand, Dippin' Dots employs some 160 employees. About half the company's workers live in southern Illinois.
Farmers are an unbelievably ingenious bunch. They have to be to survive. With so much of downstate Illinois devoted to farming, and with many farmers having access to well-equipped farm shops, it stands to reason that there would be a very active cadre of tinkerers and inventors around. Norris Electric Cooperative members Bruce and Roger Elliott of rural Montrose are a case in point. It seems that the two of them can usually be counted on to figure out a way to improve on factory equipment, or to improvise a fairly sophisticated piece of machinery from scratch. "We come by it naturally," Bruce says with a laugh. "When I was eight years old, Dad put a welding torch in my hand and put me to work. Both of us have worked with tools ever since." Area farmers know them well, and they've been featured in enough farm publications that they get calls and letters from farmers all over the country, seeking help with various problems. "One of our latest projects," Roger says, "is a narrow row soybean planter we built. We took two International planters and used the parts from them to build just what we wanted." By the time they were done, they had a planter that would plant the seeds at a more even depth, and that spaces them better. "We had done a lot of spraying with little ATVs," Bruce says, "and we wanted something bigger, with a cab that would keep us out of the spray. We took two pieces of six-inch channel iron for a frame, put on axles from a four-wheel-drive pickup truck,
12 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING APRIL 2000 and put on big tires to smooth the ride and minimize compaction. We couldn't believe how smoothly it rode." The men note that they can cover more than twice the acreage than they could with the little ATV rig, all from the comfort of a real home-built cab. "We used to keep photos of everything we built or modified," Bruce says, "but we had so many pictures laying around that we quit doing that." They are well-known enough that they have sold to farmers in Illinois, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Even so, they joke that their late father often chided them about one thing: "He told us that we could make anything but money," Bruce laughs, "and I think he's right there."
For more information: Illinois Innovators and Inventors group
Phil Curry Curry stresses that ideas are plentiful, but ideas which can be patented, produced, marketed and sold at a profit are not. He urges prospective inventors to get advice from impartial parties, and notes that there are several organizations that will evaluate a product for a reasonable fee. Inventors clubs, such as Curry's, can offer impartial, if not professional, advice. Curry recommends against responding to late-night TV commercials and ads in do-it-yourself magazines. He says you don't need a prototype to satisfy the patent office, although a working model might be helpful to you. Illinois Innovators and Inventors meetings Meetings are held near Edwardsville at Madison Mutual, on the east side of Hwy. 157 between Center Grove Road and the Southern Illinois University entrance. Meetings start at 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of each month, and are open to the public. The group also sponsors an annual conference. This year's is set for Saturday, Aug. 26, at 9 a.m., and will be near Edwardsville. The actual site has not yet been determined. You can contact Curry for more information. Patents You should contact a patent attorney, but you can do a preliminary search at a "Patent Depository Library (PDL)." There is a PDL at the Illinois State Library in Springfield (217) 782-5737, and another at the main library in St. Louis (314) 539-0390. Call for an appointment before visiting either one.
Patents filed after 1971 can be researched on the Internet at www.patents.ibm.com/ibm.html.
Featured Inventors Those interested in contacting Fred Compardo can reach him by mail at 8880 Rhea Park Rd., Loami, IL 62661. His telephone number is (800) 621-2605. His website is: www.BleacherRecliner.com., e-mail address BRCorp@Motion.net.
Dippin' Dots is at (270) 442-1567. You can reach the Elliott Brothers at 19477 N. 400th St., Montrose, IL 62445. Their telephone number is (217) 924-4310. APRIL 2000 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING 13 |
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