A lifetime in the making

One thing I have learned during this process is, it takes stamina, endurance and money. It may not be a huge amount, but it will take some cash.

Prior to even attending my first hair show the time and money can really began to add up.

I felt that it was very important to hire experts because I have no issues with admitting to what I don’t know.

The first things that I needed were:
Patent attorney
Certified public accountant
Graphic designer
Website designer and maybe even a photographer.

I am not an expert at any of the above but I do know what I know as well as what I don’t know.

The most important requirement on my list was a very good patent attorney because he or she will have to represent me as well as my product if necessary.

Hopefully not but it’s a lot better to have someone on my side that knows exactly what they’re doing.

I soon found out that my patent attorney did not have time to tell me everything that I needed to know so, I had to get a book on patents, trademarks and copyrights and all I did was read. Then read some more, and once I got tired of reading I read just a little bit more.

I had to do a lot of reading to understand the process of patenting and producing a product because it can be confusing as well as overwhelming.

A CPA helped me to arrange my company papers as well as legal status. Next I decided what corporate status I wanted to file my business under. This wasn’t too difficult of a task so it’s probably something that you’re able to do without any problems.

Graphic designers are good, but in considering what I paid for mine logo I really didn’t see too much of a change from what I originally gave her.

I’ve never had an issue with being creative but if you aren’t a creative person then by all means hire a graphic designer.

A good website designer is an absolute must because we live in a society where image is everything.

The most valueable lesson that I learned from the graphic designer was to make sure that he or she has the time to devote to your product.

One day I was explaining to my daughter the idea that I had for developing a product to shield the heat while using a hood style hair dryer. She bet me that I could not finish the product by the time she was in high school. She was right.

With trying to survive on my income and a small amount of child support from my ex-husband, I really did not have the money to even start thinking about developing a product. I knew that the idea that I was given was golden but the odds were stacked against me in terms of developing, producing and selling a product that didn’t exist.

The question that I had to ask myself was “what must I do with the limited resources that I have?”

First, I had to start searching uspto.gov just to find out if a product like mine existed. I had to read as many books about patents, trademarks and running my business that I could get my hands on. I also enrolled in “how to” classes on running a business etc which also helped tremendously.

When searching the uspto.gov for information, I used every key word that I could think of to describe my product. While searching I praid that no one had come up with the same idea as my product.

After searching uspto.gov, I began to “google” my idea. The name of my idea wasn’t out so I purchased the name of my products’ domain name but during this process I purchased a lot of domains.

At first I would have my son purchase every name that I could think of but he soon grew tired of me calling him so he gave me the instructions on how to purchase my own domains.

Do not believe the saying “It doesn’t take money to make it”. Believe me, it takes some money long before you even start to make any but that is another story.