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[This is just a draft. Important stuff tends to be toward the bottom] Before you asked me to read it, I had never heard of either Stephen Key or his book called One Simple Idea(McGraw-Hill, 2011). So here are some comments after reading it. As you can imagine, the first impression one gets when picking up such a book is: "Jeepers, yet another snake-oil salesman". It has all the usual trappings of wishful thinking, like promising a life of pleasure and rest, while "letting others do the work", or casually hinting at huge salaries which the author is supposedly making, just by listening to his own magical advice, or quoting Walt Disney "If you can dream it, you can do it", which is of course false, etc. But I'll try to forget that first impression "I don't have a degree in engineering, marketing or business. I don't own a big company, nor am I employedby a big company. Instead, companies work for me [...] I sit back collecting royalty checks [...] and enjoying the life of my dreams with my beautiful wife and our three children. And I wrote this book to show you how you can do the same" (p. xiii) "When the recession hit, it didn't impact me." (p. xv) He is "totally debt-free" and "comfortably" pays for the best colleges for all his children. "The cars we drive, all purchased with cash, are probably too expensive. [...] Anybody can do what I've done, including you." (p. xvi) "[...] are you one of the millions of people world-wide who are unemployed? Do you want a livelihood that can't be snatched away through a single stroke of bad luck, like layoff or illness? Or are you one of the many millions more who are underemployed, struggling to make ends meet and bored to tears in a dead-end job?" (p. 3) "[...] you hear a lot of doomsayers forecasting the end of the American Dream. [...] In fact, it is more alive, more accessible, and far more exciting than it has ever been in the history of our country." (p. 5) "I tell my inventRight students not to waste their time on prototypes and patents" (p. 12) "And licensing can be very lucrative. Just ask the thousands of people, like me, who are enjoying the licensing lifestyle" (p. 34) The underlying assumption is (as usual) that fads are normal economic activity. Students of Economics can easily rattle off examples of fads that made their inventors immensely rich, while costing almost nothing in Research and Development.
Pet Rock box (complete with holes to let the rock breath!).
My favorite example is the "Pet Rock". Some excerpts from Wikipedia (the perfect source of information for things that are silly and unimportant): "Gary Dahl [...] sold 1.5 million Pet Rocks and became a millionaire. [...] Dahl's biggest expense was the die-cutting and manufacture of the boxes. The rocks only cost a penny each, and the straw was nearly free. For the initial run of booklets, Dahl had a printing job for a client and "tacked" the pet rock booklet onto the main job. This resulted in a batch requiring only a cut and trim, at almost no cost except some labor." The author is very proud of one of his ideas: "I dreamt up a Valentine's Day dart with a suction cup and a flag reading "I'm stuck on you". That idea brought me 10000$ in advance income with zero upfront investment." (p. xv) The problem with fad-based income is that it only works for a microscopic minority, in a very large country, where many people have a lot of disposable income. "On any given day, I've gotten out six different ideas out to different companies." (p. xv) Wow, not exactly rest! "It used to be that a country's manufacturing capacity determined its dominance in the global economy: the higher a country's gross domestic product (GDP), the bigger its share of the global market. Not anymore. Today, the country's that dominate the world economy are the ones that product the most ideas." (p. 19) constant ranting about big companies who don't know how to innovate, whereas small peckerwoods like him do (p. 19) "40 percent of consumer spending is discretionary and driven by desire, not necessity." p. 22 "With licensing, you are the chief innovation officer (CIO) of your idea rather than the CEO of your business. You wear one hat: the creative one." p. 27 He claims he has licensed 20 products (p. 32 and p. 33.) in 30 years of work (p. xiv) at 6 ideas a day (p. xv). How does he come up with these magical ideas? "Let's go back to my hypothetical hammer idea." p. 44. Why not take a real idea, one that will generate millions of dollars, and just drop it for free for the world to enjoy? "Everyone is creative. Being creative is simply looking at something from a different perspective. It's turning something upside-down and looking at it through a child's eyes, seeing no limitations, seeing only possibilities. Creativity comes naturally to children [...] I remember, as a kid, [...] thinking I could build a jet pack, strap it to my back, and fly through the sky." p. 47 Yeah but, how many things can we buy at the store that have been "created" by children? None whatsoever. Why? I thought it was simple, that "You just need to tap into that childlike creativity within"? (p. 48) "Let the child in you come out." p. 50 Much of his heuristical advice is to hang around shopping malls (p. 49) Very American, very decadent American! look at trendy entertainment and fashion magazines. p. 50. Lonnie Johnson, Super Soaker, p. 52 "I have never spent more than 100$ making a prototype" p. 100 starting p. 113 (chap. 11), he describes how to protect IP. He doesn't like patents. PPA, USPTO, 1995, very USA-specific. At every step of the way (market study, invention, acquiring IP, selling the idea), he has long lists of the many things you need to do. It all ends up being a full-time job with many worries and hassles and efforts and disappointments, etc., just as he said we could avoid... In other words, if you end up working an honest day's work, you might get paid for an honest day's work... p. 124. "I have 13 patents on my Spinformation label". p. 122 "I have 13 patents". "The vast majority were licensed using a benefit statement, a sell sheet, and a PPA." p. 129. "It is also critical to have anyone who looks at your idea sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) first. p. 133 He never says what his income is, what it has been over the hears, and especially never gives a breakdown of money gained per idea. "I cannot say this often enough: do not quit your day job. Do not mortgage your house to the hilt, go into debt, and use up your kids college education funds and your retirement funds." p. 149 "Companies want to know they're dealing with a legitimate business, with a professional who knows how to develop an idea for the market [...] You can cultivate an air of legitimacy with a professional website, business cards, letterhead, a dedicated phone line, and a dedicated business address." p. 152. - p. 222: overview of the whole process. He keeps blasting the "old-school approach" of fancy prototypes and patents. But he then describes just about exactly the old-school approach, but using examples of extremely simple inventions that don't require fancy prototypes, licensed in a country that provides PPAs... The whole book is a long example of confirmation bias. This student sold his idea, that student overcame her fear of cold-calling, etc. How many students have you had? How many are now earning how much after how many years of efforts? The whole book is VERY short on heuristics. It basically assumes you'll invent many very profitable inventions. It assumes the hard part away. He doesn't outright tell lies in his book, but doesn't tell all the truth either. The whole book is like a dieting book that says: "Forget about the old-fashioned approach of painful exercise and soul-crushing restraint from all the foods you desire the most. With my whoopy-o-matic method, you'll make lots of money, loose lots of pounds and have a rip-roaring good time at it. Here is my whoopy-o-matic method: let's assume you have the willpower to easily stop eating anytime. Just stop eating junk food, eat just a little bit of healthy food, and exercise a lot. Then do this for a long, long time." His ideas are mostly for merchandising junk. Now wonder he says you don't need to be an engineer! Not for slapping Celine Dion's picture on toilet paper you don't! ("Micheal Jordan Wall Ball", "Spinformation" label, "Graveyard Picks" for playing guitar, and that is about all he actually describes about his ideas). The average "inventor" is just a social misfit who thinks he can outsmart big corporations. The conclusion for Mister X29 is: According to Stephen Key, forget about all this invention stuff and start by getting a day job. Would be fun to compare 3 things: CCC, some science paper, and this book. Science has more: "We made 382 tries, 3 were successful" type of honesty. CCC has more: "All I can promise is blood, toil, sweat and tears" type of honesty. Key's book is almost like atheist "gospel" at first, and then boils down to "yeah, the old-fashioned method of inventing is eternally the only one, except for marketing fads, which don't require any invention per se".
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