Inventors go out on a limb with ideas
Sitting on a tree stand, in the cold, during hunting season, a man starts to think. How can he get the deer to come his way.
That is how Gaetano T., an avid hunter from came up with his idea for a new product. “The deer are really smart,” Gaetano, a carpenter, said. “We try to get an edge and use scents that attract deer. The product is called the stimulator. It keeps the scent from freezing.”
It all starts with an idea. Many people have done it. Come up with an idea for a new product or a way to improve something they are already using. But how many people take it to the next level and try to actually get their product on the market?
It can seem an impossible task, expensive and time-consuming. Gaetano jumped on the Internet to find help developing his idea.
“I took a gamble,” he said. “It makes so much sense and it’s so simple. It’s got to work.”
He, and a county native Alicia A., separately signed with Invention Technologies Inc. of Florida.
Alicia, a mother of four, came up with the Sub Zero Blower.
“Last winter when my husband came in from the cold, he was complaining that he didn’t know where to pile the snow,” she said. While she was can’t reveal exactly how it works, the idea behind the Sub Zero Blower is it melts the snow so the area can get cleared.
Alicia said her family helped come up with the name and design.
None of these local inventors have had their idea picked up by a manufacturer.
Gaetano said he was told Invention Technologies receives 15,000 submissions a year but that only about 5 percent get picked up by the company.
An Invention Technologies spokesman said that number isn’t precise, “It’s not an exact science .”
The spokesman said Gaetano and Alicia’s products are in the stage where Invention Technologies is searching for a manufacturers, going to trade shows to find more more manufacturers and sending their ideas out to manufacturing firms.
He said he could not determine what the average time before an idea is picked up.
“An invention can take off in six months, but it can also take three of four years” before a manufacturer shows interest, he said.