A simple idea: turn your dreams into a licensing gold mine while letting others do the work

A key idea: innovate, protect, launch, license and then iterate
Book Review by Carla M. Paton

A Simple Idea: Turn Your Dreams Into a Licensing Gold Mine While Letting Others Do the Work…in 15 Minutes: The Innovator’s Digest of Stephen Key’s Best-Selling Bookis another smart deal that saves time at the In 15 minute summary corporate author series, 2 Minute Insight. While the book’s title is a mouthful, the well-organized content, summarizing the most pertinent points of Stephen Key’s innovation, a simple idea it’s not.

Key is a licensing and innovation guru with over 13 patents to his name and has licensed over 20 products over 30 years. He also runs a licensing course, “10 Steps to Bringing His Idea to Market.” Key wrote the book of him, A simple idea: turn your dreams into a licensing gold mine while letting others do the work to help other aspiring inventors and innovators overcome the difficulties of bringing an idea to reality.

Some of the contents of Key’s work that the Innovator’s Summary the covers are how to find the right ideas, protect them, present them and close the license agreement. Once you discover your good idea, you must file a provisional patent to protect it for one year while you pitch the idea to various companies. When presenting, to appear professional, you will need a Statement of Benefits and a Sell Sheet.

One of the essential points of Key’s book is that by licensing your idea to a company, you free yourself from the hassles of running a business, production, marketing, and sales. Instead, he gets royalties and moves on to his next big idea. Key also cautions against conventional methods of developing and licensing designs, which involve spending thousands of dollars on prototypes and patents. Part of your licensing agreement with a company should be that they create the prototype and file a patent.

Finally, contrary to conventional thinking, creating a new idea does not mean reinventing the wheel. Some of the best ideas are simple improvements and adjustments to existing products and services. However, being a successful innovator means knowing your target market well and designing with that market in mind.

What I appreciated most about the 15-Minute Innovator Brief, was the balanced assessment of Key’s book given at the end. Some of these criticisms are the lack of detail for idea development, the frustration that can occur with failed ideas, the lack of information about applying for a patent, and the potential risks of a PPA – provisional patent. Some great additional resources are also listed at the end.

Although you would learn a lot from reading Key’s book, be a smart visionary and save time for your next big idea. Instead, read this well written, concise 15-Minute Innovator Brief and then get to work.