Episode 10 - THAT CRAZY PERIOD (before the actual launch)

Every inventor eventually comes across "the crazy period" before they launch their products.
Jack has a trick on how to survive this "crazy period".

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Episode Transcript

(00:15):
So tell me if you've heard thisone before. I know what I want,
I don't know how to get it. I mean, I would really
like to have this idea made,but I don't know how to do it,
and I don't know where to goor even if it can even be
made. Jack, is there someway you could just do this for me,

(00:35):
believe it or not. I hearthis a lot and it's really hard
to keep a straight face because it'scrazy. Hi, everybody, welcome back
to the thirty year Overnight Sensation.I'm your host, Jack Courage, and
this podcast is a conversation, nota class. If you're a novice inventor
or want to be an inventor,I'll take you through the trials of designing,

(00:59):
manufact lecturing, selling, and gettingyour product into the market. This
podcast is not affront for a productdevelopment firm or some company trying to generate
money off of your ideas. It'sabout the trials of inventing and it's not
easy, but you can do ityourself. If I can do it with

(01:19):
no formal training, you can doit. You just have to be smart
about it. So where were we? Where I last left off was after
a bruising blow. The head coveringproject had been long with no sales,
and it was going to take evenlonger, and of course it always does
as projects go. This one hadgone pretty smooth. But the total idea

(01:42):
from the very start to this pointwas about two years going on three.
Now. To be fair, thiswasn't some idea that was going to start
small and hopefully grow into something bigger. To use the baseball analogy, The
idea wasn't working its way up fromthe miners. I had trained and tried
out only for the Yankees and madethe team. The question now was where

(02:07):
on the roster was I going tobe placed. Our soft launch outing was
desperately limb, but we were goingto showcase the head covering at a vendor
show right after the National Restaurant Show. So I would be going to that
vendor show right after having seen everythingfor the upcoming year, which would make
pitching it a lot easier because Icould tell people, oh, I've already

(02:30):
seen what's coming. So I hadthis time between the soft launch and the
first real true public outing at asmall vendor show. It was going to
be about six weeks, and Icalled this type of time the six weeks
in between the crazy period. Everyinventor I have ever met has had this

(02:50):
type of time period at least once, and we all talk about it.
Because for me personally, it's happenedmore than once. I gave it a
name, the crazy period, butI'm sure other inventors have different ways of
talking about that same type of timeperiod. So this crazy period is always
when the product is done and thereis a time gap before you sell or

(03:14):
introduce it. Jack, what's sospecial about that time period? Well,
I'm glad you asked. In thistime period, just about everyone starts a
second guests themselves, and some peoplecrack, and others do crazy stuff that
you wouldn't believe, completely off strategy, or in some cases, it kills

(03:35):
the product before it even launches.It's the waiting. Tom was right,
it's the hardest part. I actuallythink it is also because it's the first
time the inventor slows down or comesto a halt and they start to have
doubts because it's not easy. SoI have a very simple trick to help
inventors when they get to their crazyperiod. Because it's coming. It will

(03:59):
happen sometime along the way. That'swhy we all talk about it. It's
there. Previously I said hope wasdangerous. But when you get to this
juncture and all that's left is placementand sales man, you're past the hope.
The product exists, is made toyour specifications, and you know the

(04:20):
best target market, or you thinkyou know the best target market. It's
a go like this, candle,let's do this, finally see it through.
What's crazy is there is only onething left, and it's time.
Like I said, I had sixweeks in between. Normally a new inventor

(04:43):
would pour over their work looking forthe slightest air, try to correct it,
or maybe second guests or strategy,or as I've seen, trash every
plan but the product and start over. It's just madness. It's hard to
even explain, but this happens.And this happened so much that I even
have an example that wasn't even inthis direct line. See in the mid

(05:06):
nineties, I owned an inline speedskating team that helped sell one of my
earlier product. I had this oneskater. He was a winner, but
his races were long distance, sothey were always last, so he had
to wait and wait and wait along time for his race, and for

(05:26):
some reason he'd suddenly start thinking somethingwas wrong with his wheels just minutes before
his last long track event, andhe would start taking his skates apart before
the race. I mean it wasmental. After he started doing this,
he nearly missed a race, andthe next time he did miss a race.

(05:49):
As a team owner and with othersponsors counting on wins for publicity for
not only just the sponsors, butfor my product, I had to go
up to him every race, sometimesthirty minutes, sometimes fifteen minutes, fifteen
minutes and ask him how, youknow, how the skates were, how
they feeling, And he'd say,oh, they're okay, they're fine,

(06:11):
And so then I'd take him awayfrom him, and then I'd have one
of his buddies handing back the skatesand not less than one minute before the
race. Now I nearly had afew heart attacks from this, because sometimes
it takes a little bit to getyour shoes on, you know, your
skates on. But it worked andhe started winning again, and after a

(06:33):
while he stopped fooling with the skatesbefore all his races, and he started
winning. It was just that thingabout time he'd been thinking about all day
and it just fooled with him.Jack, why the story? Why again?
Just know extra time does strange thingsto people. So here is an

(06:57):
inventor's trick I use, and Iused the approaching vendor show for the head
covering as an example. When Igot the notification that I was going to
go to that vendor show, Iknew there was too much time between the
product being finished and me selling itand showcasing it. I was staying on
strategy. I wasn't jumping out aline. I just dang it. It

(07:19):
was six weeks. I knew Ihad every possibility of making this the crazy
period. So right after the notification, I put my booth completely together.
I got the mannequins, print outthe images, placed them on the presentation
boards, put the samples I wantedto display four of them, got my

(07:41):
business cards ready, and I wasset. Total time that it took me
fooling around about three days night.Now, even after just three days,
I knew I still had five anda half weeks, So man, what
was I gonna do? Well?The quick answer was not a dang thing.

(08:03):
I locked up the booth for transportingand I wouldn't open it till I
left for that exact vendor show.It's gone, it's out, it's done.
So I asked myself, what couldI change? What could I do
better? To me? The productwas made exactly as I wanted. The
pitch went straight to the matter,and I had examples and production run samples.

(08:26):
I was still excited about the product, like I was the very first
day I got it together. Iknew I had it locked in, so
I wasn't going to change a thing, and if I was wrong, I
was going straight down to the bottomof the ocean and sit with the Titanic
on that one, which probably Ishouldn't be saying that anymore as an example

(08:46):
due to recent events. So whatdid I do? How did I stop
time for making me second guess myself? The answers easy. I worked on
a new idea, not an ideain this field of food service, to
help extend the line of the headcovering. No, I went to a

(09:07):
completely new idea that would end upbeing in addition to a previous old idea
for a completely different industry. Andthat's the trick. I had something to
take my mind off of the mostpressing problems. It sounds so simple,
but it's really not. I can'ttell you how many inventors I speak to

(09:30):
about that. They just can't moveon. And as I said, I've
seen them blow it by fiddling withtheir idea at the last minute, and
it's truly, it's just madness,and it makes no sense even when you
see it, and then when youstart to do it, you're like,
why am I doing this? Yougotta stop now. There are other inventors

(09:52):
who also use the crazy period asa way to never finish something or never
close up the idea. They justdon't show up. It's just they never
just get it finished. So theystay an inventor to their friends, but
they never really finish anything either.Hence my term that I've used it before,

(10:15):
the poser inventor. I have metquite a few of these types.
Once again, is a type ofperson that likes being thought of or spoken
of as an inventor or designer,but actually never completes anything, or on
the off chance that they did,it may have been from decades ago,
and all they do now is likedull out advice, which is crazy to

(10:39):
me. Being an inventor changes allthe time. The products that I produced
in the early two thousands couldn't bemade in the USA today, not that
the way I produced them back then, but the industry just still It's just
not here anymore. It's all overseas, and if you had to start up
like I did, there aren't enoughlittle shops to each other where you could

(11:01):
take one section to the next section, to the next section and then you
have a completed product. I'd haveto mail my product that I did in
the two thousand, I probably haveto mail it to three or four different
places in the country just to getone completed sample and then shoot. The
mailing of that alone would kill me. For me, it took all the

(11:22):
extra energy that mustards in the crazyperiod, and I created something new.
Maybe it was I don't know theconfidence I was having right then. Maybe
it's because I felt good. ButI didn't just sit there and think what
if now. What is truly funnyis that I inadvertently developed a new,

(11:43):
ridiculous crowd pleasing product in those simplefive and a half weeks. It was
so silly and outrageous that I immediatelyfiled for a patent, which I never
do. But it was just ridiculous, and it was patentable. So I
tested it and I had it outfor limited sale in no time. And

(12:05):
what even made it crazier was myfirst customer was one of the most well
known sports franchises in the world,which even by my standards, was crazy.
All in the five and a halfweeks was churned out to be another
type of crazy period all on itsown. However, this new item will
at best as a sports craze.It'll have an extremely limited shelf life,

(12:30):
whereas like the head covering, Iexpect to be around for like twenty years.
I had no idea at the timehow popular this sports giveaway product would
become because I had already had myfirst big customer. So you know,
I'm thinking, now it's got achance. Sometimes it just happens like that,
but you never see it coming.Come on, Jack, what are

(12:54):
you trying to say? The bigtakeaway for this crazy period is not to
drive yourself crazy and not to changesomething until it's been proven wrong. I've
met other inventors a stick with justone or two items for years. They
don't give up, and when Ihear that their products out, I celebrate

(13:16):
it. I hope they make millions. I'm really happy for them. But
I do wonder and all that time, in all those years, how many
crazy periods have come and gone,and they could have diverted some of that
time during you know, they're offtimes to other new ideas or projects and
not affect the one that's dragging on. Okay, maybe they're just gonna be

(13:41):
a one hit wonder. That's greatif they're okay with it. Maybe that's
all they wanted, so they arean inventor, get to brag about it,
maybe even help people afterwards with advice. But what do they call themselves.
I've never heard anyone describe themselves asa one hit wonder of inventing.
To me, I just don't thinkanyone goes through all that it takes to

(14:05):
be an inventor so that they canonly do it once. This is the
basis of my argument that you areeither an inventor or you're not one.
Once you do it and you getyour product out. I mean, how
can you stop just I don't thinkyou can not if you are a true
inventor. Me only after decades doI now publicly call myself an inventor,

(14:31):
even though I've been one for overthirty years. It's just not the title
that I seek. It's something more. I live to not be annoyed,
and I can't stand obvious stupidity whensomething can be changed and people know things
should be changed, but they justgo about their same lives enduring stupidity.

(14:54):
When there's usually an easy solution tochange things, it's usually something simple.
I wish everyone in high school wastaught the theory of Ockham's razor, which
is generally, when all areas areconsidered, the simplest answer is the right
one, you know, And Idon't even think I even heard that once

(15:15):
in high school. I don't evenknow if I even heard that. In
college. Every product that I haveever developed or produced was something that had
a simple solution to it. Jack, I'm trying to make the bus get
to the point. So what Ithink I'm saying to you is on the
product journey is when you get tothis crazy period, I think you need

(15:37):
to start asking yourself some questions,many questions, and then the big question,
am I making things better even fora minute? And if the answer
is yes, then I think youfound a lifelong vocation that could make you
some money. But then you makemoney, you have to ask yourself was

(16:00):
it the money, was it thefame, or was it that you were
just happy that you made a littleaddition that was smart and made somebody's day
a little better. Extra time playtricks on you. You think you worry,
and some people just can't handle it. And by the way, I
don't take making money lately. Thisisn't some esoteric bs. I've had stretches

(16:26):
were less money when I would haveliked to have a little bit more.
But once that I had money,I still kept inventing. Of course,
you know, to make more money. But I wish that was the only
reason. It would have been somuch simpler if it was just about the
money. But see, I can'thelp it. I just fix or make

(16:48):
things, even if they are stupid, even if it only produces a laugh
for five minutes, and even ifit took me three years to bring it
to the public. That's just me. See, I hope all your ideas
pay off. I don't begrudge anybodyfor making money. I'm a capitalist.
I'm a person that believes in ameritocracy, and I think you can make

(17:11):
as much money as you want.Like I've said before, there's no limit
to making money, not in thiscountry now that as of today, and
like I keep saying, you canalways make more. Jack, what's with
you? Where's this going? I'lltell you where it's going. If you've
made it this far on your productand it's in the final stages to sell,

(17:33):
stay the course. There is achance you left something out, but
you can always course correct as yougo. I know I did it after
the crazy period. After the lunch, I realized I had left something out
and I still didn't think big enough. And once I figured that out,

(17:56):
it would completely change the course ofthe head covering sales. So for once,
I was really happy about having thecrazy period. So until next time.
When you're thinking of ideas, neversettle. And when you're struggling and
you get a little crazy and youhave the crazy period and you're falling apart,

(18:18):
stay the course. Keep in mindthis is when most people give up
or quit. There's always another way. I'm your host, Jack, courage
the thirty year Overnight Sensation. Stayat it.