Submit Business Proposal

Our Policy

Updated: April 18th, 2019

Before you read this know that we wrote this off-the-cuff after getting barraged with a bunch of ideas from people who didn’t really understand the market, industry or consumers and frustrated the daylights out of us.  In the end, I hope you do achieve the highest level of success with your idea or product and maybe we’ll be lucky enough to work together.  I have very, very little spare time, so before I take a look at a product or idea, I need you to sort of qualify yourself and confirm that you have very reasonable expectations and that your concept is fully ready.  I hope this text below explains that and thank you for considering working with us.

Patents

I’ve been doing this a very long time, and often people have ideas that are either good or not good – but some think their idea is worth zillions.  They come to me expecting me to buy an unpatented idea (often not patentable), make it for them, and then pay them a royalty.  They will tell me things about how they “filed” for a patent, how they have a “provisional” patent, how their lawyer said it would be a sure-fired patent, how it’s just a matter of time etc.   Keep in mind I own quite a few patents, and there is no such thing as an easy utility patent.  I had patents for RAW in Europe, and my competitors simply copied it anyway and sued to say that my patents should be invalid.  Their desire to copy what they can’t create is stronger than you think!

If we signed on to pay large sums for an unpatented item, my competitors would immediately copy the item (which they can legally do because it’s not patented), and I’d be stuck paying a royalty on a non-patented item while they wouldn’t – so they’d quash me.  I’m sure your idea is great, maybe even game changing.  However, if you don’t have an actual patent, we have to worry that the situation described above will happen.  My competitors are ruthless and brutal.  They follow me around like a Photocopy machine.  They’ll follow you around too, just wait… it’s quick ugly and brutal.  So sometimes we can make deals where we pay a smaller amount until the patent issues and a larger rate once/if it does.

Compensation

If you are a very reasonable person who doesn’t think we’re going to pay zillions for just an idea, then hopefully we can talk.  We’ve bought inventions in the past.  I’ve worked with friends who invented stuff and we paid them a 5 – 15% royalty on the wholesale selling price of an item, depending on how awesome the invention really was.

Let me know what you’re thinking for your idea submission but – and I need to be very upfront about this – DON’T SEND unless you are planning to be reasonable about a royalty rate.  Otherwise it would just be a waste of both my time and yours.  One thing I cannot get enough of is time.  Wish your invention were a time machine!  That would be awesome and yes I would definitely pay good money for the license to one of those!   For a neat little device that rolls better, stuffs better, dispenses better, pre-curled papers, papers with built in tips, papers made out of other materials, cones better, etc. – that’s awesome, just please be reasonable.

Customer Focused

I also want to ask you a question about your product or idea.  How does it benefit the smoker?  Someone recently tried to pitch me on a “grinder scale” which was a scale with a built in grinder. So when the scale breaks, you’re stuck with a useless grinder or if the grinder breaks you’re stuck with a useless scale.  There is no actual benefit to the consumer and this product will not sell well in my opinion.  Please tell us how your idea really provides significant benefit to the smoker.

NDA’s

I’m scared to sign any NDA until or unless I already know at least a little something about the concept.  I have dozens and dozens of ideas of my own in the works not to mention ideas of my staff.  What if we already have your idea?  You might not believe me, and a lawyer looking for work might try to target me (they call me deep pockets and look for ways to sue me I think).

I’ve been burned many times by dreamers who aren’t reasonable and it hurts.  All I am trying to say is please be reasonable and fair.

Please follow the instructions below and we do need some sort of upload or proposal from you.  That’s how we pre-qualify people that are serious!

Respectfully and Sincerely,
Joshua