Entrepreneurial adVenture

Hi! I've decided to start my own blog rather than outsourcing it to a fitness professional. It's important to me that I share my personal views and experience. Melissa Baumgartner is a great fitness resource and I will continue to rely on her expert opinions. However, I was afraid that sometimes another person's opinion on my website might seem biased or almost like a paid advertisement even though that was not the case!

My blog will cover an array of topics. What I am most knowledgable on and what people will find most interesting is my experience as an entrepreneur and inventor. This will be the main topic of my blog. I'll give tips on how to start a business, source products, patent, trademark, get PR, results of advertising, website creating and promoting, tradeshow experience etc....However, I'm a very opinionated person so when I feel strongly about another topic I may have a tangental blog entry.

If you have any comments or questions or specific areas of interest, please let me know and I will do my best to address them. I have been playing around with Twitter and Facebook and will try to get my blog to feed into Twitter. I hope you will follow me on Twitter. You can find me as "Stickesocks". You will also receive random posts of discounts that can be used on my www.YogaStickySocks.com website.

I will also introduce websites and services that I have found useful. None of these websites or service providers have made any arrangements with me to promote them. As a matter of fact, they have no idea I am doing this.

First tip for inventing a product: 1) Check out that your idea isn't already patented by searching the www.USPTO.gov website (United States Patent and Trademark Office). This is also where you can find information on copyrighting, trademarking, and filing patents. Just because your idea is not on the market does not mean that someone hasn't patented it or filed for a patent! I also am a strong believer that your Trademark is ultimately more important than your patent so make sure you get a great Trademark name and start promoting it from the word GO! As your new product takes off and you expand your line, you want people looking for your brand. Wouldn't it be great to be the next "Kleenex" or "Google" or "Coke"? That's the goal for whatever segment you are entering. My goal is to have people look for "Stick-e" when they need non -slip Yoga products or non-slip sporting goods products in the future.

One question I am frequently asked is, "Do you need an attorney to file a patent"? My answer is probably not for a Provisional Patent but definitely for a Utility or Design patent. The Provisional patent will give you one year before you have to decide if you want to take the plunge and really go for a patent. If you file a provisional patent, you may also mark your items as "Patent Pending". I suggest doing a provisional patent and using that year to test if your product is really viable. My Yoga Stick-e Socks is patented and it took 2 years and many legal bills to get the patent. Our other products are patent pending but we have started moving forward on the utility patents for them.

Next blog post will be on "Trademarks". Please let me know your comments and questions!

BTW -- My husband also has a patent for Thirsy Randy -- which is a Christmas Tree Watering ornament that looks like a reindeer and its nose lights up when the tree needs water. It eliminates bending over and crawling under the tree, breaking ornaments, and spilling water on your floor! Now you can water your tree while standing and know when the tree has enough!