00:00
Okay, welcome, reader Welcome to Ask the patent professor or weekly q&a show.
00:12
I just opened up the floor to attendees. So I see participants starting to come in Happy Friday to you. Always nice
00:22
speaking. So, those of you attending today's a special q&a Because the q&a is not really going to be me, we have a special guest. And it's a great honor to have Rita Crompton here tonight or today this this afternoon. It's 12 o'clock, we're on the east coast here. And I read is known as the inventor lady. And she's the the founder of the inventors roundtable. She has been working with inventors for over 15 years, and really understands the invention process and what it takes to get a new product to market and to get a product license. And she can talk about quite a bit about licensing because that's her forte. Now, after seeing years of inventors kind of struggle with the difficult challenges, including that of finding funding Rito can can speak quite a bit on different options available for inventors, as they try to get their product to market.
01:19
And, again, it's a it's a pleasure reader to have you here. i It's an honor to have have someone like you helping inventors because as a patent attorney, we have the difficult task of getting the patent granted for an inventor. And it is a difficult task. But there's a set process and my law firm has a nine step process that we can follow kind of to a tee. But the stuff that you do is not that easy to compartmentalize into a set of set process, because it's very unique, it's oftentimes has to be customized different products require a different approach. So I always admire the hard work that it takes to get a product licensed and on the market, because that's a completely different skill set that from getting the patent office to grant a patent. So I want to start with like kind of your company, it understands the invention process and what it takes to bring a product to market.
02:22
There's no set, like single set of steps
02:26
for but there's got to be some general guidelines. So talk to us a little bit about that. What would you say? Is the is your process, even though it's a lot more fluid in the process of protecting an idea through legally getting a patent? Well, thanks, John, for having me, I appreciate it. And you're exactly right. The the patent process is kind of in its own silo when it comes to all the things that have got to be done. And there's times when you know that people are going through the patent process, there'll be doing other things simultaneously. But as the pendulum swings, and that's kind of what we look at is that, you know, all of the phases, we've got seven phases that we go through from I have an idea to get into the marketplace. And those are in the inventors Galaxy Guide, which is on my website. We're currently updating it because you know, things change. But somebody can go that download it, it's free. And just it's about a 30 minute read, and it kind of goes through the phases gives a price range on each phase. So that you know when somebody says oh, well, you know, I spent $50,000 on my patent, it's like find a different attorney, because it shouldn't be that much. And you know, especially when they're still going through the process it hasn't even issued yet. So, you know, there's just certain things that you know, that we look out when an inventor calls us as a licensing agent, I don't get paid till they get paid. So the sooner I can kind of get an inventor onto the right track, the better chance we have of being able to license the intellectual property. And
03:58
if I ask them, you know, a good licensee, a legitimate licensee is going to ask, you know, three or four questions right at the beginning. And if you don't have the right answers to all of them, they're done. It's over. So like I said, the sooner I can coach somebody to the right answers, and one of the first big ones is did you use a registered patent attorney to file the patent? And if they say no, conversation is pretty much over. And so that's one of the things that you know, early in the process, I always guide them. It's like, if you haven't started out with a registered patent attorney, you need to find a registered patent attorney because otherwise a licensee just can't you know, go down that road with someone that that filed pro se now there are other groups out there will say Oh, yes, you know, you can do it yourself. You can take an idea. No. Ideas are like belly buttons. Everybody's got one. It doesn't matter how cute yours is. I cannot sell it.
04:49
Yeah, I love that analogy. I would sometimes say you know, ideas are like, like a pretty cloud formation. Like just because
04:58
you can't sell that clouds.
05:00
formation because it's yours like, yeah, you happen to see it and but maybe there's other people that see it as well. Yeah, somehow gotta gotta capture it. But the belly button analogies when I, I haven't heard before, but I want that as well.
05:14
So yeah, everybody's got one
05:17
I've got an idea. And it's like that these are the steps and this is what you go through. So the first thing we always tell it doesn't matter what they're looking for licensing, or they really think they're startup mode
05:27
is to do as much looking around as they can build their own version of a prototype, duct tape and cardboard, Legos, I've seen some good ones out of Play Doh, and pipe cleaners, whatever to get a three dimensional image out of your head and into something that you can look at because you learn a lot. Alright, the first thing you pay money for is a patent search. That's the first thing you pay money for. So I'm glad you say that duct tape and cardboard and playdough. And these things are okay. Because as a patent attorney doing patent searches, there's nothing worse than having completed a search and having to deliver the bad news that an invention is not new. And then to find out that the inventor has put $5,000 into a professional prototype, they have this beautiful, basically reinvention of the wheel because somebody else has the patent, so
06:21
advising people to go out and produce a beautiful prototype first. No, that's, you know, that's it's a waste of money. And you know, in some of the questions you sent me, I'm gonna ahead of time, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, don't don't do that, you know, your first prototype is just what you can find stuck in the basement, you know, if you can go and bind by another version of it, and, you know, at a Walmart and then readjust it, but inexpensive, it should be inexpensive. There'll be time to pay for them, but not now. Got it. And that's a great trend transition to what I want to ask about next, because it's good, you're talking about and better saving money and doing a prototype informally. Because one of their biggest obstacles for inventors is is finding the funding, like at the beginning, a lot of them are putting in the time they're getting the knowledge. They're doing the research, but it's hard if they can't get past the funding obstacle. So tell me a little bit about your experience in helping with that. And how can inventors
07:22
pain funding, what types of funding it's not as much about finding the funding? It's about understanding funding options, you know, all good inventors that, you know, they want to go out the door and say, Oh, I'm going to do you know, a Kickstarter campaign? It's like, no, no, probably not. Those are nasty animals. And well, inventors have been successful. I've seen inventors who've raised a half a million dollars and been bankrupt in a week, because they didn't understand the financial consequences of a successful campaign. And that can, you know, that's devastating when you go into it. You know, there's a lot of those campaigns that are successful, but it's the third or fourth one that they've done. And they've learned the whole the hard lessons, and canceled the raise before it finalized and regrouped and started over. So the crowdfunding campaigns are really tough.
08:12
For you know, you've got to be patent pending before you can do that. You've got to have the sexy prototype before you can do that. Well, for goodness sakes, before you spend all that money and time and heartache on all of that stuff, go to a professional trade show, professional trade show, you need a proof of concept prototype and patent pending status. You can do that with a provisional, and then maybe rapid prototype, and go and see what kind of feedback you get from professionals, not from one of the inventors shows, that is a feeding frenzy. And the inventor is the main course. Alright, they need to be going to the show that is in their industry. I've been to the national asphalt show. That was a ton of fun, very small show. But the gentleman who was going the inventor who was going had a brilliant machine and they wanted to buy it right off the floor.
08:59
So you pick your show that is for your industry. Now we go to the national hardware show that's covers the most industries and it says hardware, but that's kind of a misnomer. It's anything and everything that you would think of that would be in your Home Depot, Target Bed, Bath and Beyond those big box stores, the big ace chains, true value people are there, people come shopping for products they want to license in our space. So if you've got any listeners out there and they wanted to go to the Show in January, they should give me a call. We are putting the team together now. It costs a lot less to go with us and you have staff who's got your back and other inventors it's a great team experience. So when you're thinking about you know those those early phases of money one of the things that irritates me the most is when an inventor gets the advice. Don't do a business plan. No, you don't have a business yet. Get a search done first. You know know whether or not you've got something to work with. There will come a time when
10:00
For a business plan if you go into startup mode, but if you want to do licensing, you may not ever need that big business plan, because you are an LLC, most likely, and you're just getting royalty checks. Yeah, so that's a lot of inventors, they don't really understand the process of working with manufacturers, distributors and marketing. And it's overwhelming to learn all of that. You have a couple of tools that I'd like maybe if you can spend a minute talking about the inventors Roundtable, the inventors desktop, the in the event vault, tell us a little bit about that, and how that might help inventors? Well, the inventors roundtable is meetings, virtual meetings that we have, we have virtual roundtable we have for the West, and then for the East. So you know, if you're west of the Mississippi, you're generally on the west side, and if you're east of the Mississippi or on the side, but not always, because you know, they're on different nights in different time zones. So if somebody can't make one, you can join the other. The conversation is always directed by the inventors who are attending. And a lot of times your best information comes from the inventor next to you on the screen.
11:08
So we've learned a learned a lot. The inventor, Vault is no longer, you know, our requirement, I think it still shows up on one of the websites, but it was for the virtual loading, so you could protect your information. But now with all of the you know, Google Drive, and you know, the OneDrive and all of that stuff, they've pretty much caught up to it, which is fine. It gives inventors a place where they can store their stuff, and then be able to log into it from any place. And so that's been a wonderful advancement of technology for inventors.
11:38
But I always encourage inventors to join a group. And if you've got if you're in a metropolitan area, a lot of times there will be an inventor group.
11:46
But if not certainly join one of the virtual groups, you know, the inventors roundtable has been going on for 15 years. And it's one of the things that we really look at to be able to answer questions for inventors. So it's free. Membership is free. We are one of the gold seal approved groups for the United inventors Association. I'm an ambassador,
12:07
several different levels of my organization or sponsors for the United inventors Association. But I think one of the big things for inventors early on is that they feel alone. And sometimes they you know, they have those knee jerk reactions to you know, oh, you know, I'm going to do this next. And I'm going to do this next. And then they find out that, like you said, you know, they may have, you know, gotten somebody to make them a really expensive prototype. And they didn't, they didn't need to do that yet.
12:33
One of our taglines for the inventors roundtable was, don't spend a dime until it's time.
12:40
And, you know, then when it's time you need to step up to the plate. But when you're looking at, you know, conserving those early dollars, it's really important because you're gonna need them on the back end of that. And, you know, so crowdfunding is tough if I've got to have somebody that says, No, I'm patent pending anyway. And I've got a sexy prototype that you have to have for crowdfunding, go to a professional trade show, you know, a good crowdfunding campaign takes six months to tee up. And then you've got to work it 24/7 for about six weeks. It's faster and cheaper to go to a trade show. And then I'll get people that want to ask about well, I'll get, you know, venture capital, no, no, probably not. Because with venture capital, you've got to go into that early stage manufacturing, and you've got to sold some and you do then need that business plan to prove that they're putting their money into something that's got some legs on it. Their preference is really those things that are not necessarily consumer products, but the techy stuff. So it's really tough for an inventor to go out there, even if they have done all the work.
13:44
Best thing or what we call the three F's, friends, families and other tools. I've seen some inventors do well with getting, you know other family members, because then they're not doing the deep dive into the product as much as they do believe in the inventor. They believe in their family member, their friend. There was a gentleman that was on one of the meetings he invented post a note man, wouldn't you have liked to have had that one in your arsenal.
14:09
But he's got partners and that specialize in different arenas, and they've helped him with his 39 other patents get into the marketplace. So sometimes that partner what you want to make sure then is that you you do have an attorney review the agreements, because the mistake I see inventors make is they give away too much for too little money. And so you need to think bigger numbers and be more careful. Right?
14:34
that you mentioned, like you had the word professional before trade show, I noticed that like go to a professional trade show. Can you talk about that distinction? And that may bring us into the next question and that's the scams that are out there. Targeting inventors and how to stay away from those but tell us what you mean by a professional trade show. How does an inventor tell when a trade shows a professional trade show or an
15:00
But the easiest way to tell is that it's not open to the public. You have to have credentials to get in.
15:06
Like the national hardware show you got to be
15:10
a store owner, you've got to be a manufacturer, you've got to be buying space. So inventors generally are going in as an exhibitor, it's tough to get an attendee badge to a professional show if you don't have any credentials. And it's the same thing with shows like SuperZoo, the AV kids, ABC Kids Expo, global pet, you know, men trade for the home health care product. The the shows are close to consumers just going in this is not a place where people go to buy things, they're not going to be buying products. In fact, a lot of the shows really frown on a cash and carry policy. The attendees are going to be your store owners, they're going to be the buyers for your Home Depot's and true values and the big box stores, sometimes for the little stores. But that's the way to tell. All right, and then you have to make sure that you've either got the right credentials, you cannot go in as attendee, and start trying to sell your product because you didn't pay the price to be there. And they will escort you out and blacklist you. So that doesn't mean that you shouldn't go or couldn't go as an attendee, it just means you need to be really, really careful in the way you approach someone because another exhibitor is going to be angry if you try to sell your product to them, when they paid to be there, and you didn't. So that's one of the things so you can, you know, sometimes the shows will allow us not an attendee to pay $250 for a badge. So again, it's not like those that are open locally. And that's one of the other ways to tell if it's a craft fair, that's not where you want to be. If it's the local Christmas show, that's not where you want to be, unless you've got inventory, the end selling ones and twos and maybe breaking even is where you want to go. You want to be able to go where the buyers are. So one of the ways is to look at the other attendees, are they you know, stores and production and that type of thing. And then the the attendees, you can call and ask who are the attendees? Well, it's limited to the buyers.
17:01
Okay, so shows to be careful of anything and everything that says are dedicated to and mentors, Ron Ron Ron, it's a feeding frenzy. And the majority of the companies that are trying to sell you services,
17:14
it doesn't matter how expensive the suit is, the shark will still eat you. And so when I say it's a feeding frenzy, keep that in mind. Now, there's going to be other people out there that are gonna say shame on me, because I said that, but that is the truth. If it's, you know, a licensing show, or an inventor show or anything like that, it's not worth the money. It doesn't mean you couldn't learn anything if you've got unlimited funds. But you know what, an inventor doesn't come to me and say, Oh, I've got a million dollars to waste on this, can you help me, they're very frugal, they have to be because we've got to get to the, you know, we got to get to the goal line, be able to be able to do this. So I always advise them be frugal with your money. And that means pick the shows carefully.
17:57
So I mean, one thing that's almost too good, you know what they say about something being too good to be true.
18:04
It's very enticing for inventors to try to find a one shop, a one stop shop, meaning one company that can get them to patent, find them the licensee prepare the prototype.
18:18
And do it all, it takes the burden off of the inventor, it makes it seems seem to take the burden off of the inventor because they can go and put their trust in this one company to handle all the difficult parts of the invention process. Is there a such thing as a as a viable one stop shop that you found?
18:39
Not a single one. And one of the things that inventor can do is look up under you know, simple Wikipedia search, invention promotion company, if they take money upfront, they are an invention promotion company, their success rate is less than point 1%. Because they made their money on you, the inventor, they don't need to get it to market because they charge you upfront if anybody's charging you that way. All right. You know, there are service providers, all right, attorneys, accountants, engineers that are going to say this is what it's going to be this is the you know, the ballpark, you know, you have variations in there. But you know, you know what it's going to be I can't promise a licensing deal any better than one of the invention promotion companies. I don't charge upfront.
19:28
Alright, I can't promise a deal. I get paid when the inventor gets paid. All right, they don't do that. So if you're dealing with someone that says, Oh, we can you know, get your patent. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen a really bad idea that in vendor paid $10,000 For and all they have is patent pending status and virtual drawings. I can't license that Danny buddy and a legitimate licensee they know when they say who is your registered patent attorney if they recognize any of those names. conversation is over.
20:00
Yeah, so that's just like any type of due diligence, when somebody goes to buy a house, like the bank will require a home inspector to really check out the home to see if their collateral is protecting the bank. Like, is the foundation good? Is the roof gonna hold up or the wall was fine? Does it have termites? I think what inventors need to understand is that evaluating patents is the same way, especially patent pending, because patent pending by itself doesn't doesn't denote any level of quality. It just means a patent has been filed. Before anybody invests they want to see what was filed. And they also want to see who filed it? Like was it written? Or was it written by an attorney? And was it written by an attorney that has a reputation for filing quality applications? Exactly, exactly right. I had a journal one time says no, no, I use your registered patent attorney sent me a copy of it. I circled the words for the attorney filled in the template and sent it back to him. He goes, How did you know and I said, you know, because everything else was so generic. And I can see where the words and filled in if I can see that a judge can see that and you will be thrown out of court. It's like a good patent is a work of art. All right, it is a unique Monet. Everyone is is a piece of art that stands alone. All right, you can't fill in the blanks is not a paint by number. It is a unique piece of work. And a lot of inventors don't realize that they figure you know, oh, just fill in the blanks. It's like, you know, really, would you you know, have a brain surgeon do a heart transplant for you probably not, you know,
21:40
person to do the right job. So, I mean, the internet's been a phenomenal, like blessing in a lot of ways. But it's also, I think, gives a false sense of
21:53
security in people being able to do things themselves. So I think that perhaps I've seen in my practice, the fact that there's companies that have forums, where you can fill in information about your idea, and it seems like oh, this is not all that difficult, gives a false sense of security. And just because something is, can be done by your, a non professional doesn't mean it should I often say, mentioned that I saw a book, this was years and years ago, and I wish I had taken a picture of it, it was how to pack your own parachute, and
22:27
a long book with pictures and diagrams, and I'm sure it was well written. But that's not something I myself would be comfortable with doing from a book, I would want a professional to do it. I had a client once that had a better analogy, they said I can, you know, a wax my own plane. But if it comes time to change the propeller, I'm gonna bring it into somebody that done it before. That's a professional. Yeah, exactly. It's like the one the one I use, it's like, you know, would you do your own brain surgery, by the time you realize you've made a mistake, it's too late to fix it, and you're toast. So, you know, there's, you know, a lot of times inventors don't get it until, you know, they've done some of their own work and gotten slammed a couple of times. And it's like, you know, sometimes we can fix things. And sometimes we can't, you know, when they call me and say, you know, I'm out of money, and I need help, and it's like, I'm sorry, you know, I, there's certain things that need to be put in place. And, and I don't fund it. All right, I can help get to the next step. But like going to a show, you know, the national hardware Show, everybody helps pay a piece of that. So we take you know, the first 25 inventors who call us and say, you know, hey, I want to go as part of your team. And then everybody pays a smaller piece than they would alone. But now they've got a team behind them.
23:44
But I'll get inventors that you know, it's like well, I did my own patent, we had a gentleman years ago. And he he filed his own patent. And it was a product that the idea was very interesting. But by the time you know when it issued, and by the time he realized that it was so narrow, which is the mistaken inventor often makes when they do their own is they don't know how to bump up against the other intellectual property that's out there. They write they see what it is they write what it is, and it's too narrow. They don't understand the artistry to it. And you know, then they used his original filing against him when he tried to file again.
24:15
I was like, but the original one is mine, and it's considered prior art. So, you know, don't don't do that he would have been better off just biting the bullet and having a registered patent attorney do the first one. So that's a big shock to a lot of inventors that their own patent that's granted can be used against them. So there's nothing even if even a registered patent attorney like myself, if an inventor has a self filed patent that becomes published or granted as a patent. I cannot file anything for them.
24:48
Without that being cited against them as prior art. So that was a huge burden on them for overcoming their own invention and they come and they feel like wait a minute, it's unfair. How can you
25:00
I reject me over my own idea. But it's that's what the law is. It's a prior art. And even though it's an idea, it can be used against you. What a lot of people don't realize is that when the the patents are putting them into the database, at the USPTO, they're not put in with any kind of
25:24
details about the inventor. All right, it is based solely on the topic and the idea. So when they go back in and look for a product that has already had a patent filed on it, and it was yours, they don't really care that it was yours. All they care about is it's out there. And it's part of the public domain. And no, they're not going to let you file an improvement on it, if you're outside of the proper timeframe. Got it? Got it. So I want to, I want to reserve a couple minutes at the end to ask more about yourself. But one last question. And when you mentioned at the beginning Kickstarter campaigns, like, say, an inventor, and something that might confuse a lot of people is how can an inventor raise $500,000 in a successful Kickstarter campaign, and then go bankrupt? So like that, they're saying, Well, wait a minute, that's that doesn't make sense. So can you explain that and say, an inventor starts a campaign, and they get overwhelmed by this amazingly positive response, and a lot of money comes in, what should be their next step. So talk a little bit about both of those scenarios. The quandary, the problem is, is that they don't understand the budgeting, when they go into it. So they go into, Alright, I'm gonna have to pay this much for the platform to use the platform and this much for the payment processor. So there's, you know, eight to 10% is just gone immediately. And those folks will take their money before they give you anything, so they take it. Alright. So that means, then, if you start the campaign, and this is where a lot of times, it comes back to haunt the inventors, if they start the campaign, and it's not doing very well, they go out and they hire a marketing company, well, that marketing company is going to take somewhere between 10 and 20%. Right off the top will if your budget then has been based on a certain number for the manufacturing, and that's what people are paying for. All right, now you've got an additional expense you hadn't expected in the beginning. And so that's got to be paid upfront. Well, now you're still obligated to fill those orders. And if it was based on, you know, $9 a unit, and now you only have 750, a unit, the rest of that's coming out of your pocket. And depending on how many were sold. So if you've got, you know, a campaign that and this was what I saw some of these guys do is that their target was 120,000. Well, they hit 500,000. That means they had sold a lot of units, and they had to then be able to manufacture and ship all the units that they had promised, even though the money had been taken out of their account before they received any of it. And for inventors who knew they have hard costs, I mean, the products are already on, we used to say a slow boat from China. But they're already shipped or they're in a warehouse here in the States. So they have exact cost, then they know the numbers to play with, if they plan on hiring a marketing company ahead of time. All right, now they can adjust the numbers before they launch the campaign. So it's the marketing companies that you see that make the biggest difference in a successful campaign or a failure. Because you have to create the crowd. This is not one of those things where you know, if you post it, they will come they don't know you're there. All right. So the marketing campaign, they've got to buy into it, they've got to be the ones that are frequently setting up the page and, and the launch and getting ready for it. They find the followers that want the product. And so when I tell an inventor, it's like, you've got to bring the crowd to the campaign before you launch it. Well, a lot of them, they don't know how to do that, especially if they're older. And you know, social media is not their big thing. If they're working to, you know, fund this, this hobby they've got, they're not going to have time to go out and grab the crowds. So they hire a marketing firm. Well, if you're able then to price the product based on hiring the marketing firm, now you've got a shot at now you've got you know, a chance to do it. But hard numbers prior to launch are critical.
29:15
Okay, so we're almost out of time I want to talk about about you now and how you ended up getting this level of understanding on all the different aspects of licensing and bringing the product to market. And then one thing that I always find interesting, like, I get asked all the time, like how are you branded as the patent professor, and that's in my case, that's what I was an adjunct professor at NOVA law school and known as the patent professor, and then in my practice, the name just carried. But tell us about your background. And then I'm very curious about the inventor lady and how that ended up becoming your your brand. Oh, many, many years ago, over 15 years ago, I met a gentleman dressed in the clouds
30:00
food at a Denver Metro Chamber event. And he reached out to the aisle aisle and grabbed me. And we chatted a little bit and everything super nice guy X rocket scientists. I knew him until he passed away. But he convinced me to go to an inventor meeting because we were a service provider. And so I went and, you know, much to everyone's surprise, I sat there and I was quiet for a long time. And I rode all over the state with three
30:26
senior inventors engineers that had multiple products in the marketplace. And I learned from them, and one of them was a licensing agent took me under his wing. One of them was a patent attorney, one of them was an engineer. And they all had products in the marketplace. So I listened. And then they sold me the licensing business a few years later. So I learned I learned from the best and traveled all over talk to a lot of people well, they complained about the this these InVenture meetings that we were going to, you know, in the old days, we did it like this. And you know, we used to do it like this, and we never charged this much money. And I go gentlemen, this is not rocket science. And I was, you know, kind of poking fun at them, because they were all X rocket scientists. Let's just start our own group. And it's like, oh, my god, there was just silence in the car. You know, and I promised them that we would never charge for our meetings, and we never have, they have all passed on. So you know, we've we've kept that promise to them, otherwise, they are going to haunt me in my sleep. But that was the beginning of the inventors roundtable. And now we reached out all across the country, and we do not charge. You can find guest speakers in a lot of different places. We have open conversation for the inventor so they can ask questions. They can get information and resources. And I was down at the Denver Metro Chamber one day and you know, at the front desk, and a gentleman walked up to me, he goes, I know you You're that in better ladies. Like, it works for me. And I went back to my desk and in better lady.com was available. And here we go. The rest is history is the rest is history. Yep. So. Okay, so Gabby's, our moderator, if you want to quick, is it the inventor lady.com. No, just in general lady down. So again, he put that in the chat. And then also for any of our viewers, if you don't have a copy of my book, escaping the gray, I talk about
32:16
the challenges that inventors have, and the importance of them getting outside their comfort zone. Gabby, if you can put either your email address or crystals and anybody that emails with an address, like that won't charge anything, I'll go ahead and send out a copy of, of my book escaping the gray. And for more information, of course, go to the inventor lady.com. If you are interested in in having your product shown at a trade show, the national hardware show is is a Big Show in January.
32:47
Reed is going to be going to the event. Rita is the inventor, Lady but everyone gets you get called the inventor lady a lot more than your first name sometimes. Well, I do and at the hardware show. We had a gentleman there a couple of years ago and his wife came in after him and she goes, where are you in? And he goes, I'm at the national hardware show. And she goes You told me you weren't the veteran lady show. She was every time I google National Arbor show and veteran lady comes up and he goes well, I'm in her booth. And she goes, You could have started with that. So yes, we are well known at the hardware show. We've got 600 square feet right in the front. So should be a great show fans. Yeah. And the time if you're interested the time is now January might seem like you've got plenty of time. But you don't you need to get get there. Actually, they have us posting products now. So we are actually posting in the first inventors to say I want to go with her. They're the ones that get their products up there first and for the longest. Oh, terrific. So once again, thank you, everybody. Thank you Rita. It's an honor to have you here. Happy Friday. And if you want a you know if you've missed this or you caught the end, we're going to have a replay in the inventors mastermind, my Facebook group. Gabby, you can put a post to that as well. In the chat and I anyone that wants a copy of escaping the gray certainly email Gabby at the address and we'll be able to send that out to you. Thank you Rita. Thank you