Idea Mensch » New York City

Brian Fried – Inventor, Author and Radio Host

mario — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:29:07 +0000

Brian always has had a passion for coming up with new ideas. To date, he holds four patented inventions and has an additional three that are patent pending under his company, Think Up Designs. Brian’s inventions were brought to market through manufacturing, as he has appeared on QVC and also has done licensing for retail distribution products from kids toys and infant products to kitchen gadgets. Another specialty of his is to create and license brand art properties that target the teen/tween market. His brands have been placed in several retail chains such as Target, and other well known retailers in the U.S. and Canada.

In 2007, Brian, with support of Suffolk County, New York, Executive Steve Levy, founded the Inventors and Entrepreneur Club of Suffolk County. For the past three years Brian has served on the Board of Directors for the New York Society of Professional Inventors.

Since 2006, Brian has volunteered his time lecturing throughout many Long Island public libraries, various school districts, inventors groups, small business administrations and other groups on the subject of inventing. It was through these experiences that Brian began to recognize that there was a great need for solid information and guidance. This was the inspiration for his recently published book, “You and Your Big Ideas.” Proceeds from his book sales are donated to various charities.

Brian also started a live weekly radio show for inventors called Got Invention Radio, and has recently partnered up with Inventors Digest to host expert guests and resources for inventors.

Brian is from Melville, New York, and is 36 years old. He is married to his wife, Lisa, and has an 8-year-old daughter named Alana.

What are you working on right now?

I am working on a project called Inventor Relations that will be a portal for inventors to gather all the necessary information to help them bring their ideas to the next level and beyond — from the thought of their idea to seeing it out there — whether helping them to manufacture their product or products on their own or through licensees.

3 Trends that excite you?

1. I see more and more companies looking for new, fresh and exciting ideas from inventors.

2. I see more and more people looking to persue their ideas because of today’s economy, and they want to set themselves up to have residual income or start their new business.

3. I see more and more people needing great information to help them with their ideas, and that excites me to host the radio show, Got Invention Radio.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I quickly write my idea down to capture my thought. Then I do a quick search on the major search engines to see if it already exists.

I make a great prototype, get some patent protection and explore the options of manufacturing or licensing. I also keep exploring my options and getting the word out by going to trade shows related to my product and connecting with media resources. I keep exploring options until I make that connection that will bring my product to market.

What is one mistake you’ve made that our readers can learn from?

I have many mistakes that I learned from, but I have to say one major one is that you have to talk about your idea and connect with resources to get somewhere with your idea. Too many inventors don’t want to talk to anyone about their ideas. That was me, but not any more. Get some protection on your idea and talk about it!

What is one book and one tool that helps you bring ideas to life?

Can I mention my book? “You & Your Big Ideas” was written by me in order to help inventors. It’s all about you and your big ideas! I wrote it so people can have a resource guide that takes them through a step-by-step system, while giving them great tips and resources to save them time and money.

I also like books by Don Debelak. He has some great information that has helped me as well.

What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Go to the store and then to the section that you see your product being sold at. Then look at the products that are there. Write down the company names that have a similar product to yours, and then go home and do research on that company, and call them to ask if they are interested in looking at your idea. You can find a partner that already has manufacturing and distribution, otherwise known as a licensee, and get a small percentage of a bigger opportunity, with little or no risk financially.

What’s next for you?

I would love to host a TV show for inventors. I was asked by inventors to work on a solid show, just like Got Invention Radio, interviewing top experts and resources.

How do you feel about inventing?

It definitely has its ups and downs both emotionally and financially, but it’s a passion of mine to find solutions to things that I can see being done differently or made easier. It’s just the most amazing experience to see your product out there for someone to buy and use it for the same reason that I came up with it.

Connect with Brian Fried:

You can find Brian Fried at Got Invention Radio every Thursday night live at 8 p.m. EST. He also is on Facebook and Twitter at Got Invention Radio, or you can e-mail him at Brian@gotinvention.com.

Lawrence Chernin – Founder of BrainiacDating.com

mario — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:33:19 +0000

Lawrence Chernin is the founder of BrainiacDating.com – a website for out of the box singles and several intelligence themed singles groups with thousands of members across the US and Canada. His favorite slogan is “it’s sexy to be smart” and his message is to encourage singles to think and be creative.

However, his background is a hundred and eighty degrees different from anything to do with relationships! Lawrence has over thirteen years of experience as a chip designer in Silicon Valley and has worked in different roles from manager and architect for several large and well as startup companies.

Prior to that he was an astrophysics researcher at U.C. Berkeley where he published over thirty-five articles on the subject of the formation of stars. So he brings a unique set of scientific skills to dating and relationships – which is all about chemistry anyway.

What are you working on right now?

1. Thinking about what’s wrong with Facebook and how to build something that is more conducive to finding meaningful relationships.

2. Writing a book about “Brainiac Dating” with the subtitle something like “If I am so smart, then why am I still single?” It is a humorous look at dating in the 21st century.

3 Trends that excite you?

1. The new concept of “friends” and how easy it has come to build social networks on Twitter and Facebook for example.

2. Cheaper and more powerful gadgets like the iPad.

3. Online advertising which is available to the small business for dollars a day instead of having to lay out thousands for traditional types of advertising, and being able to assess advertising effectiveness in real time.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I write them down on paper and have a notebook full of ideas. Then I talk them over with close friends and they help me reject 99.9% of them. I don’t throw away anything because things may change… they do. Always need to stay dynamic and moving.

What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?

Thinking that if I built a perfect website that people would find it on their own. Yes perhaps they would, but you need to establish critical momentum and that feeds on itself. There are millions of new websites created each day. Do not forget about creating a plan to get the word out effectively.

What is one book and one tool that helps you bring ideas to life?

I do my own programming. So my piece of software is the web browser, server, linux, the php language and other key web components like CSS, javascript mysql, and HTML.

What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Build a better video dating site. Though youtube is immensely popular, most singles online don’t have a clue how to make a video of themselves and put it online. A key issue is that video files are huge and hard to edit. Even a small video of a few MB would be such a huge enhancement for a dating site. I had and option for users to upload videos on my site and almost no one used it.

However many people embedded links to their favorite cat videos. Perhaps put video dating booths in shopping malls…

Is building another dating site the best use of your skill set? There are thousands of sites out there, why create another one.

No, actually this is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. My site, http://BrainiacDating.com already has over 20,000 members and is bigger than 99.9% of the other dating sites out there. I used many of the major sites when I was single and struggled with them. I didn’t feel that there was anything where intelligence really counted except when it came to comparing resumes – and I didn’t think that was a good basis for building a relationship.

When I started the Brainiac Dating project I was single, and this led to me meeting my girlfriend!

If you could be doing anything you like what would it be?

Ah, I’d still be doing astrophysics research. But having done a variety of other different things it makes me appreciate the little or in this case infinite even more.

Connect:

Brainiac Dating (20,600 members)

Brainiac Dating on Twitter
Lawrence Chernin on Facebook profile

Singles Groups that I founded on meetup:

New York City: http://www.meetup.com/nycbrainiacsingles (2334 members)
San Francisco: http://www.meetup.com/sfbrainiacsingles/ (1227 members)
Los Angeles: http://www.meetup.com/la-smart-singles (947 members)
Vancouver: http://www.meetup.com/smartsinglesvancouver/ (843 members)

Boston: http://www.meetup.com/BostonBrainiacs/ (110 members) – New!

Let me know if you’d like me to help you start a similar group in your area.

Molly Crabapple – Founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School

mario — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:15:10 +0000

Molly Crabapple is an award-winning artist, author, and the founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. Molly learned to draw in a Parisian bookstore. She later drew her way through Morocco and Kurdistan, and once into a Turkish jail. She’s developed her trademark Victorian style based on a fascination with ambition and artifice. Remember, the devil’s in the details.

Molly has drawn for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Marvel Comics, and DC Comics, and has illustrated over a dozen books. She’s also turned her talents into giant theatrical backdrops, parade installations, burlesque posters, and gallery shows around the world. Molly is also the creator of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, an international chain of alternative drawing salons that take place in over a hundred cities on five continents. A business case study and a media darling, Dr. Sketchy’s has received hundreds of media profiles and changed the way life drawing is done.

Molly and her projects have been covered in the New York Times, LA Times, New York Post, Village Voice, La Repubblica, BUST, HEEB, Venus, HOW Design, Playboy, SF Chronicle, Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age, BBC Radio, AP Wire, NPR, and hundreds of other media outlets around the world. Molly lectures internationally, at places like the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, South by Southwest Interactive, and Pixel Design Fair in Sao Paulo.

What are you working on right now?

I’m slaving away drawing curlicues for The Puppet Makers, a webcomics series for DC Comics created by me and John Leavitt. The Puppet Makers is a murder-mystery set in an alternate historical Versailles. Think Blade Runner meets Dangerous Liasons.

3 Trends that excite you?

I’m obsessed with the flashmobby, wish-fulfillment immediacy of Twitter. I love magazines like Coilhouse that are showing how print, as print, can be done right. And artists smashing the high/low divide never cease to thrill me

How do you bring ideas to life?

I just do things. The time one spends talking about a project is better spent doing that project

What is one mistake that you made, and what did you learn from it?

When I first started out, the taste of being young and powerless was so fresh in my mind that I tried to do EVERY opportunity. Everything! What a fantastic way to burn yourself out. I’ve learned to be more selective over the years, but I still have to train myself to focus more on the big picture and less on the details.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

The worst thing an organization can have is the useless Higher Up. The vice president of muckety muck who collects a fat salary and deliberately avoids decisions. These people will kill the spirit of innovation in your company, frustrate talented employees, and will make freelance innovators and creatives not want to work with you.

What can you recommend to young artists who dream of making art their livelihood?

Be these three things to a large degree: persistent, opportunistic, motivated. Art is a brutally competitive field; you have to work hard to make a go at it. If you have trouble staying motivated to do art, it’s better you do it as a hobby than a profession.

If you had to put everything you do right now in a drawer and do something else, what would it be?

Middle Eastern studies student. I spent years learning Arabic, and damn have I forgotten it.

Connect

+Artist

http://www.mollycrabapple.com

+Founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School

alt. life drawing in 100 cities

http://www.drsketchy.com

+follow me on twitter

http://www.twitter.com/mollycrabapple