| In The News
Inventors' Roundtable a Haven for Creatives
June 9, 2006
 Rita Hamburg, a graphic designer and owner of RitaDesign Inc. in Denver, is the inventor of Zip-Zac™, a towel with a zippered pocket. Hamburg said she came to the roundtable for help with such things as marketing, contracts, trademarking, licensing and importing. She said she got help with all her questions, though not all of them were answered by the experts. "It's a great place for networking," she said. "It was all uncharted territory for me. I got a lot of help from the other inventors who had been through it. I got names of companies that people had used, I got leads on who to sell my product to." Hamburg said her product will be available by this October.
There are questions every step of the way, and taking a wrong step can be costly. Rita Crompton said that's why she created the Inventors' Roundtable, a free-to-inventors monthly meeting that brings them together with experts in the field -- attorneys, licensing agents, engineers, bankers and consultants -- so that the creators can ask questions before they spend their money. The first roundtable was in February, and there have been three more; the May 11 meeting drew 68 people.
Crompton teamed with the Small Business Development Center and Warren Roh, a licensing agent at Littleton-based The Idea Place LLC, to create the roundtable. Crompton is managing director of FLeCusa International, an Aurora-based consulting company that provides inventors and small businesses with financial and legal help. Crompton said she can offer the roundtable for free because she keeps the costs down by renting an inexpensive site (Brooklyn's by Invesco Field for $25) and by asking experts to donate their time. She said the goal is to treat people's inventions like a business. The motto is, "Don't spend a dime before its time." "First we ask what their product is, and then if anyone would buy it," she said. "And then we help them figure out the appropriate next step." Crompton said the first thing they do with new inventors is teach them how to do market research (and if one wants a deeper market report, they can hire a consulting company such as hers). Next, she said, the inventor needs to build a prototype. Then, they can get help from the roundtable's patent experts on protecting their idea.
After that, Crompton said, there are different steps inventors can take:
- They may have to prove their invention works if they haven't done so prior to attending the roundtable.
- They might need to find funding.
- They may have to create a brand identity.
- They might need help with marketing.
Crompton and Roh also set up a Web site (www.inventorsroundtable.com) where inventors can post their ideas, and angels or venture capitalists can search for inventions to back. The site also offers a forum so that inventors can ask questions of expert, and a library of resource articles with titles such as, "Writing an Effective Business Plan," "Marketing Tools" and "Government Grant Guidelines."
Roundtable meetings are held in Denver the second Tuesday of every month.
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