In 2012, a chance meeting, set the stage for the launch of the best invention company in America. It was a meeting between myself and a product design engineer named Andrew Bojie.

Six years earlier, Andrew founded All Product Design, a consumer product design and engineering firm. They specialized in working with Walmart suppliers near Walmart’s world headquarters, in Bentonville Arkansas. Eventually, “APD” began hearing from freelance inventors, looking for help with their product concepts.

Dozens of APD product designs could be found on the shelves of Walmart, Sam’s Club, Target, PetSmart, Petco and many others. Unfortunately, Andrew never found any of the products make it to retail, that they engineered for inventors. That was very troubling.

By contrast, my background was in vetting product concepts and taking them to market. So, not surprisingly, our conversation soon turned to the possibility of launching an invention service. But I wasn’t interested in the challenge of overcoming the negative reputation of the invention industry, renown for being predatory.

Andrew was relentless. He suggested that we start an invention company, but not one based on collecting fees. If we were going to do it, we would strive from day-one to be the best invention company in America.

We discussed many aspects of this idea, including the irony of NW Arkansas’s unique demographic. You see, NW Arkansas is the world headquarters of Walmart Stores and Sam’s Club. And as a result of their insatiable hunger for merchandise to feed their half-trillion dollar per-year business, more than 1500 of their largest suppliers, maintain offices here also.

Ironically, every one of those suppliers realize “innovation” is the key to keeping their brand relevant. They also realize that “regular folks” (often their customers), routinely come up with incredible ideas for new products, (and here’s the irony) yet almost none of these companies will ever return a phone call to an independent inventor.

In our opinion, what NW Arkansas (and the rest of America) really needed, was a really good and honest invention service. So we decided to create one.

Getting started

Our first step was to assemble our team of consumer-product engineers, designers, retail and consumer goods experts. Fortunately, we knew just the right people to help us. And they were eager to harness the creative power of the American consumer and use it to create a steady stream of innovative products.

We were committed to helping inventors commercialize their innovations without wasting their life’s savings. We were also determined to avoid competing with the consumer goods and retail industry. That is why we do not take products to market ourselves. Instead, we license our inventor-collaborations to existing brands – those determined to remain relevant in a fast changing world.

Our mission was to become America’s innovation exchange and depository. And we knew the key to our future success would require an unrelenting focus on ethics.

Now, over a decade later, we have accomplished our mission, AND without receiving ANY complaints from CPGs (consumer packaged goods companies), retailers, or our inventor-clients and partners. This is due to our steadfast commitment to ethics and an honest assessments of each and every innovation submission. The result has saved inventors untold millions of dollars – funds may have otherwise wasted in futile attempts to develop commercially non-viable products.

Bottom-line? …. If we intend to remain the best invention company in America, “Honesty” IS and always will be, the best policy.

Larry Robertson
Co-founder and CEO