Genetically Inventive

With the exception of just a few, everyone on my dad's side of the family are entrepeneurs in almost every sense of the word. Im very proud of this. I cant exactly put my finger on it, but the fact that my family is innovative enough, creative enough, smart enough, determined enough, confident enough to all make a decent living all on their own, with no help from "the man", gives me great pride.

I come from a long line of business owners and inventors. Im sure the line starts much farther back because I hear stories about so and so coming and settling and what they have done, mostly Agriculture. My Great Grandpa acquired a impressive portion of land and made a lot of money off of it. He divided the land and money amongst his kids. My grandpa getting a good chunk, I am not sure of the amount. Enough so that he wouldnt have to work another day in his life if he just held on to it. That wasnt in him though

My grandpa was born and raised in my state, he was a farmer, a rancher, a landlord, a business owner x 30. He wasnt very smart, and he had a lot of personal demons. He was an alcoholic, he was not a very good father or husband. He was very eccentric, one might say that is a requirement to be successful all on your own, to create something from nothing, hell, it might be the most important ingredient.

There are a lot of things my grandpa did in his life that im not very proud of, but he was an inspiration to everyone, he was a good man, he was honest, respectful, generous, full of heart. One of those men, you might not agree with all that he does, but you just cant help but love him to pieces. He had an innocence about him.

With his inheritance he invested in some shitty property in the big O. He bacame a slumlord, to be expected really, he was a slob himself. It wasnt his intention to "screw" his tenants, he just honest to goodness thought they were too demanding, and the property was just fine, they were greedy. He mad a lot of money from that, eventually he kicked everyone out and let the property completly fall apart. The buildings are still there, all boarded up and condemned. He tried many many business ideas. His number one goal was simplicity. He always had easy money in mind when he started them up. If he wasnt so drunk all the time, who knows, they really could have taken off. First was the Lemon Lot. He lendt sections of his land for people to park their cars with for sale signs, he bought many shitty cars to park himself, they would get sold and hed pocket all of it if it was his car, and if it wasnt his car, he would collect a percentage of the sale as payment for the borrowed land. This was really quite brilliant, instead of charging a fee for someone to use the land the deal was that if the car didnt get sold the owner didnt pay anything, payment wasnt due until the car was sold and he would get 25%. This was great bc lots of people who are trying to sell old shitty cars dont have any money to put up front so lots of people took the bait.

Considering he never invested any money into any of his business' and that he thought advertising was a waste of money...its quite amazing a lot of his endeavors did so well. Hed slap some paint on a piece of particle board and stake it to the front yard and VOILA, he had a business...

He was very crafty, and very tight with money, he would pinch every penny, he was the man that told me "rat hole your money, and never tell anyone where your rat hole is..."...Some how he acquired a shit load of free glass, a shitload of tempered and plate glass. It all ended up in his yard, he no doubt saved it from being destroyed. One day he was out on his porch concocting his latest business model, wondering what the fuck he was going to do with all that glass. He decided he was going to open up a green house. Yup, he was gonna build a green house with that glass and put a bunch of plants in there to sell to people.

So he began. He cleaned up all the glass, sorted it out by size and type, drew his plans out on paper, did a little dirt work, bought minimal framing, I dont know what he used for framing exactly, but it was very unconventional, im pretty sure he just welded some angle iron together. He built this green house. It was a huge monstrosity of a green house. It was constructed of nothing but iron and glass, some like 96 percent of the structure was glass.

He didnt know what kind of attention it would get. People started pulling up to his house and asking him about it. People came up to take pictures. Soon the newspapers were there, and he was interviewed by AGRR, a picture of him standing next to this glass builiding in the leading glass business magazine. People wondered why? They couldnt believe this old fool built this amazing structure out of glass for no reason. He was embarassed to say anything about a green house, so he quickly changed his mind, he was going to use this as a hook. If people were so impressed by what he could build out of glass, it made the most sense for this to be the start of a glass business. VOILA!

Business number 28, started when he was in his 40's. He started a glass company that he ran out of his glass business. He collected an inventory and started out just cutting table tops and whatever else, then he started getting into auto glass, very lucrative. Then people started asking him about home windows. Sure, why not.

At this time my dad just got out of 90 days of rehab for alcoholism, and him and my mom were on the verge of divorce and living in seperate states, I was 4. My grandpa called my dad and told him about the Glass business. Said how shocked he was how great it was doing "People are really into this, Im getting $500.00 to replace windshields and they are only costing me $50.00, takes me 2 hours max....I want you to move to this place, there isnt a glass shop in 200 miles...I want you to rent a building and put a sign up and wait...the money will be rolling in"...

My dad was pretty skeptical, but at the time he was pumping gas for Chevron, he was willing to try anything. So he did. He moved to this podunky town and rented a building and put up a sign and bought some glass. My grandpa went down there to train him a bit. Grandpa left and my dad had this business, he had no money to live on, he was sleeping on the glass table and washing himself out of the sink in the bathroom. He started talking to people and acuquired a big sign. Soon people started trickling in, mostly out of curiousity. "Whos this guy?" sort of thing. Dad was real friendly...It started to take off just like grandpa said. My dad had built up enough money to rent a little house. Had some jobs booked up.

So then he called my mom, told her everything. He was here, he started this business, it was doing really well, he is renting a house he is sober...and he begged her to come back to him. She said she would think about it. Being the driven man my dad it is, he drove 4 states away to go pick her up and his babies. At the time my brother was like 9 and I was about 4. My mom couldnt refuse when he just showed up...So we all went with him...

Shortly after the shop opened my dad and his brother became partners. For a long time we had 3 thriving glass shops in my state.

A few years into business. My dad realized the repair side of auto glass was lacking. Rock Chip and Crack repair. The tools that were available to him were flawed and lacking. My uncle and dad created a new way to perfrom windshield repair. They created the tools using parts and widgets they got from McMaster Carr. Using grommets, hose, medical syringes, suction cups, and plexi pedestals, they made the best damn windshield repair kit ever. They patented it, named it, marketed it, and sold the kits.

Had they had a second chance, they probably would have sold the patent or rented it to someone else to use and mass produce it. It was expensive for them to produce themselves. Each kit cost them about 100 dollars and they were selling it and the instruction videos for $500.00. They made a good chunk of money off of it, but the were lacking time to dedicate to it. Sales dropped and they wernt hurt by it bc business was doing great. It was all just sort of forgotten. They didnt really have the time for it anyway, and were actually a bit relieved, I think theyd bitton off more than they could chew. They were a 2 man team running to shops working 18 hours a day and on top of it they were supose to spend their free time building and selling these kits? Nah...

That was the first invention my uncle and my dad created together. It still makes money, its quite shocking really, considering the damn thing hasnt been marketed, and it was never given a real effort. There are about 10,000 kits that were sold and about 1,000 still call us for refills. I still get phone calls about once a week from people who need more resin, or a new pedestal, or grommet, or even just a new complete kit. They are people from all over the country. I send out packages to Alabama, California, New York and everywhere inbetween. Any success from the kit has been from word of mouth in the industry. Its still the best kit around. But its an expensive one. It wasnt our million dollar idea, but I think it could have been if it were handled differently.

There have been 3 other patents that my dad has made. Him and I talk about inventing and are always bouncing ideas off of eachother. He tells me, "there are a gazillion people out there with good ideas, but good isnt enough, it needs to be something so butt simple you cant believe it hasnt been invented yet. Its important that is is cheap to produce, the demographic needs to be large, and demand high. profit profit profit."...

All of these lectures were just rustled up again because my uncle made another invention. Its his second in the gun industry. My dad is a little sore because my uncle didnt include him in this one. Its an unspoken rule but they have always invented things together. My dad didnt know anything about this one. However my uncle invited him to pittsburgh to meet with the investor. I think its more for moral support than anything else. So my dad and uncle are in pittsburgh and the plan is to rent the patent out to this guy who works for a major gun brand. They are gonna rent it out for a percentage of whatever he makes off of it. When he is done, they get the patent back...Thats the plan anyway, and based on their experience, its what they have always desired to do. For them its what would work best. My dad is trying hard not to be sore, but its getting under his skin that this is prolly the best invention the family has ever had and my uncle is gonna reap all the profit. Of course he isnt mad at his brother or anything, he couldnt be happier for him but he just has a bit of that "wish it was me" syndrome.

I am excited to hear how it all went. Im excited that my dad got to go to pittsburgh, atleast its a nice little mini getaway.

My dad thinks that inventing something is one of the only ways a regular person can make big money in a timely manner. So growing up we always were talking about inventions. Along with politics and current events at holidays we talk about everyones latest ideas.

Sometimes its the most in your face adjustments you make to something that is your million dollar idea and you dont even realize it. For example, the air bake cookie sheet. A young woman was baking cookies with her grandma and the bottoms kept scorching, so she put a cookie sheet on top of a cookie sheet and her cookies came out perfect. That could have very easily just been something she did her whole life, it worked fine just doubling them up. Im sure millions of people do similar things and never make a move on it bc it simply doesnt occur to them. Lucky for that woman it did occur to her, and now she is a millionaire all bc she came up with a simple solution to an every day problem, doubling the cookie sheets...

I try to keep that in mind whenver I tweak anything. One of the things I used to do to fix my old ratty furniture. Id get a couple two by fours and put them across the sofa beneath the cushions, it fixed my saggy sofa. Low and behold I saw an infomercial for this exact same concept. Interlocking heavy duty plastic that adjusts to fit different sizes but is put across the bottom of a sofa to prevent sagging....I just shook my head....Pissed off thinking about the billions of suckers calling that number and forking out $19.95 for something so simple. Ah well...

I have a notebook by my bed, after I get done reading, I sit there with it open looking at a blank page. I write down things that bother me, annoy me, normal problems I have, then I come up with inventions to fix these problems. Most of it is crap, I have a couple million dollar ideas, but production is a problem and the designs are flawed, they are still just ideas. Hopefully ill get my million dollar idea that could actually make a million dollars. Its on my bucket list...to invent something. Im pretty confident I will be able to. Its in my blood! : )