Safeguarding Success: A Deep Dive into Intellectual Property | OM25

A opportunity maker. Yeah, that's you. You're the person that is changing the game for yourself and the people around you doing the things necessary to uplevel, your skill set, your toolset, your mindset, everything necessary to become a truly impactful opportunity maker in the world. Somebody who's taking risks, somebody who's taking actions, doing all the things you need to be doing. And one of the things that I noticed often, if you're anything like me, or anything, like a lot of the clients and colleagues that we've been around, is we take a lot of things for granted. And we do things because we, you know, it's like when you're 20, and you don't really think about your health, you think you're gonna live forever. So why were you saving? Why worry about taking care of my health, and then all of a sudden, you're 50. And he didn't put savings as a priority, and you didn't put your health as a priority. And now all of a sudden, you're trying to do some backpedaling, and you're doing what you can to take care of business? Well, in growth in business, there are a lot of things that need to be put in place, that often we don't think about, because we're the expert of the thing we do. You are the expert of the problem you solve. You're the expert of the company that you put in place, but you're not necessarily the expert of the legalities, the financial frameworks, right, the the your tax strategy, how are you going to go to market strategy, you just know you want to solve problems, and you're really good at that. You may even be good at selling it and marketing it. So then all that stuff can go to waste if we lose if an opportunity comes by us that we can't take advantage of because somebody else has the same business name as you, somebody else has infringed on your IP, your intellectual property, all the stuff you have put together to solve problems for your clients, all the things you've done to create great ways to solve problems for people to be able to connect people to support your team and doing their their business better, like all of this stuff, is your intellectual property. And we always teach that you should be finding ways to productize marketized and sell that stuff, even if it's just in information and resources. Because you created it, it's something that you have proven to be a great asset and a resource that's other people will benefit from you should start thinking about how will you put that in place to market it. But the other thing we want to insert into the conversation is how are you going to protect it? How is this stuff gonna generate value for you as an asset? And how are you going to protect it as a resource. And our guest today, for the interview that we've got today that you're going to really want to pay attention to is with Rich Goldstein is a colleague and friend that I met in our mastermind, that that I've been ever since I've met him it's been on the brain IP, how do I protect IP? How do I think about my IP? How do we create content through the lens of protection as valuation as increased value the things you're going to do because we you know, we want to run our company, like we're going to sell it, whether we sell it or not whether we exit or not. We want to be equitable all the time. And so do you want to be viable, viable, if you want to be equitable, you want to make sure that you are ready for those things. What you don't want is the opportunity to have somebody who wants to invest in you for capital into your company, or resources. And you now have to start the process of getting yourself ready to be purchased or equitable. Start building your business with the exit in mind. That way, if you don't do it, you're fine. But you now have an easier business to run a more profitable business run a more valuable business to run, one that will attract hire better caliber clients and team because of the way you are running the hole. How you do anything is how you do everything prospective. And I always buy into it but as a rule of thumb is pretty accurate. So if you're the kind of person that protects your IP, protects your assets, then your person who probably puts a lot more thought into your business than what the average person does. And that's the name of the game. So Rich Goldstein works with entrepreneurs to help them increase the value of their businesses by protecting their ideas, their products and brands, a with patents and trademarks. Over the past 29 years, he has obtained more than 2000 patents for his clients. Richard is the host of the innovations and breakthroughs podcast and is the author of the consumer guide to obtaining a patent published by the American Bar Association. And you'll be seeing me on the innovations breakthroughs podcast soon as well. But I want to bring this to you and so that you will get some great value from it. I would love to hear what notes you take what are Ha's and insights come from you and what what is the next step? What is the one thing you can do that one action you will take as a result of what you've gained from this make sure you rate review and subscribe all the things that you know to do to help ensure that our podcast is keeping valuable and keeping informed and that all the all of the places is where people watch the podcast, know that we have some great things to bring to the marketplace. And so they keep putting us in your feed and growing the opportunities for us. So enjoy the episode. And we'll talk to you soon continue to make opportunities. All right, here you are guys back at it for another episode. You just heard all the bio in the intro on rich Goldstein. So Rich, why don't you go ahead and tell them your version? What's the story behind how you got here today? Let's go okay,

well, just place. There's a short story, the long story. But in general, what I do is I work with entrepreneurs to help them to increase the values, the value of their business, through IP, by protecting their products and protecting their brands. And I started out in electrical engineering, that was my undergraduate major, I also got very interested in business at that time, I had started a business during college and thought about changing my major to business. And then I learned about patent law where essentially, you need to be an engineer and the lawyer to to practice in that field. So I finished electrical engineering, I went on to law school, and became a patent lawyer started my own practice, right out of school 29 years ago, and my proudest accomplishment as an entrepreneur 29 years in business is that I'm still here, through all the ups and downs. You know, it's not a linear ride. It's it's up and down, as as we all know. And yep, I'm still here. 29 years later.

Interesting. I did not know that being a patent lawyer also was an engineering background. Did that was that something that somebody had introduced you as an opportunity? Or is it something you saw was interesting? Yeah,

I mean, someone introduced it to me, and I can't remember who. And it's interesting, because there was two paths that will offer to me to use my engineering degree, and kind of outside of engineering. One of them was patent law. The other one was to be a sales engineer, which are the people that let's say they're working for a big, like an MRI company, then they're selling $5 million MRI. So there's someone who not only has some skills, some sales skill and sales knowledge, but they also know about the technical side of things. So it was like sales engineer, and patent law, were the two things that someone had suggested to me along the way, and whoever it was, thank you. It stuck? And that's what I did. Excellent. Excellent.

So you've been obviously I said, 29 years in business, and you've been on this journey for a while. So you've seen lots of different opportunities come across your path, as a result of the path that you're on? And, you know, I would love to just, you know, explore some of that, you know, what, what are the things that have? What are the things that have come your way simply because you've had your eyes open and been on this specific path?

Well, I'll tell you something that came my way that I passed on, which is really funny is back when I first started, I had a friend who he worked. He got like a dream job at McCann Erickson advertising agency. It's like a really sought after dream job after graduation. But then two years in, in 1994, he came to me and said, like, Hey, I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to start an internet marketing agency. And I was like, I don't know if that's such a good idea. Like if people aren't going to spend money on the internet, like they just playing around. And so of course, he had the last laugh, and he built a company 500 employees and such. And but yeah, that's when you mentioned the opportunity that came my way, the first thing that occurs is the one that came my way and got away. But, but really, I think that the biggest opportunity is just to be a trusted adviser to business people. So I've gotten to get to know so many different business owners, and kind of where the business was at and give them advice about scaling about growing their business. And, and I think that's been kind of the most interesting opportunity that's come by, I haven't jumped outside of my practice, and kind of launched my own startup. I've been too busy with everyone else's. But that's kind of the interesting thing is I've gotten to hear so many stories and seen so much of what makes people successful, and what makes them fail. And, and that's been quite a journey.

So what why don't you share a few of those keys that you've been seeing? As you know, let's let's start with what are the things doing that people are doing? consistently over time that you see that are leading to a lack of success.

Okay, yeah, I think I think the biggest one is probably a mindset, a mindset that's against failure. It's kind of a mindset. And there's lots of related mindsets to it. It's kind of like related to perfectionism and such. But it's like the the fear of failure, the fear of like, of putting some initiative out there, doing something that doesn't work out, prevents people from doing a lot of what would help them to succeed. And not only that, it's giving up, I think, the biggest, biggest reason that businesses fail is that someone gives up, it's like, it hasn't actually failed. And maybe that's failed with a capital F, like, not like the minor failures that people business people shouldn't be afraid of. But the big F like they, they fail, and it's done, and there's not going to proceed anymore. So your business doesn't ultimately fail until you give up. And probably the biggest lesson that you can learn from those that succeed is just tenacity is sticking with it. And, of course, going along with that is you don't want to stick with it when you're headed, headed nowhere. But it's the ability to pivot. And again, I think I think that all of that is related to one thing, which is your ego, right? So it's like if you if you're afraid to fail, it's because you're afraid of the way it will affect your ego, that kind of the, the the perceived devastating effect that will have on you. And if you're not going to pivot your business, even though it's obvious, it's because you're afraid to be wrong about your initial sense of direction, you had an initial vision. And like, all the signs are saying, well, you know what, like, maybe you were, you were headed in somewhat of the right direction. But if you turn 20 degrees to the left, you do that much better. And you just deny that fact, because that would mean that you were wrong. So in essence, probably the biggest factor there is, is ego and the various ways it affects your mindset. And the thing that helps people be successful, in my opinion is stepping out of it, realizing it's not about them, realizing that they're working on something, that it that they're not personally identified with it. It's not like, if if someone says something bad about your business, then they're saying something bad about you. And it's not if something fails within your business, that you're a failure. So like your ability to take yourself out. And to work on the business on attached, but playing the game is probably the biggest factor towards success that I've seen.

Yeah, so unpack that a little bit more. I love to to talk that for a minute. So talk about being unattached. What does that I hear that all the time? Right, we hear that in sales, we hear that and growth, like don't be attached to the outcome? What are you referring to specifically about being detached? And? And how do you how do you actually, what's the tactic of actually doing so?

Yeah, I mean, it's about recognizing that, you know, all of all of your worth, let's say, as an individual is not wrapped up in your, your business. So, you know, not, I'm being detached, not being attached, not being personally identified with the business. Also, I think recognizing that, it's, it's all it's all your eggs are not in this basket. And that's, that's, that's not just a mindset, but it's also has some physical reality to it, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket for a business, you want to play in a way that's sustainable. In other words, such that, like if you if you're all all in, in your business, such that as if the business failed, you lose your house, you lose all of your assets, then, you know, then you're going to be attached. So, part of being detached is both kind of in the, in the physical sense, not having everything wrapped up in the business, but also emotionally not having all of your self worth and identity wrapped up in the business. And it's like, how do you do that? Well, I mean, like there are, a lot of times people offer coaching, they'll say like, Hey, just go out there and be yourself. Like, well, how do I do that? And that's what we call inoperable coaching, right? You can't, you don't have any instructions on on how to actually do that. But you By the way, the there is actually a step to not being attached. And the first step is to notice all the ways in which you're attached. So your awareness around your mindset is the first step towards having something different. Now, your awareness around any habit you have, or any tendency you have is the first step toward letting you say, oh, wait a second, that's how I tend to behave, I'm going to try something differently. Otherwise, it's just automatic. Without awareness, it's automatic. So if you begin to look at the ways in which you're attached to your business, you then can do something about it.

Definitely, I wholly subscribed to that, you know, awareness is the first step. Once you're aware, problem aware, people are typically the people that start solving problems, because they at least know there is a problem to solve. Now, it's not it doesn't mean the same thing. Because you can look in the mirror and see that you're 20 pounds overweight, and still decide to do nothing about it. But but at least you're aware. And so hopefully, it'll it'll fix some of the decisions that you make. So let's, let's talk a little bit about you or your business, you know, as as, as it pertains to this particular journey. I mean, if people are, you know, we're in the marketplace where it's a little bit, it's definitely uncertain. There's so much ambiguity in it, there's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt, and a lot of negative terms being thrown out there. And a lot of entrepreneurs are just treading water right now, or trying to determine should I circle the wagons so they run for cover? Ball, we know, people that are in a lot of circles that we run in, they're just waiting, they're just, you know, this is an opportunity to season where it's like, it's time to go take advantage of things. And both? Both can you know, it's not, it's not like running around buying businesses and in doing taking risks, opportunities is just the best way to go. It can also bring its own cautions. And that's where you come in to play. Play. So so how do people navigate this?

Okay, well, the last part, you said that's where I come in. And I'm I see more alluding towards IP protection there.

Correct? As people are coming into an environment where Okay, I'm gonna go all in? And yes, the business opportunities, I see opportunities to acquire real estate or business, or just jump in and start a venture because it costs a little to do so in so many places now. But then it comes with a whole load of risk as well, in doing so. Yes,

absolutely. Yes. And IP or intellectual property is part of the risking as part of taking the risk out of, of the traction that you've gained already. And there's really two ways in which IP benefits you. One is, is the one that you'd expect. It's like, Well, okay, I'm protecting what I'm doing, I'm preventing other people from taking away from what I've achieved, right, if you protect your brand, you are protecting against other people jumping in with a brand that's confusingly similar and taking your customers, right, if you're protecting with a patent, you're protecting from people taking your product idea or your software platform, functionality and copying it. And so that's one side of it is one way it's benefiting you is the way you typically think of it as protection. But the other side of it is as an asset. So as an asset, it's one of the highest ROI assets that you can create in your business. So it's kind of like, if you, if you gain IP, you spend a certain amount of money on IP, as you're growing your business, you're protecting your brand, perhaps protecting your products. When you go to sell your business, when you go to exit your business, you will get a huge ROI on anything you spent on the IP, huge, I mean, minimum 10 times sometimes 100 to 1000 times ROI. But the caveat here is that if you exit and number two, it's you need to build a profitable business. So like the IP, IP assets in a vacuum aren't really worth much. So it's like you're selling product under a brand name, and the product never goes anywhere, then that brand name is not really worth anything. And if you have what seems like a cool idea for a product and you patent it, but you don't build a business around it, then it's pretty speculative about whether it's worth someone else investing in to build a business around that product, and therefore it's not worth very much for them to purchase. But if you've got a profitable business, if you've got a business that's let's say it has 2 million and EBITA. 2 million in profit, and you're looking at possibly being paid a multiple of let's say four times. So let's say $8 million exit But now you've got IP, you spent, let's say, let's say you spend $20,000 on your IP, instead of that for multiple, maybe it's crappy IP. So maybe it's like IP that isn't that important. But nevertheless, you could say I've got an IP portfolio. So worst case, instead of a four, they stretched the multiple to 4.1. So now the pinging 4.1, on $2 million, or $8.2 million, which is then $200,000, on the $20,000, investment in IP, that's a 10 time ROI. But if it's good IP, let's say that it's the type of IP that really prevents the competition from competing with you, because this brand is well recognized, and people are looking for that brand. Or the product itself is proprietary. And people can copy the key features that the customers are looking for, that maybe instead of a four, multiple, you're getting a seven multiple, in which case, you're getting an extra $6 million on that $20,000 investment, which is like a 300 time ROI. Right? So it's, it's like, if you if you create IP, at an early stage in your company, and then continue to create it as as the business grows, you're going to create tremendous asset value. And you're going to do kind of what most people expected from patents and trademarks, which is you're going to help to curtail the competition.

So there's a few things that are coming up. And I can hear, you know, a lot of people are like, well, you know, is just every single thing I create its own separate IP, like a system, a delivery mechanism, or is it only on the like, the really inventive stuff? What what is my IP?

Yeah, I mean, it could be, and there's a bunch of factors that go into that. I mean, first of all, it's whether it's possible to protect. And so first of all, if we're talking about patents, which are for, for things like physical products, or for software, in order to be patentable, it has to be non obvious, which means, okay, even if it's a little different from things out there, it has to it can't be different in a way that's expected. So it's like, I've got a I've got a website that sells, you know, pet supplies. And I added, you know, whatever, like a certain type of shopping cart, that's well known. Maybe no one has done that with pet supplies before had this type of shopping cart. But they haven't other websites, and therefore be obvious to bring them together into a pet website, pet supply website with that type of shopping cart. So then it can't be things which are, you just kind of borrowing from from other places, and it's kind of expected, right? So that's one. So there's a matter of whether you can get the patent. But then there's also a matter of resources. So it's like, if you're starting out, you've got a lot of things competing for resources, you've got all the ways in which you could spend that money other than on pads, you could spend it on promotion, you could spend it on, on growing your team, you could spend it on an initial order of inventory. So you have to carefully decide, like whether spending money on IP is going to starve off resources. So you want to you want to do that carefully. But if you've got the resources, the more IP you you have, you know, as you grow towards a towards an exit, double business, like the more you're positioning yourself for, for big pay day. So more IP is better, when you're not hurting your business by getting it is what I'd say. And then just the last, actually, two more things I just want to add to that. To make a complete thought is always do your trademarks. So patents, probably 15,000 and up trademarks around 2000 always do a trademark on your brand name, like so many businesses gets the point where they are ready to exit. And they just don't own the brand name and it kills the deal. So not spending a couple 1000 can actually cost you millions. If you don't do the trademark, so just always do the trademark. Quiet patents are more questionable, but always to be trademarks. And the last thing I want to say about this is there is a time limit. So once you make something public one year from then it's too late to be patentable in the United States. You might have well already lost the rights in other countries. Just by making it public, but in the US, there's a one year grace period. So if you're thinking like, hey, this, this is a product, I think I'd like to patent but I want to see if it's going to do well first, and I'll come back to it later patenting it. Just keep in mind that way too many people don't know that there is a one year limit, and they come back to me with a very successful product. That's what just way too late to ever patent.

So when you say going public, does that mean when they introduce it to the marketplace? Yep,

put it available for sale, make it publicly viewable on the website, anything like that, where it can be publicly seen?

Does that work the same way with the trademark,

it does not work that way. With the trademark, it's a little different. And there's there's other reasons for doing the trademark as soon as you can. So here's the thing. With trademarks, you actually acquire rights by using the product out there in the world. So like, let's say you've been operating, you know, let's say you you've inherited a business from your family that's been operating for 30 years selling products in a certain realm, pretty well known brand name. If you know you now, having taken charge of the business can say, well, they never did the trademark, let's do a trademark. And there is no actual time limit to do it. So you could then file a trademark application. But if someone filed a trademark application, before you did, then it's going to be an uphill climb, you might, under the right circumstances be able to prove like, Hey, I've been using this for 30 years. And I'm entitled to the trademark, but instead of a $2,000 trademark process, now it's like a $50,000 trademark process. So you do acquire rights by using the brand out there in public. So it's different than patents. But if someone files before you, now you've got an uphill climb.

So what types of things I think trademark is it seems like, especially in the service based industry, because there's a lot of people aren't creating a tangible physical products, and a lot of our clients sell services. So a trademark would be for the name of the company for would it be would you recommend it for the name of a specific offering? Or the name of a type of an event? I mean, just across the board?

Yeah. Any any name that you're using in your business to distinguish your product or service from competitors? So when they see that, like, Yeah, could be the name of the product, it could be the name of a trade show, and all that, that people recognize is coming from a specific organizer. And and, you know, it could be the name, it could be the logo. And so behind you gain the edge, is that a slogan? That's the name of the company?

What is the name of the company

name of the company? Okay, great. So like that's, that can be a trademark, the logo, the G logo you created, that could be a trademark as well. And if you have a slogan, then like that could be, that could also be a trademark. So it's kind of like, you know, just do it. That's a trademark, or the real thing like Coca Cola, that's a trademark. So the things that when when customers see it, and if a competitor were to use it on their product, your customers might be confused and think that dealing with you, rather than the owner of your competitor. That's what trademarks are all about.

And is I know, there's you know, do it yourself legal sites that people can go and 250 bucks get a trademark or get you know, is what's the risks? And you know, obviously everybody can't afford, you know, good quality, legal service and representation, but they want to get this kind of stuff done. How would you recommend navigating that wisely?

Yeah, I mean, look, I would say that it depends on how much value is at stake. Because like a lot of those services, they'll get it right about half the time. And you know, so if that's cool with you, a year and a half down the road finding out you have to start all over all over again. Then Then yeah, I mean, it's like, you could save maybe about $1,500 by, by, by having one of these non legal service providers do it. But the thing with trademarks is really, it's nuanced. So it's simple, but it's nuanced. trademark application itself is probably like 15 minutes to do the application. But deciding on how to sculpt the the goods and services is critical such that it's like steering the ship a few degrees to the left or right can make a big difference. And it's like, the real IP attorneys ones who have filed hundreds of 1000s of trademark applications. They've had the experience to know in this situation like okay, yes, like, let's do this, but let's stay away from that because that's going to hurt us too. Towards a rejection and towards, you know, towards not getting the trademark, or towards some issues later on when you try to enforce the trademark. So it's nuanced. And look, I mean, I think it comes down to is like, in unless it's really a hobby business, like spending a couple $1,000 to do it, right is usually one of the lowest expenses that you had, like, you know, if you're, if you're like, investing 5000 into starting your business, then maybe maybe not. But most of the time, we're investing 50 to 100k into a business. And, you know, one of the pitfalls too, is that is getting some advice about the name, it may turn out that you can get $100,000 in, and then learn that there's someone else that has a mark, that that will be a conflict, and you're gonna have to change the name of your business, which could be very costly. So yeah, I mean, to me, and not just because I'm, I'm a patent attorney. In fact, trademarks are loss leader for us. But it's like, you know, and you know, chances are this, there's literally hundreds of attorneys, you can go to, to do a good job with trademarks. So it's, while it sounds self serving, it's like, just do the trademark, right? Like, seriously the problems that could lead to greatly outweigh the few $100, you might save by doing it yourself. And, you know, do it or doing it in an amateur fashion. Yeah,

totally. That's, I'm hearing that. I mean, this is the game we're playing. We're in the, you know, in the journey of our business where we're looking to acquire companies and do some things at higher levels than what I typically done in the past. Everybody's not there. And my encouragement would be if you're, if you're not thinking that if you're, if you're so entrenched in the business, that you're not actually seeing where you might exit, you're just like, I'm just gonna run my business. The only thing I would say, is witness, look back in the last three years, how much has the world changed? And how fast? And did you predict it? No. So how do you know what was what is your confidence in your ability to predict what's going to come in the next three or 10 years, and so you don't want to be seven years down the road and go, Man, I should have trademark, I should have gotten those patents I should have. Because like you said, a lot of the stuff you may not be able to. And it just you may not have the protection that you need at that time. So I would I would encourage, start thinking about the time that even if you don't want to exit it, but you want to hand it off to somebody in the family, or just get an investor, you all of a sudden, do you want to go from a million to 100 million, because you now learn something about your marketplace or your business that says, wow, there's a huge exponential jump that I can make here. And then that's not the time you want to go back and start trying to get all this stuff done. So what is your thoughts on it?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think just in general, it's the things that you do in your business, that make it sustainable, and make it transferable that that create value. So a lot of a lot of areas. A lot of people have very successful businesses that kind of fail the transferability test to a potential buyer. And that could be just something that that just seems fine, like, well, 40% of your revenue comes from one customer. And you're like, wow, yeah, we've got we've got a great relationship. But then the fact is that you've got a great relationship. First of all, it's a customer concentration issue, which is a red flag to any one buying new business. But then the fact that that you have the great relationship means that someone buying the business isn't necessarily acquiring that relationship. So it's like all of the ways in which the business depends on you, or some key employee such that if they if they suddenly left, things might fall apart, that there aren't systems in place, like all of these areas are, are things that really compromise the value of your business, compromise the integrity of your business. And IP is just one of those areas, right IP is just one portion of what they call structural capital, which are, it's the, the systems and the IP. So the systems including hiring systems, including employee, employee manuals, things that kind of set out the the SOPs, or standard operating procedures. Those are things that give value to your business. And so like the way in which you organize, organize those things, you dot the i's and cross the tea's are the things that make your business transferable, not just if you're going to sell it but transferable to another generation. So having the trademark having the systems in place mean that you could potentially transfer your business to the next generation with less hoopla.

So before we wrap up here, I want to, I would love for you to talk to a listener who is, you know, a lot of people we work with our consultants and coaches and experts. And the vast majority of people in that space, operate under a business that is solely attached to their name. I made an intentional choice to never call this the gym media company. Because I wanted to, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't as already a personality brand as it is I didn't want the name associated with that as well. What's What's the pitfalls? What What should people be thinking about? As they're making that decision? Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, that's the thing is like, having, having a company be all about you, and your name could allow you to have people remember you more and capitalize, and you'd capitalize more on the reputation that you've created. But you're not building an asset. You're not building an asset that's transferable. I mean, and in some cases, if it is transferable, you might end up selling your name along with the business. So it's like, if you've got a coaching practice that's really built on your name, when you exit the business, you're probably not going to be allowed to use your name in conjunction with let's say, coaching services anymore. Because it might be confusing to the customers of the company that you just sold. So that's one of the downsides to and, in general, if you're looking to build a business that's scalable, it pays to to build a brand. Even Tony Robbins has, over the last, I think about 10 years, pivoted from slightly just like Tony Robbins straight up to the Robbins Madonna's coaching company. And so it's because he's recognizing that, you know, it's not transferable to just be Tony Robbins. So like, he's working on that. And I think it pays for any, you know, any business of that sort consultants and coaches on any level to think about building a brand. And you can still be front and center with the brand. And you can still be out there and, and well known that, that you're creating interesting things in your space. But ultimately, you want to strike a balance and build that brand at the same time. Because then you'll have something that's transferable.

Yeah, I like to think of myself as the spokesperson for the company, as opposed to the identity. Because then, then that is movable. At some point, we can get someone else to be the spokesperson for the company. And it's not attached to everything that we're doing, because it isn't all the everything inside the company isn't Jim and Cindy, this, it's systems process strategies, you know, vault of information. And now, now we got to get on the IP journey and the protection of all of this stuff. So we can, you know, increase the asset

value of the stuff. Agreeable in my case, like Goldstein, patent law, which, you know, I've been doing for a very long time before I was really even thinking about scalability. But I have pivoted to more of a, of an owner role in the company, I spend a little of my time actually on the legal work, people coming to my company aren't necessarily looking for me to be the dancing bear. They're looking for my team. And so I have mostly been able to navigate that. But yeah, would wouldn't be that much better. If it wasn't gold seemed patent law, but was something that didn't have my name in it. Right. So like you so it's, it's definitely a worthwhile pursuit. So how to this is really

good information. And to get into that, and it's very specific information that, you know, everybody listening is determine is this something I need? Or is this something I need now? But once you do, it's like, you need to get all the right information. How do people get access to your brain or the resources that you have?

Okay, yeah, absolutely. And first of all, I'm a really big proponent of education on IP. It's why I love speaking on podcasts about IP or on stages, or every opportunity I can to speak to entrepreneurs, to help them to better understand how IP affects their business, so they can make good decisions. So I've created a bunch of resources for that. I mean, one is that the American Bar Association asked me to write a book to explain to entrepreneurs how patents work. It's the ABA consumer guide to obtaining a patent. I have to take the stick. Post It note out. Yeah. So like, get that on Amazon. And it's about a four hour read. And if you read that you'll, you'll know more than 95% of entrepreneurs about how patents work. I also have a podcast innovations and breakthroughs, where it's it's all about the path that people take to bring an AI idea from concept to out in the world. And if you want to learn more about patents, also, I've got great videos on my website Goldstein, patent law.com. And lastly, if you want to contact my team, and to to find out if it's a match, to work with us to have us help you with something, you talk to Larry Slaven for my team, and I have this link set up, it's just speak to larry.com, speak to larry.com, you could set up an appointment, to kind of triage where you're at and, and whether we can help. That's excellent,

we'll make sure we've got all of those links in the show notes so that you can get in there and access in case you're driving or on the treadmill, or whatever it is you're doing right now. And, you know, bookmark this, because this is something that, you know, realistically, you probably haven't been thinking a lot about, and you might not have been thinking about today. And now that it's in your mind, you're going to want to make sure that okay, as you're talking to your team, to your partners, to whomever you're gonna want to know right where to go to grab this episode. So you get all the resources inside of there and get access to his team. Because these are conversations that if you're not having, you should be. And I will say, you know, I've come across rich, you know, about a year ago and mastermind that we're a part of, and I've loosely given it some consideration prior to them. But ever since I met rich, it's definitely in you know, it's it's now part of the conversation is like, these are things we have to get done. And so then once you're gonna get them done, you got to get informed to get them done, right. So now that it's in your field of view, because say, take some actions, bookmark this, put us put aside some time on the calendar to go check out some of the videos on his on his page, talk to Larry, go to the link book a conversation, having a conversation doesn't commit you to anything, it just gets you informed. Right? So let's make sure that you do as we like, say, often, it costs you nothing to ask could cost you EVERYTHING not to so let's make sure that you get this all done. And

add IP to your repertoire. You know, that's the thing you have, you know, as a business owner, you know a lot about a lot of different things, you know a little bit about shipping a little bit about taxes at IP to one of those things that you know, enough about to get you by.

Amen to that. So what's what's any any parting thoughts as people are moving through these times right now what what you know, from your mindset as somebody who the first thing you touched on was mindset, which I appreciate? What are the mindsets that people need to be bringing you with them into an unsteady or an uncertain marketplace and economy that we're into right now?

Yeah, I say one thing that I really think is a key to overcoming a lot of the risks is diversification. So try different things. Diversify, you know, and this is and that advice comes at the cost of something else, which I hold near and dear, which is focus, like me on people that are working on 20 different businesses, like none of them are going anywhere, right? So it's about, it's about focusing on, on on one key direction. But one thing I've noticed with products, and a lot of times products have risks, risks of competition, risks that you could be infringing someone else, it's that it pays to not have all your eggs in one basket. If you're doing products, then yes, do products, but do a few different products in a few different categories.

Well said, from the expert, so thanks so much for being here, rich, and I will make sure that everybody is sending, you know, interests and, and ideas and thoughts to you so that you're thinking with IP in mind going forward here. Make sure that you guys like rate, review and subscribe, do all the things that are necessary to help keeping us getting in front of other people. And I share this with anybody that you know, is building products, or creating information because I promise you, almost none of them are thinking about this. They're just thinking about getting their product done, because they're just a good entrepreneur who knows how to build things to solve problems. But they often we can create problems for ourselves by not doing things with everything in mind that we know we should to reinforce. So share this information. You'll be a great resource and a great friend to anybody that you do. So thanks as always for being here because we know you can be anywhere else. We appreciate you trusting us to be part of your success team. Go create opportunities because they're all around you change lives and people make a lot of money. We'll see you soon