Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S6E17 Scott Putnam | Invention, Licensing, and Venturing
Join Aaron Moncur as he interviews Scott Putnam, an expert in guiding inventors through the complex journey of bringing products to market. Scott shares insights from his 15+ years of experience coaching over 500 inventors, discussing strategies for product development, licensing, and successful commercialization.
Main Topics:
- Challenges Engineers Face in Marketing Products
- Licensing vs. Venturing Product Strategies
- Intellectual Property Considerations
- Market Research Techniques
- Effective Product Pitch Strategies
About the guest: Scott Putnam is a leading product development and licensing expert, known for helping inventors bring their ideas to market. As founder and CEO of Inventor's Edge, he provides coaching, courses, and community support tailored to inventors. With degrees in education and business and experience as a coach and instructor, Scott blends academic insight with practical guidance. He’s the inventor of the Swat-N-Scoop and a contributor to Entrepreneur.com, sharing advice on licensing and innovation. He also hosts the Inventor’s Edge Podcast, where he interviews industry professionals and offers insights for aspiring inventors. Based in Dubuque, Iowa, he advocates for wellness and balanced living while continuing to mentor inventors worldwide.
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About Being An Engineer
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What you're doing is becoming an expert in the category. You want to know all of the other products, all the other types of carrot peelers. What are their price points? What brands are they? So that you can speak to how is your product different? What is your point of difference? What makes yours better than what's out there? You music.
Aaron Moncur:Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of The being an engineer Podcast. Today, we are speaking with Scott Putnam, a seasoned product licensing and venturing coach, creator of the innovative SWAT and scoop and founder of inventors edge, a platform dedicated to guiding inventors from concept to market with over a decade of experience, Scott has personally coached more than 500 inventors, helping them navigate the complexities of product development and licensing. As a contributor to entrepreneur.com and host of the inventors edge podcast, he shares valuable insights and success stories to inspire and educate aspiring innovators. Scott, welcome to the show.
Unknown:Hey. Thanks so much. Aaron, glad to be here.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, I've been looking forward to this, because we talk, obviously about engineering and what it's like to be an engineer a lot, and I know for sure. I mean, I know a lot of engineers out there who are inventors themselves, right? They have a side hustle where they're taking their their skills, their engineering skills, and developing their own products and trying to sell those products. So I think a lot of listeners are going to be really interested in the the advice and the insight that you can give from from your side of the from your side, you know, coaching inventors on licensing and selling their products. So anyway, well, we'll get into that. Maybe you can. You can give us a brief background you know, kind of your history and what led you to to start inventors edge and and kind of what the platform is and how it's evolved over the years. Yeah,
Scott Putnam:absolutely I appreciate that I've been in the kind of the inventing and product development space for over 15 years, and I've been actively coaching inventors and entrepreneurs full time for the past eight years, and a lot of the with a different company before I started inventors edge, and I've worked with so many engineers, and There are some of my favorite people to work with, because they're so methodical about things, and they think through things so well. And then I have to kind of stretch them when we start talking about, like, the marketing side of things, and it's almost like oil and water. And I have a lot of ways I can help them, you know, ease them into that pool a little bit what I was seeing, you know, over the years of coaching, it was strictly a licensing model, where you create a concept, maybe have some prototypes, and you you know, you create some marketing materials and get it out in front of companies for licensing. And there were a lot of people who really wanted to go a little further. They're like, well, what if? What about venturing? What if I wanted to bring this to market myself and just get it on Amazon or get it into retail? And it wasn't something that we did, but it's something that I've done. And so the timing was good for me. After eight years and working with over 500 people from around the world, it was time for me to spread my wings a bit, and part of what led to that was I was coaching people on really getting out of their comfort zone and facing fears and stretching themselves. Meanwhile, I was getting to a point where I was all kind of warm and snuggy in my own comfort zone, so I really needed to put myself out there, and so we decided to go all in and, you know, create inventors edge, where we have podcasts, we also have online courses, and we do one on one coaching and membership program. And so we're we jumped into the deep end, but it's been great, fantastic.
Aaron Moncur:Now, talk to me a little bit about you mentioned engineers are very methodical during the development process, but once it gets to, like the sales and the marketing, you mentioned oil and water right to just polar opposites, they do not attract. Talk a little bit about that, maybe, if you have an example of it, and then what? What are some, what are some mindsets that engineers should have when it comes to sales and marketing that maybe just don't come naturally to us? Yeah,
Scott Putnam:it's such a great topic. We could talk for hours on this. One of the biggest things that engineers, I think, hate. To hear is good enough. It's just like, whoa. There's no good enough. I have to make sure it's perfect or nothing. Yeah, it's 100% spot on or zero. And when it comes to marketing, it's a little bit of a different game. Good enough is good enough when you when you're talking about marketing, and one of the things that I see a lot of inventors who are engineers especially, get trapped in to this mindset that it has to be perfect, and I have to perfect my prototype. I have to test it and iterate it and test it and iterate it and make sure it's absolutely 100% perfect and works every time. Before I could even think about letting it out of the box and through coaching, it's like, Well, how long is that? You know, people spend years doing this. Meanwhile, if the product looks good or we could get a rendering, you know, make a make it look good on paper, maybe your prototype would look fine in, you know, in a video showing it proof of concept, showing it working. Maybe you still need to iterate a little bit or put some final touches on it, but you can still get it out in front of companies to see if there's even any interest, instead of waiting two or three years to perfect and only to find out nobody wants it. So, yeah, it does take some coaching. And it's, it's really fun for me. I've worked with so many engineers. It's, it's fun for me to teach them the idea that it's okay, that is good enough. Let's move to the next step. We can always come back and perfect it. You know, once we know we have some solid interest, nice.
Aaron Moncur:How about are there different platforms or specific tools that you have found useful for marketing a product? Let's actually, let's back up just a minute here. So I'm sure the the path forward for licensing is very different than the path forward for selling it yourself on Amazon or wherever you're selling it, at least, I would guess, is that true, and then maybe talk a little bit about what those paths look like for each option.
Scott Putnam:Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, they are very different. With the licensing model, you create a product, you do a lot of research up front and make sure the product isn't already there, and do some patent researching, and really look at the marketplace and become an expert in the category. And then we talk about prototypes and marketing materials, and you really are with that model, you're able to get a lot of products in front of companies very quickly, without investing a lot of money, where, with licensing, you're kind of going all in on one product, not that you can't do multiple products or create a line of products, but there's more at risk and there's more time invested, the payoff can potentially be higher. So there's definitely pros and cons to it. It's it's there. They are very different animals. In the beginning, though, the steps in the process are the same. You're still doing a lot of research, figuring out what the product is. You're iterating it. You're getting your your list of companies that you're going to contact together. You're putting all the pieces together, a demo, video, things like that. So a lot of the initial steps are the same, but there's a point where you kind of split off, but, but it's interesting too, because even if, if somebody decides to license, I call that now, like my that's a good plan a especially if you're somebody that has a lot of ideas, and they just keep coming to you. Let's get them out in front of companies with the idea that at any point you can go ahead and venture it, have it manufactured, get the packaging UPC, let's get some pricing programs together for retail, or let's get it on Amazon, with the idea that once you have some sales established and some reviews that could lead to a licensing deal down the road as well. And I've done that myself, so I know that model very well.
Aaron Moncur:What are some ways you've found effective to market a product once it's manufactured and ready for sale? I mean, is it things like Facebook ads and SEO to a landing page, that sort of thing. Yeah,
Scott Putnam:it's a great question. It really depends a lot on, are you doing retail or Amazon, or both, you know, things. There's a lot of platforms that are helpful. As far as, like, you know, getting you can do, you can do Facebook ads, Amazon ads all day long, which are really an important part of the process. You know, if your products on Amazon, you do want to do the ads. Ideally, you're doing FBA so that people are seeing your product. Because a lot of people, when they shop on Amazon, they click the prime button because. They want it in, like an hour. People wait to wait. So if you do FBA, that's a good way to do that. As far as other things, you know, any anything is going to help. In terms of Tiktok videos, you could create YouTube channels for your product. You can do blatant. Blatant is probably another word, but you can do ads for your product that can get expensive. It's really all about exposure. And I was lucky with our SWAT and scoop product, because my daughter and I were on a show on Amazon well, and we'll probably get to that in a minute, but Amazon Prime video called buy it now. So we did a 92nd pitch, and so that went out to millions of people. So that was, there were opportunities like that as well that can come up if you do, you know, go a little further in terms of venturing versus licensing.
Aaron Moncur:The Product Development expo or PDX is your chance to learn from subject matter experts, providing practical hands on training for dozens of different engineering topics, Gd and T advanced surface modeling, DFM, plating and finishing techniques, programming robots, adhesive, dispensing, prototyping, tips and tricks and lots More. PDX happens October, 21 and 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more at PD Expo. Dot engineer, that's p, d, e, x, p, O. Dot engineer, well, that's a great segue into your SWAT and scoop product. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that and the journey it took you on and where you ended, yeah, for sure.
Scott Putnam:So as an inventor and a product developer, you know, we're all about solving problems, I think probably a lot of in kind of that engineering brain, like you see something, you're like, why can't I fix this? Why doesn't it? This could be so much better. And so two daughters who are now ones in high school, ones in college, but when they were younger, there was a scream that was at a certain decibel that, like dads and dogs could hear, and as the bug scream, and so I would run into their room, as you know, like a superhero, and the chore was to try to figure out how to get that spider off the wall back outside alive, and it was always a matter of looking for something and envelopes a male a cup and paper like something. Why isn't there a product that's just designed for this? So through a lot of iterations, created SWAT and scoop, because although we were trying to catch and release, some people want them dead, but they don't want to necessarily have to go get a tissue and get really close to them. Essentially two sided fly swatter with a scoop in the middle and a beveled edge, kind of like a dustpan, so you could swat a wasp or whatever creepy crawler you wanted, and be able to scoop it up and toss it out without getting close to it. So through some iterations. My goal with that originally was to license it, and so I went through that model and got a lot of really good feedback, but originally I designed it bigger with a trap door. And it wasn't actually originally a swatter. It was more of just a scoop. And I called it the spider scooper, to scoop them up, trap them in there, and then just release them back out to the wild. And then, through feedback from companies, they were like, Hey, this is too big. There's too much going on. This whole sliding mechanism would be crazy expensive to make. Thanks. Send us your next idea. Like, okay, I can go back to the drawing board. And I was sitting there one day looking at a fly swatter next to my scoop, and I'm like, Whoa, what if? What if I could somehow make the scoop also Swat. And then it was like, huh, Swat and scoop, kind of fun name. So created that, started pitching that again as the new iterated product, and got a lot of good feedback. Hey, this is great. This is great. We love it. Our CEO loves it. But what they wanted was a real sample they could actually try out. And I had some 3d printed samples, which were okay, but you couldn't really SWAT anything without breaking it, so decided to go all in and just venture the product. I had some really good mentoring from a good friend locally. His brother's been importing products for a long time, and said, Hey, and he was trying to he's basically retiring. So he's like, Hey, if you want the keys to the kingdom, I can walk you through this and give you my rolodex. I'm like, All right, this is the universe saying, do it. Yeah. Wow. So yeah, went for it, got it in, originally into retail stores. I was a little freaked out about Amazon, thinking, the minute it's on Amazon, you see it, you can't hide anything. There's gonna be 1000 knockoffs within an hour. But it wasn't the case. I did retail first. But. I'm really glad we went on Amazon, because it did lead to the being on the show, and it's doing well on Amazon. So
Aaron Moncur:let's talk a little bit about that, the the risk of Amazon with a product being knocked off. I have a good friend who he's an industrial designer and a very talented mechanical designer. And what he does for a living is is help people design their products right. And on the side, he's designed a few of his own products. And he told me, maybe a year ago, one of the products that he developed, he took it all the way through manufacturing, and he had, you know, I don't know, hundreds or 1000s of these made, and he put them on Amazon. And within a couple of weeks, or maybe it was a couple of months, sure enough, there were some knockoffs, right? Chinese knockoffs that were priced way less than his, and they were clearly infringing on his patent. And so he let Amazon know, hey, I've got, you know, these Chinese knockoffs that are infringing on my patent and and yes, Amazon would shut those accounts down, but it would take a couple of weeks, and then just, you know, a week later, another one would would pop up. And so what he said to me was he just, he could never figure out how to be profitable on Amazon because he spent so much time chasing down the copycats and trying to get them shut down, he just he couldn't spend enough time actually marketing his product and driving sales for himself. Is that? Is that a common problem? And if so, what's what's the solution to that?
Scott Putnam:Yeah, it's a great question. First of all, I would say, hey, congratulations. You have a great product, because they generally wait till you get to a certain point like it's doing well, they you know, you're selling a lot of them, then they start to show up. But there are some things that Amazon's done more recently. If you have brand registry, so you'd have a trademark that you filed, you can get what's called Brand registry within Amazon that allows Amazon to get them off quicker. It can be a little bit of a whack a mole game. There is another company as well, called their acronym is iacc.org that helps you get knockoffs, not just Amazon, but overseas, like if it's on Alibaba or AliExpress, they can quickly. We got some knockoffs taken care of within 24 hours. Oh, wow, yeah. So land the landscape of Amazon is perpetually changing, and I know they do want it to be more of a premium place to shop. And they're they're making efforts to get rid of the knockoffs. It's frustrating, though, as someone that has put so much blood, sweat and tears into a product, you get it on there, somebody knocks it off. It's cheaper. It doesn't work as well, and all of a sudden, all these horrible ratings are showing up that affect you too. So, yeah, I hope Amazon keeps moving in that direction for really taking care of the people that have you know, brought the real product to market, definitely.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. Well, let's talk about bringing a product to market. So engineers are primarily our audience, and they know a lot about bringing a product to market, because that's what they do. Let's talk a little bit about your experience working with inventors. You know, engineers, I think, conceptually, understand the challenges with bringing a product to market because they're the ones developing it, but probably don't have the same appreciation for that challenge from, like a sales or a marketing standpoint, because that's just not where they spend their time. And as an inventor, you really need to understand the sales and the marketing aspect and how to bring a product to market in that context, what are some of the problems that you have most commonly witnessed and and solutions for how to get around those problems? Yeah,
Scott Putnam:it's a fantastic question. I think some of the there's several I'll touch on. A few specifically for engineers, is the biggest problem is, once that's developed and they've perfected it, it's like, All right, now what? And then the initial thought is, run out and get a patent so it's protected, then I can let it out of the box and show the world. But there's, there's some other ways of doing it, such as filing a provisional patent application, that you can do relatively in a very inexpensively, and then you have 12 months to shop it through. Aside from that, you know, I think a lot of the stretching with my engineering students when I'm coaching is around the marketing and the sales and, you know, what do I say? Who do I call? Who am I? Who do I ask for? What do I not say? What are some mistakes that. People make and and so there's, there's a lot of coaching that happens around that, because it's, it isn't just here, here's the facts. You know. It is more about relationships with the people you're talking to in those companies, and developing those relationships and knowing how to do that, as well as presenting the product in the right light, asking the right questions, getting the right information. So all of that, I love coaching people on because it's such a fun part of the process for me. Mistake wise, a lot of inventors, really, they get very emotionally attached to their idea, and they kind of skip this critical market validation piece. And I always advise them, like I mentioned before, to research first, make sure there's some real demand, make sure trends are going in the right direction, and then having really some realistic expectations. I think a lot of inventors, you know, kind of wide eyed, and you they think the idea, the idea is the hard part. It's not the hard part. They think their idea is going to make them a bazillion dollars. And everybody, you know, if companies don't want it, they're they're idiots and all of that. It isn't a lottery ticket. I mean, it's people have to think of it more as approaching it like a business strategy. It requires some persistence and follow up and sales skills and negotiation skills. So going from from A to Z, you really do wear a lot of different hats, and I think for some people, that can be difficult, and everybody's comfort zones sort of stretch in different areas.
Aaron Moncur:We have historically been, and still are a services business. My my company pipeline, and we're trying to get more into products. It's new for us, and we're, for sure, stumbling and making mistakes. And we have a few products now, one in particular that that has some legs. We have seen some sales and interest. But it's like you said, developing this product that was the easy part, right? This has been kind of a surprise for me as well. We all thought, Oh, this is such a great product. Everyone's going to want it. And it just turns out that designing it and developing it that was the easy part. Now figuring out how to sell it. It's a I mean, this is why salespeople exist, right? It's a full time job to figure out how to sell something like that. Where, where do you suggest inventors start? Like, what does that process look like when you're coaching a new inventor? Mm, hmm, yeah.
Scott Putnam:It's a great question. So a lot of it, really, I talked to them about you don't have to try not to feel like a telemarketer when you're calling companies, and really putting a lot of the the weight of the sales process into your marketing materials, which what works really well is to have a one or two page sell sheet that has some wow factor, shows the product and has a link to a video they can watch that's about a minute or so long. So a lot of the selling, the heavy lifting of that goes to those marketing materials. So that's first and foremost. I think a lot of people have this idea that, you know, it's going to be like the movie the boiler room, and you're in there and you got to do this amazing presentation. It's really not that. It's more about finding the right people within the company, making contact. And LinkedIn is a great tool to do that. The telephone still works, even though it might sound old fashioned, and then just getting permission to send over your your materials, and then you send them. Then it's a follow up game. So a lot of times, too, when I'm coaching, we'll, we'll do some practice calls. I'll pretend like I'm somebody at the company, and they, you know, they ring me, and then we just kind of go through the a typical first call and then maybe a second or third call that gets a little more into the weeds with the product. And, you know, what are you looking for as the inventor, what are they looking for? Those kinds of things, yeah, and that, that's a lot of fun. And so really, a lot of it really comes down to knowing the what, what are the expectations, what does this ecosystem even look like? And I have a lot of cheat sheets and scripts and things for emails and phone calls and LinkedIn and so I have a lot of tools that can really help people so they're not you don't feel like you're so far out on the leading edge of all of this. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:terrific. Well, let me take a very short break here and share with everyone that the being an engineer podcast is brought to you by pipeline design and engineering, where we don't design pipelines, but we do help companies develop advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and customs. Mixtures, complemented with product design and R D services, Learn more at Team pipeline.us. The podcast is also sponsored by the wave, an online platform of free tools, education and community for engineers. Learn more at the wave. Dot, engineer, and today, we are thrilled to be speaking with Scott. Putnam, Scott, you mentioned the importance of doing market research right, making sure that there's actually a need, a want, a desire for the product that you're developing. What are some tools that you have found effective to do that market research? Yeah, so
Scott Putnam:some really quick, easy stuff. Just to get started, I like to tell people, you know, start with Google Images and just type, try different terms that you would describe your products. See what comes up. Google Shopping is a great one, Amazon, of course, if we're talking consumer products, but some other other, other areas to research, and this is part of it as well. Is Google patents. You can go to the uspto.gov, but a lot of people find Google patents is just a little bit easier, more user friendly for researching products, and you have to try different terms, because the way you might describe it in your mind, somebody else may describe it differently. So really, really digging into that, looking at Google Trends, are people still looking for alarm clocks, or is that gone things like that?
Aaron Moncur:Knowing is Google Trends? Is that like a product that Google offers? You can type in Google Trends and it'll show you trend lines for different products, yeah,
Scott Putnam:yeah, okay, yeah. If you just Google, Google Trends, yeah, it will come up. It's a great place. And there's, you know, AI is another great resource, you know, because it can search the internet and beyond and give you an idea of what what direction products are going. I like perplexity, because it'll give you the the sources, so you can go to some of those websites to verify things. It's really the research. Really what you're looking at, too, is not just is my product idea out there? You want to know what else is even remotely similar to it, what else is even remotely close to it, as well as, what are the price points of other products in this category? What does the packaging look like? So a lot of the research to just go into stores and look around, you know, see, where would your product be in the store? How would it be packaged? What are the other products that you're seeing in that area? So if you, if you have a, let's say, a carrot peeler innovation. I mean, I would go into a lot of stores that sell carrot peelers, and just what you're doing is becoming an expert in the category. You want to know all of the other products, all the other types of carrot peelers. What are their price points? What brands are they? So that you can, you can really speak to how is your product different? What is your point of difference? What makes yours better than what's out there?
Aaron Moncur:How about the whole Coke versus Pepsi thing, right? Like they're basically the same thing. Do you how do you coach inventors when they have a product that maybe is pretty similar to something else out there is that, can that ever be a viable business? Or if you look at something and say, well, it already exists, you know, pretty much 95% the same out here and and that's just the end of the conversation.
Scott Putnam:Yeah, it's a great it's a great point. So how different does mine have to be? How much of an improvement does mine have to be? I've seen a lot of licensing deals over the years that were really just small tweaks on existing products. And how big of a tweak does that need to be? Is a little bit of an X factor, and it comes down to talking through when I'm coaching, you know what? What is your point of difference? What makes yours better? And sometimes it's just the improvement is that it does the same job, it's just less expensive, or, you know, it can get the job done in twice the time with half the mess, you know, things like that, even though, operationally, it may not be that different. But what it also does is it opens the question about, well, what about the IEP? What does that look like? So that's something that you need to go down that road too, because the companies you're pitching it to for licensing, or if you're bringing it to market yourself, you need to make sure that runway is clear. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:Great. Can you share a success story, maybe one of your clients, of course, without divulging anything confidential, but kind of exemplifying the process or the journey that you take inventors through and and how one of your clients
Scott Putnam:succeeded? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In fact. The client I'm thinking of. I just had her on my podcast. We just recorded it. It'll be coming out in a few weeks. Yeah, I had a fantastic client who had a really, a clever kind of a, I'll call it, a kitchen gadget that solved a problem that she was having and other people were having, and she was very, kind of apprehensive about everything, like every step of the process was because it was all new to her. She had never done anything like this, and but she had a great concept. And we talked a lot about, you know, going through the steps and creating a cell sheet. And, you know, how do we do that? Or are we going to do a rendering? Or, you know, what is your actual physical prototype look like? Because sometimes, if it looks good enough, you can take a picture and put that on a cell sheet. And luckily, her son had helped with some 3d printing, and so she had a very nice looking prototype, so we use that on her cell sheet, and she she worked hard in terms of doing the research. Really knew the space, because she had been looking for her exact product for a long time. So she knew, already knew all of the products that were out there and the price points and all of that stuff. So once we had what what looked like the close to the finished product, I think we did a few little touch ups with some photoshop work to kind of clean it up a little bit, but got it on a sell sheet. We had her create a one minute video that we can embed into the sell sheet, and got a list of companies together, she filed a provisional patent application, and we stretched our comfort zone a lot when it come came to reaching out to companies, but, yeah, I'm so proud of her. She she did it, and she had, I think, three companies that were interested. And I remember one of the coaching calls early on, I said the best problem you can have is to have multiple companies interested in this. So I'm going to wish this upon you. I must have waved a magic wand or something. She ended up having three companies interested, and ultimately made a good decision to go with one of them that ended up being the biggest company, and went through that process, you know, negotiated a licensing deal, got our product licensed. I was at the housewares trade show earlier this month, and saw her product at the trade show. So that was wow, like a proud teacher moment for me. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:phenomenal. Very cool, great story. All right, how about when it comes to intellectual property, you mentioned making sure the runway is clear. Now, I think the short, easy answer is work with an IP attorney and make sure that all your ducks are in the row there. But what are some high level insights that you might have that New Inventors might not be aware of. What should people be keeping in mind as they begin searching the intellectual property landscape?
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Scott Putnam:Yeah, I think one thing to remember is that a patent alone doesn't always stop the knockoffs, so which that may burst a few balloons here, but it just gives you the ammunition to fight them. But you really need a strategy to enforce it, and sometimes, you know, strong market presence is just as valuable as a patent. So there is some strategy behind dominating the marketplace. So a lot of companies that you pitch products to the patent, question always comes up, and they I'd say the vast majority really want an issued utility patent. But our model isn't to wait till that happens, because it can be 18 months before it's even reviewed, and up to, like, three years or longer before it's issued. So you can get in the game much quicker than that. And companies understand the value of dominating the marketplace and really being the first to market. There's a lot of power in that. And. Yeah, a lot of in a lot of cases, a really well prepared provisional patent application is enough to start discussions with companies. And it's a really nice tool, because it offers you the priority date. And if you file a non provisional within 12 months, your non provisional sort of claims that earlier priority date. So it almost sort of gets to go back in time. And I would say, high level, high level stuff, really doing your own research. And remember, even if you're working with a patent attorney, don't just hand them the idea and tell them to, you know, let you know when it's done. Be involved in the process, and remember, you are the expert in this category. You know more about your product than anybody does, so don't be afraid to really share everything you can and everything you know with a patent attorney if you if you go down that road and read everything they do, and if they're missing the mark somewhere. Make sure to bring it to their attention, because they're they're not perfect. And the other thing too is patent attorneys, there's they come in all shapes and sizes, so and what I mean by that is their job is to get you a patent. Their job isn't necessarily to get you a super strong patent. So a lot of times you have to help them fight for a stronger patent. Case in point, with with my SWAT and scoop I had, we I being new at it at the time and not really fully understanding patents, and I'm still learning. You know, I'm not a patent attorney, but the first claim in a patent is the independent claim, and it's the most important claim. So if you're not infringing on that first independent claim, you're not infringing on the patent. It doesn't mean you would necessarily get one if yours is too similar to something else, but it's, it's an important piece to know. So when I wrote my provisional, I just put everything in the kitchen sink into it, which is okay, but my patent attorney, when he drafted it, there was some things in there, in the independent claim about the handle, just because it was just things that I thought of to reduce materials and things like that. But once it was in the independent claim, somebody could have come out with the exact same product and not had the specifics that I had about the handle, and they would not be infringing on my patent. So understanding kind of how the independent claim works and how it fits into the equation is so huge,
Aaron Moncur:that's a huge insight. Thank you for sharing that you have, if I'm not mistaken, a background in, like, health and wellness and life coaching. Is that right?
Scott Putnam:Yeah, yeah. I'm a certified life coach. And sometimes, when I'm coaching inventors, you know, I wear that hat. I wear a lot of different hats. Sometimes I'm the, you know, the therapist, like, lay down couch and tell me about your mother, and I'm the cheerleader, and sometimes I'm the, you know, the football coach blowing the whistle. So the background in that is my, my wife and I brought our two little girls to China, and we lived in China for a couple years, and when we we came back due to some family health issues, and that was about the time we learned about plant based eating and the power of that. We watched Forks Over Knives documentary, and read The China Study, and really explored that as an option, mostly for just prevention. But it was about the time that I had a physical, and I was 44 at the time, and was the first time anybody's ever used the word obese to me, because I was never like a an overweight kid or a chunky kid. So it was like this, this moment where, who are you talking to? What me and I was looking at the doctor who had a very roten belly himself. So good company here. But, and it was really a wake up call for me that okay, you know, I'm well into the, you know, body mass index being very much obese, but I didn't necessarily feel like it, but also high cholesterol and some other, you know, health indicators that it was time to make a change. And that was about the time we learned about plant based eating. So went all in with that. Cholesterol dropped, weight dropped. I lost about 65 pounds. Started, wow, doing a couch to 5k and just kept with the running for a while, which is hilarious to me, because I've always hated running my whole life.
Aaron Moncur:Well, congratulations that that's a huge accomplishment. Thanks. Yeah, our whole
Scott Putnam:family is is plant based since 2013 and it's just it's been, it's been an amazing journey as a family, and we live in the Midwest. Where it's all meat and dairy and lots of processed unhealthy foods, which I guess that's probably the story for all of America. So, yeah, I do believe in taking care of the body and the mind and good health really leads to better decision making, and that's critical in business. And you know, I like to tell people, you know, it will help you avoid burnout. You're going to have more energy. You're going to sleep better if you just get healthy, because it is a long game. And I encourage inventors to work in more focused sprints, you know, and take breaks rather than kind of endlessly being on this grinding treadmill.
Aaron Moncur:I'm curious to hear what you your take on protein, because protein is all the rage right now. Feels like best. I don't know, five years or so, everything is protein, protein, you know, it's, uh, protein pasta and protein bread and protein whatever, right? Protein candies. It's, insane. It's it's everywhere, and typically one thinks of like meat and maybe dairy, as well as being high sources of protein plants. Of course, there you can find higher protein based plants, but, but it's maybe more challenging to get enough or a lot of protein out of plants. Talk a little bit about that, if you would do you think the the craze for protein is warranted. Do we really need that much protein in our diets? And then follow that up with, if you are trying to get we'll just say a reasonable amount of protein in your diet, whatever that is. How do you do that on a plant based diet?
Scott Putnam:Yeah, it's, again, it's such a great question in this country, especially, sort of meat is synonymous with protein. And when people, even if you go to a restaurant, you order a salad or whatever, or just some pasta, like, Oh, do you want to add some protein to that? Meaning, do you want to add some meat to that? And I didn't know that was a question I had, and I get that question all the time. Well, I didn't know plants had protein, but they have a ton of protein. Even broccoli has more protein per calorie. I know it's less calories, but than red meat, and it's Have you ever heard of anybody being hospitalized due to low protein or lack of protein? No, I haven't. It just doesn't happen. And it's really interesting. In the book that China Studies, Dr T Colin Campbell went to China thinking some of their health issues are protein deficiencies. When he got there, what he found was most of the the healthiest people in the country were the ones that ate the least amount of animal products, and the ones that lived maybe in more urban areas, that had more access to meat and dairy wasn't such a big thing, but had more access to meat and just ate more animal based diets, had higher levels of all kinds of diseases. And it was like, wait a minute, what's going on here? And so really looked into it and and found out that a lot of oh, we're especially in the US. It's like, listen to your grandma and grandparents, right? Eat more veggies. But it's something that in this country anyway, we think, you know, the big bodybuilders, weight lifters, like to be healthy, you need to eat lots of animal protein or lots of meat. And it's really, when you look at the data. It's, it's quite the opposite. And there's some really specific, great plant based foods that have tons of protein. I mean, black beans and lentils and quinoa are absolutely packed with protein. So, yeah, if you're, if you're not literally starving to death, you're probably getting plenty of protein, even on a plant based or a vegan diet, it's it's all in there, and it's enough. It's just trying to get over the idea that, Oh, I need more. I need more. I need more. So yeah, there's another documentary I'll mention real quick, called the game changers, and it's about these professional athletes, especially football players, that switch to a plant based diet, and how their performance improves and the recovery time improves. It's, it's really fascinating,
Aaron Moncur:interesting. The game changers. He said, huh, yeah, I'm gonna have to watch that one. All right, it's good movie, fascinating. All right, well, Scott, let's see. I think we'll start wrapping things up here. I'm going to steal a trick from Tim Ferriss and ask you if you were to have the ability to put anything on a giant billboard that millions of people would see as they're driving past. And say, millions of inventors. Would see as they're driving past, what would that thing be?
Scott Putnam:Wow, that is a great question. Thanks. Tim Ferriss,
Aaron Moncur:thank you.
Scott Putnam:Tim Ferriss, yeah. I think one of the quotes that I love is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I think that would be at the top maybe. And then below that of the Billboard would be that your ideas matter. You know, we're all put on this planet to express ourselves and our creativity. And I think for a lot of people, if you have a venue for that, if you have a plan for that, and some some guidance. You know, you don't have to be a lone wolf. Maybe that would be right below it. You don't have to be a lone wolf. And as inventors, and I know a lot of engineers, you're sort of on this, you know, on this, this path, and you're going through the woods and you're alone. And so what I'm trying to do is, and what I'm doing with inventors edge is really bringing people together with our membership and saying, Hey, you don't have to do this alone. There's a lot of support out there and guidance and can help you stay motivated, and, you know, create a nice, clear path so you know the direction, or get help with the direction that you want to go. And we're all in this together.
Aaron Moncur:Terrific, wonderful. Well, Scott, how can people get a hold of you?
Scott Putnam:I think that the best way is just through our website. It's inventors dash. We do have a dash edge.com and there you can sign up for a weekly email blog if you want some great information, we have some FAQs. There's a Contact Us link there. I'm also on LinkedIn. I would love to connect with anybody. You can DM me if you, if you, you know, just have questions, or you just want to set up a a time to talk. I'm happy to do that, and I can share more about what I do and how I help people and maybe even offer guidance about what what you're looking for. And I love engineers. You're some of my favorite group to work with, because you're very organized and methodical and, you know, like, like, step by step processes, and that's something I've been helping people with for a long time. So yeah, please reach out. I'm available. Wonderful.
Aaron Moncur:All right, Scott, well, thank you so much. I sure appreciate you being on the show and sharing all these wonderful insights with our audience.
Scott Putnam:Thanks My pleasure.
Aaron Moncur:I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode to learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R D services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us. To join a vibrant community of engineers online visit the wave dot engineer, thank you for listening. You.
