Still stuck on what your microbusiness product should be?  I checked Handy farm and home devices and how to make them out of the library last week, flipped through the book for an hour, and saw at least half a dozen ideas that could be turned into great microbusines products.

Many people seem to get derailed at the inventing stage of their microbusiness career, but I sincerely believe that you don't need to be an inventor to start a microbusiness.  During our current economic downturn, many people are striving to return to a simpler way of life, which opens a whole world of opportunities for the entrepreneur.  Why not look through your grandparents' attic for outdated devices from a previous era?  The world might just be ready for them again!

For other tips on starting your microbusiness and quitting your job, check out our ebook.

I recently read The One-Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka and thoroughly enjoyed this glimpse into the life of one of the founding fathers of permaculture.  Although I got the most out of this Japanese farmer's do-nothing farming technique, I was also struck by a throwaway paragraph in which he described an invention he failed to market:

As it often does, my microbusiness antenna perked right up.  Fukuoka's invention sounds like the perfect microbusiness product --- a niche product serving a real purpose that is relatively cheap to manufacture.  If Fukuoka had been inventing in the age of the internet, he could easily have followed our microbusiness plan to turn his seeding tool into the source of a bit of funding for his research.

The pedal-powered rotating drum thresher that Fukuoka mentions in the text would have made another great microbusiness product (and still might!)  These threshers have been in use in Asia for quite a while, but small-scale grain growing is very unusual in the U.S. at this time.  If we had an easy way to process the grain, might backyard gardeners and homesteaders start to grow our own wheat and barley?  I suspect that construction of the pedal-powered thresher would make the subject of a lucrative ebook.

Remember my post about why you shouldn't bother patenting your invention?  In case you need a non-fiscal reason, you should check out Flash of Genius.  The movie represents the true story of Robert Kearns' struggle to protect his windshield wiper invention from being stolen by the Ford Motor Company.  I won't ruin the movie for you, but suffice it to say that Kearns loses pretty much everything during the process, although he does eventually win a wad of cash a decade or more later.

Microbusiness Independence leads you in a journey in the entirely opposite direction.  The goal of our ebook is to help folks start a business that will supplement their lives, not take it over.  Shouldn't you work to live instead of live to work?

When Mark first came up with his automatic chicken waterer idea, we tossed around the idea of getting a patent to protect his invention.  However, after running the idea by a retired patent lawyer, we thought again.

Did you know that it costs between $5,000 and $10,000 to get an invention patented?  After that, you still have to be willing to cough up the funds to hire an attorney if someone steals your idea.

Our microbusiness path to marketing Mark's invention involves keeping our startup costs extremely low so that we can make a living from the profit.  So we decided to look at each invention as a limited time opportunity --- we'll make some cash off the idea until someone steals it.  Meanwhile, Mark keeps inventing, mostly because he loves to tinker but also so that we'll have another invention ready to go down the pipeline in case his chicken waterers get stolen.  Unless you have a wad of cash and no need to make money from your invention anytime soon, I recommend taking the road less traveled and ignoring the patent route.