This past Friday Jay Leno featured six inventions from the Yankee Invention Expo and the InventBay Expo. In this segment, Pitch to America, The inventor introduces the idea, does a quick demo and the audience crowd guesses sold or not sold. As I have been told in the past, this is an entertainment piece and is not very friendly towards inventors often framing them as crazy.  However, I do believe that there is a lot to learn about each of the products that sold, the pitches of products that didn’t sell and getting on the show.

First I was psyched to see the Stay Dry Face Shield on the show.  I saw this at the Yankee Invention Expo and thought it might be a great product.  I have been staying away from medical devices (for myself) because of the complications that never seem to end but this one did catch my eye.  Of course the inventor didn’t have a great marketing story and without that it is hard to buy into.  Questions I had like, how many people have face plastic surgery a year? were sidestepped instead of a statistic (that should be growing).  Anyway I am happy to see that they sold and have even more respect for the Yankee Invention Expo for making the selling connection.  Only one other product sold, the Pop Blocks and honestly I didn’t exactly get it.

Of the ones that didn’t sell, (four) three had problem issues and the security purse had a major solution issue.  Regardless the majority were struggling to rationalize their idea, instead of picking a problem that is an issue.  Anyway it was an interesting TV segment, and even those that didn’t sell I am sure are enjoying the publicity.