Looking for way to monetize my creative genius

[dreamlife789]

I have tons of ideas for iPhone applications, household products, clothing, etc. I'm a bit of a creative genius. I've written down each idea on a separate text file, but I have no idea how to monetize my creative genius. I've contacted companies like Source Bits, the Imaginary Foundation, and Simple Human, but none have wanted to pay me for my ideas. Of course, they'd have to hire me in some fashion before I would give them my ideas freely.

How do I find an existing company, organization, or infrastructure to monetize my creativity without giving away my ideas beforehand, come up with detailed venture capital presentations, or get my ideas stolen by some schmuk with a two-bit company that just wants to rip off my ideas.

 

[kainjow]

How about start your own company and hire people to do what you want? Ideas are a dime a dozen... it's the people who can properly implement them that are the true geniuses

 

[dreamlife789]

I'm a student with 0 money. All my focus is on that. I would want to plug into an existing infrastructure and get monetized for my ideas. Then, at some point in the future develop my own ideas with that seed money.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Is this still around?

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No offense to the OP, but there's an aura of hucksterism about this. I don't mean that the OP is dishonest, but the use of superlatives like "tons" of ideas and "creative genius" in someone who's also "a student with 0 money" -- they just don't go together.

The thing about being young is: you don't know what you don't know. Unless you have a rich uncle willing to finance your "job" as an "all-purpose inventor", nobody is going to give money to a young, inexperienced, unproven person. To the rest of the world, until you've done something, you're just talk.

How do you do something? By working for a company -- Apple, GM, whoever -- in some entry-level slot, until you reach a position where you can earn some respect and thereby get the attention of people who can make your ideas a reality.

The alternative is what kainjow said. If you've got 0 money...earn it the way everybody else does. At the very least, if you've got an idea for an iPhone app, don't expect someone to give you money for your idea...create an app and submit it to the store.

 

[rdowns]

I see this guy on TV wanting to give away money all the time. HTH.

 

[Gelfin]

How do I find an existing company, organization, or infrastructure to monetize my creativity without giving away my ideas beforehand, come up with detailed venture capital presentations, or get my ideas stolen by some schmuk with a two-bit company that just wants to rip off my ideas.

Hard truth: ideas by themselves are worthless. You cannot patent, copyright or trademark an idea. If having ideas makes you a genius, everybody is a genius. Lots of people get the notion that their imagination makes them so special that they should be able to just kick back and fire off little nuggets of inspiration from the mountaintop, and collect piles of money from the grateful little people who attend to the particulars. But heavens, it would be a waste for them to dirty their own dainty genius hands with the menial details of work when they could be sipping a cocktail on the beach and phoning in the next Big Idea.

The credit for inventions, and the reward, goes to the people who make it happen, not the people who dream it. The companies you've talked to hear from "idea people" all the time. They don't want to talk to you because they don't want to waste their time defending themselves against nuisance lawsuits over "stolen ideas" and they don't want to hire somebody whose pitch to them involves no marketable skills, and who really just wants easy money on the back of their labor.

Pick one of your big ideas and figure out how to make it happen yourself, and you will be getting somewhere. This may involve partnering with someone who has business skills you lack, but you have to put in the work. Otherwise, you'll just have to get a job like everybody else. The world belongs not to those who dream, but to those who execute.