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      Frustrated Inventor, Sign Here

      As a manager of an Exxon service station and a tow truck driver for fifteen years in New York, Fred Fink saw his share of cars abandoned on the side of the road. (Fred says AAA estimates 25 million breakdowns a year in the U.S.) Fred has spent countless hours talking with police officers who stopped at his station, trying to find the owners of abandoned cars.

      In today’s go-go world, stranded motor-ists no longer wait for a tow truck. They use their cell phones to call a family member or friend to pick them up and get them where they need to go. Most figure they’ll take care of the car later. But they can’t take care of a car that’s gone. Police ticket or tow abandoned cars—unless the driver has left a compelling message.

      Seven years ago, Fred invented the Roadside Message Board as a handy, portable way for stranded drivers to get their message out—before it’s too late. It’s a license-plate-sized board that fits in the glove box, under a seat, or over a visor. Its two suction cups hold it to a car window or on the dashboard. It comes with ten prewritten messages that can be displayed on the message board. It also comes with a dry erase marker so drivers can write their own message on the board. There’s even an emergency flasher that can be clipped to the sign or worn as the carless motorist walks along the road.

      The preprinted messages Fred chose are the most common ones he encountered as a tow truck driver. These phrases of desperation were often scribbled in crayon or lipstick on a napkin or on the back of a receipt. The messages read like titles from a series of roadside sleazy novels: Car Trouble, Battery Dead, Out of Gas, Flat Tire, Overheated, Went for Help, Please Do Not Tow, Please Do Not Ticket, Be Back in __ Minutes, and—in case someone is just looking to get rid of the car—For Sale.

      Fred knew the secret to success would be promotion. To keep costs down, he had his product manufactured in China, spending $15,000 for a mold and placing a large order of 10,000 units. The product arrived from China in pieces; then Fred hired companies that employ handicapped people to do the assembly work.

      His first prototype was a flasher with a belt clip. Then he glued the flasher onto the board. But the handicapped workers weren’t allowed to use glue because it might impair them. So he went back to his drawing board and came up with the solution. Fred modified the board to hold a clip-on light. That was just the ticket to keep his customers from getting a ticket.

      At first, his family and friends were very excited, but didn’t realize how much it would cost to proceed. Overall, he has spent $1 00,000 in the last seven years. It took five years to receive the patent at a cost of $10,000. (He was told it would cost $5,000, but it got rejected the first time and had to be resubmitted.) The mold cost $15,000. Liability insurance costs $2,000 a year.

      With the bills adding up, Fred recently decided this venture was experiencing its own emergency. “I’m lucky if I make 50 cents per piece,” he said. After paying for the patent, making the mold, manufacturing the product, traveling to conventions, incorporating, and keeping liability insurance, there’s not much left in profit for this idea man. So after selling 9,200 of the 10,000 units he had made, Fred closed his corporation because it took too much money to keep the business running. If he wanted to promote the Roadside Message Board, he’d have to spend more money to travel and hire salespeople.

      At this point, Fred is waiting for people to contact him. He thinks it would be a great giveaway for car insurance companies. And the board provides a space to promote a product, leave a message on a store window, or occupy kids in the car with a game of tic-tac-toe. He’s looking to sell the remaining Roadside Message Boards. He has them on a website, MarketLaunchers.com for $9.95. His dream is that a company will buy the mold and give him royalties. He’s ready to walk away from it—much like the motorists he’s tried to help.

      Walk-O-Long™

       A Step in the Right Direction

      Inventors can be inspired by anything. Usually, a problem that begs for a solution gets an inventor thinking. For Jeff Zinger, necessity was truly the mother of invention. He had just undergone back surgery, but his 10-month-old daughter, Faith, didn’t understand that. She wanted to pull herself up and walk. Faith really didn’t care that her dad couldn’t keep bending over to help her. What was Jeff going to do?

      He saw Faith’s nanny use a towel to hold Faith and Jeff thought there has to be a better, safer way. The former plumber went to a fabric store and made the prototype for the Walk-O-Long. His first prototype was his last. It worked.

      The Walk-O-Long is a spongy fabric tube that fits around a child’s chest and under his/her arms. It allows a parent to stand up tall and still have a firm grasp on the child. In fact, Jeff says that he used the prototype Walk-O-Long for thirty to sixty minutes at a time, and in about five days, Faith learned to walk. As people started to see Jeff and Faith using the Walk-O-Long at restaurants, Disneyland, shopping malls, and grocery stores, he would get questions about where they could buy one.

      Ding! The lightbulb was on. Jeff realized that his Walk-O-Long might not only help his daughter walk; it could also help this plumber with a back problem take the first steps toward a new career—and get him back working. So he started the process of filing the patent paperwork for the Walk-O-Long. His parents and his wife’s parents were very supportive. Even though his brother and sisters and his wife’s brother and sisters made fun of the idea, that didn’t stop him.

      Jeff spent the next year working on packaging and advertising. He thought it was only appropriate that he use his daughter’s face as a logo. After all, it was because of little Faith that the Walk-O-Long was invented.

      In its first four months in stores, Jeff tells me he sold about 2,000 Walk-O-Longs. They sell for about $25 each, so you do the math. Despite the sales, Jeff says he is still in the red.

      Once the Walk-O-Long got placement in stores, a funny thing began to happen. Jeff found his product had more uses than he could have imagined. Parents could use it to help their children down a playground slide; it could help a child get used to being on ice skates; it could even help when caring for kids with special needs. Recently, Jeff has been in talks with child disability educators at the University of California, Irvine, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the Foundation for the Junior Blind of America, and many parents of children with cerebral palsy.

      Who would have guessed that material wrapped around a foam tube could be so handy? I guess you just have to have a “little Faith.”

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