Cyanide

Just piping in here briefly.

The easiest option is to stop making them altogether.

The next easiest is to sell it to a good company like HeartFelt (he is active in here isn't he). Either he can start making a second line of beads, or he can just "suppress the competition" so to speak.

Another option is to sell instructions on how to make the beads, accept that the information gets out there, but this isn't too bad if you divorce yourself of any emotional tethers to the beads.

Another interesting option (the one I was really wanting to write about), is to turn this community into a sort of diffuse factory. You could give your process, supplier names etc to a number of BOTLs on the board her that you can trust. Figure out a way of getting them the deals on materials and services you might have been able to develop. Then, you could collect the orders, push the production out to these BOTL to produce, and then push out the shipment information for them to then mail them out.

You would want to control materials, delivery methods, production methods and timelines.

Then have those BOTLs set up electronic bank accounts that allow you to transfer into. You collect the sales moneys, push out supply supply and shipping costs along with their wages/profit to the BOTL and then receive feedback from the original purchaser at time of reception.

The great benefit to this is that people could get involved as needed, bow out when need be and it would possibly open the door to helping out alot of BOTL that may have found things difficult with the new economic environment.

Further, this could also allow you to pursue new market directions with the product if you wanted (or not). For instance, I bet the musical instrument industry has a significant need for humidification products.

But that is just my thoughts on this. One of the benefits is it would keep you getting some satisfaction from the beads, get you some extra income to pursue other inventions, allow you to expand if you want and help fellow BOTLs down on their luck.

Cheers

John