Menu
About Me
Courtney is an award-winning entrepreneur and successful inventor who licensed four product ideas to a company that specializes in outfitting dorm rooms. She later secured a second deal of two more products with the same company, and most recently licensed a 7th concept to a toy & game company that will come out in 2023! As a child, she remembers making paper models of amusement parks and ski resorts that took up a whole room. She started her first business as a teenager while attending college. Selling online and at several events throughout the year, she learned the basics of starting and growing her own small business.
She’s also an experienced educator. For nearly a decade, she taught classes to youth about robotics, animation, and design through an educational non-profit. “Each of our classes consisted of teaching the students how to be life-long learners and how to be creative thinkers at a young age,” she explained.
She has been recognized for her achievements, including being the inaugural youth division winner of the Nexties Awards for Entrepreneurship, as well as the Bay Area winner for the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
Before she knew its official name, Courtney was sold on the concept of licensing. With so many ideas, why start a business for each one when you can license them, she thought.
“Licensing is deeply ingrained in who I am,” she said. “I can come up with all these ideas and focus my energy on creativity and innovation every single day; I’m so enthralled by this industry”.
As the former longtime Managing Director of Inventors Groups of America, she ran online meetings for inventors that averaged 250 attendees as well as produced a monthly newsletter and educational webinar series with guest experts.
“Inventors are dedicated movers and shakers who are constantly pushing their ideas forward. It is such an honor to be a part of the inventing community— it’s really inspiring.”
In addition to being a zealous advocate for inventors and the inventing community, and developing product ideas for companies, Courtney is a martial artist (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and May Thai) and ukulelist. She also enjoys golfing, photojournalism, and dipping her feet into new and invigorating activities.
FAQ:
Pure trust in the process. I know it works. It’s worked for me 7 times. I see success stories every day. I know hard work brings success. If I focus on the hard work, find more ways to be efficient, and always take in new knowledge, I know it will pay off, and it doesn’t feel lonely, improbable, or a waste of time anymore.
Look at it objectively, and focus on the numbers. N.O. means next opportunity. Once you understand what constitutes a true valid no, you can feel confident that each no you get, is one step closer to getting honest movement in the industry. And if you pretend that you will not get a deal until you get 99 nos, then it takes the power away from the pain of the no, and you finally get to relax and enjoy the journey of developing relationships and pitching products.
Be coachable! As in, you are here to learn the process - do your best to be honest, open, and flexible with your coach. We are on the same team. The more you can be honest about your lifestyle, work, and family obligations, the better we can coach you - and often that takes a level of vulnerability. Sometimes students have not been in a position of being able to share their passion with another like-minded and excited individual where they are passionate about your dream, in the past. Some people have been burned in the past for being vulnerable. This can be difficult for those students, easily leading to not complete transparency during the process of why they didn’t get their action items done, and not letting us truly know what is stopping them from completing them. It truly does take a leap of faith, to realize that you are and will be fully comforted in your coaches' hands in knowing that we get the honor to hold your dream carefully in our arms. Trust is a big thing, and if you can give trust to your coach, success will be that much quicker.
Timers. Timers are such a beautiful thing. The brain works in a different way when it has to produce something under a time limit. I love to go into a category I have never been in on Google, such as typing in, “Lawn Mower Accessories”, starting a 10 minute timer on my phone, with a blank piece of paper in front of me (handwritten notes can often create more creativity and less blocks!), and tell myself that I have to come up with 5 ideas within this span of time. Clock watching the timer go down, and searching various key terms on Google helps that process! It’s a great challenge to invent in a category you know nothing about, and it also helps that you don’t have any preconceived notions about that category, so you aren’t limited by your own mind in what you can come up with! This is partly why kids have such great ideas!
What is the most important and/or impactful thing you’ve learned from coaching inventRight students?
How many beautiful and diverse people there are in the world! It’s my goal to make sure I can meet each one of my students where they are at. I love being able to get to know each of my students- it’s kind of like putting the oxygen mask on themselves first, before putting it on the product, as a product idea doesn’t have legs without the inventor/soul attached to it! Getting the honor to learn about who I am coaching on a personal level is always my number one objective, so I can learn how best I can coach them to success!
You can find them here!
There are a few qualifications you must go through to be considered before becoming an inventRight student. Contact customer service via email or phone to get in touch with them. Here is inventRight's contact page.
How creatively fun and fast it is once you learn the 10 steps! Once you really get the licensing steps ingrained in your head, you can go from a few months to go from market research to pitching, to even just a few hours!
When I first started out in the industry (8 years ago), I struggled to have the grit needed to succeed - you need a lot of it, but if you can face yourself and grow as a person through your PD journey, nothing will stop your success!
If you’re looking for a good book on how to come up with better ideas, this book won’t disappoint: https://amzn.to/3OLOaIY