Some of you may be interested in this pitch competition. I have no affiliation, just sharing what I see ... - You must live in the USA - Deadline is February 27 - I could not find how they are going to distribute the prize money — perhaps they are waiting to see how many entries they get. THEIR MARKETING TEXT: Kids and teens everywhere have world-changing ideas that deserve the spotlight, and the Mott Million Dollar Challenge is their chance to shine. This national pitch competition invites K-12 students to submit a simple 30-90 second video sharing an idea that betters their very own school, home, or community. Students can enter individually or in teams of up to three, and $1 million in prizes will be awarded across the competition! Submissions are due February 27, 2026. Learn more at mottmillion.org

Happy new year to all of us here🧨🫂

A few years ago I invented a plastic toy that makes building Hot Wheels tracks more fun. Occasionally, I get feedback that my TrackJack is too expensive. In fact, the first ever Amazon review I got said it was a clever, useful, and well-made product ... but too expensive — so they gave it 2 stars. The price was $24.99 (currently it's $29.99 and 4.4 ⭐s) Now, you may know that there's not a lot of room between $0 and $25 ... because ... math 😊 Of course I realize that most people are not aware of the costs of bringing a product to market. Some think the inventor pockets the entire selling price. The reality is that we might profit a few dollars per sale if everything goes perfectly well. Here's a list of all the costs to bring my TrackJack from idea to customer. 🟢 PREPARING INVENTORY - Manufacturing (sample, make, assemble) - Packaging (make, ship, assemble) - Barcode Fees - Shipping to Warehouse in USA - Shipping to Warehouse in Canada - Customs Brokerage Fees and Tariffs - Inventory Receiving Fee - Storage Fees (recurring) 🟢 SELLING - Reseller Listing Fee (Amazon, Walmart, Etsy) - Reseller Sales Fee (per order) - Shipping Materials - Order Fulfillment Fee - Shipping to Customer 🟢 BUSINESS OPERATIONS - Refund Risk and Costs - Marketing Costs and Risk - Business Operation Costs - Foreign Exchange Fees - Insurance Costs - Accounting Costs 🟢 INVENTING - Idea & Market Research - 3D Modeling - Prototyping - Testing - Find Manufacturer - Manufacturing Mold (limited lifespan) - Safety Testing - Product Naming - Product Photography - Brand Design (fonts, logos, messaging) - Legal & Trademark - Patent Application - Packaging Sourcing - Packaging Design - Packaging Die 🟢 FOUNDER / INVENTOR - Personal time to manage all of the above - High probability of failure 🟢 PROFIT - If everything goes perfectly well with a product that sells for less than $30, you might make a few dollars per sale. - Then you lose some of that to income taxes.

UPDATED: Made public December 8, 2025 3:30PM ET. You’re a member of our community and this is how this change will affect you: - If you have ever posted or commented on something you do not want visible publicly, you may want to delete it now. Act quickly as this is the only notice before the change happens in a few days. - All posts and comments will be visible by anyone who visits the community, even if they are not a member. This includes content under the COMMUNITY, LEADERBOARD, and MEMBERS tabs. Currently, only members can view this content — but that will change when public.  - Content that is visible to non-members may be indexed by search engines, making our community easier to find. That’s all there is to it in terms of your content. Three more notes: - Visitors will have to become members before they can post, comment, or send chat messages (and chat is restricted to members at Level 2). These requirements keep spam to a minimum. - Some of the resources and training under the CLASSROOM tab will be visible to non-members, but most will only be available to members.  - Membership remains free. We are testing the public option to see if our community can help more people. If it works — great. If not, we may go back to being private. BTW, this is a good business lesson — no one knows what really works, experimentation is necessary to optimize. Thanks for going along for the ride. PS: This does not affect our TeachingSuperhero community — that will remain private.