Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook: By Maurice Kanbar, Creator of SKYY Vodka and Holder of over... [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Maurice Kanbar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

The inventor of SKYY Vodka shares his five-step blueprint on how to turn good ideas into successful products. When the fuzz from his sweater was pulled off by a concrete wall he was leaning against, Maurice Kanbar had a brainstorm. Soon he had patented, produced, and successfully promoted the D-Fuzz-It Sweater Comb, and made his first fortune at the age of twenty-two. When Maurice's favorite after-dinner drink gave him a headache, lightning struck again. Thus was born the unique distilling system for SKYY Vodka, the fastest growing vodka of the decade in the U.S. In between came dozens of successful inventions, from multi-plex theatres to medical devices. In this engaging "master class," Kanbar's real world hits and misses illustrate the concrete steps every inventor must follow to successfully take his product to market. You don't have to be a MENSA member--although Maurice is--to make your dreams realities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Told with verve, this delightful tale of a restless, curious inventor and entrepreneur is packed with practical advice for creative endeavors. Kanbar's 36 successful inventions (from various medical devices to Skyy vodka and the D-Fuzz-It Sweater and Fabric CombR) all started with difficulties anyone might encounter: hangovers, accidents with hypodermic needles, fuzzballs on sweaters. In each case, Kanbar knew nothing about the problem he set out to solve. Unlike many inventors, who hand off their ideas at an early stage through licensing agreements, Kanbar has often set up businesses to market his products and stayed involved in every detail along the way. He takes the reader on engaging journeys from initial conception to research, implementation, testing, refinement, legal protection, packaging, distribution and marketing. General readers will enjoy these unaffected stories of a straightforward, successful guy. Would-be inventors and anyone engaged in independent creative activity will benefit from the distilled aphorisms ("Thou Shalt Not Bullshit Thyself") and no-nonsense information. It's a rare author who can end his foreword with "I look forward to reveling in your success" and make the reader believe it. With the help of a $50,000 marketing campaign, Kanbar (the publisher of Council Oaks books) is supporting this book with the same care that he's brought to marketing his other products. While none of his inventions, except for Skyy vodka, are household names, would-be inventors will find both inspiration and beneficial tips in his affable guide. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...of great help to everyone who has ever wanted to invent. It's a thoughtful, extremely well written book...Fascinating reading." -- Richard Nelson Bolles, Author of What Color Is Your Parachute?

"Every inventor or hopeful entrepreneur should read this insightful and fascinating book by one of our generation's true inventive entrepreneurs." -- Leonard Stern, Chairman and CEO of The Hartz Group

"I wish I'd had this book when I first invented the Baby Jogger!...closer to an action-adventure movie than a dry how-to manual." -- Phil Baechler, Inventor of the Baby Jogger

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Council Oak Books; First Printing edition (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571780998
• ISBN-13: 978-1571780997
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of practical advice illustrated with real stories, March 5, 2001

By 

John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook: By Maurice Kanbar, Creator of SKYY Vodka and Holder of over... (Hardcover)

This is an easy read, and it's hard to put it down.

His basic process is easily summed up: 1) Solve a Problem, 2) Prove Your Invention/Build a Prototype, 3) Protect Your Idea, 4)Manufacture or License?, 5) Market with a Twist. And, those are his 5 main chapters. He shows you how he has done this repeatedly. He's a serial inventor/business starter.

What I particularly liked was his detailed description of how he did "hands on" market research. He shows you how to prove out your invention early within the marketplace.

From an invention point of view, he works primarily from finding problems. He describes his personal experience in all the chapters. There is no college theory here.

I highly recommend this book for entrepreneurs and inventors. It's a fast read, but you'll probably come back and review it periodically.

John Dunbar

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hits the Nail on the Head, March 30, 2001

By 

KDS (Redondo Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook: By Maurice Kanbar, Creator of SKYY Vodka and Holder of over... (Hardcover)

Maurice pushes all the right buttons! I have been in product development for 12 years now (working for other companies) and am also an inventor who recently licensed a product to a manufacturer. Every point of the inventing process that Mr. Kanbar states is exactly what one needs to do. This is a no-nonsense book that tells it like it is. There is not one shortcut in the process of bringing a product to market. There is something that can be learned from every story he tells. The appendix is excellent with plenty of resources. It is as honest they come!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to inventing, June 4, 2002

By 

Stephen Funk - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook: By Maurice Kanbar, Creator of SKYY Vodka and Holder of over... (Hardcover)

If you consider yourself an Inventor, or think you may want to become an Inventor, and you love listening to yarns about products and how they came to market, then this book is for you. Maurice Kanbar is a trained engineer and has many inventions to his credit. Many of his inventions are successful (36 patents) and some are household words. Some of Kanbar's inventions are not so successful and to his credit he airs his laundry willingly so that new inventors need not make similar mistakes.

It is hard to classify "Secrets from an Inventors Notebook". To begin with, the title might more aptly be called "Musings from my Diary" or "Did you hear the one about... ".. After reading only a small part of the book you are immediately struck with the quality that has made Maurice Kanbar successful in a wide range of endeavors, he is a first class promoter and his enthusiasm comes across clearly in the book. Like many good storytellers, sometimes you simply have to take the story for it's intended teaching point and not be too critical of the details. Buried in the prose are many bits of solid advice on developing and bringing a product to market.

Maurice's style is likeable and you find yourself wanting to sit down and have a beer with the author and chew the fat about inventing. That is both the charm and the pitfall of "Secrets from an Inventors Notebook". There are many anecdotal stories about how products were successfully brought to market or how they failed (both Maurice's and others). Some of these lessons are consolidated into Kanbar's Commandments for Inventors. Other lessons are in the form of good general advice; get a good patent lawyer, work on your prototype diligently before committing to production, and market your product heavily. What the book does not do is get into the gory details of how to do any of this. This is a "What To Do" book, not a "How To Do" book. If you have already done some studying about the business of inventing and are ready to dig in seriously, you may not find much in this book for you. There are only a couple of pictures in the whole book and no charts or numbers of any kind.

This book is light (5 chapters in 168 pages) and easy to read. The storytelling style should appeal to anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what is necessary for an entrepreneur to get a product to market. It might be right at home in an undergraduate business class studying entrepreneurship. There is an Appendix with a decent bibliography, references, and several sample legal forms that entrepreneur's might use. "Secrets form an Inventors Notebook" is a good lighthearted introduction to the world of the inventor and entrepreneur by someone who has been there.