About three years ago, Westchester resident Yedidah Yehudah had an epiphany. The registered dietician and mother of three was disillusioned by her circumstances.
“What can I do to change from working a job to creating my own business?” she asked herself. So Yehudah came up with an idea for an invention that, if successful, would turn her into a successful entrepreneur. While observing staff breaking the office dress code by wearing flip-flops to work, a “no-no” in some corporate offices, she came up with an idea that would enable women in the workplace to wear flip-flops during the summer months. She called her idea and soon-to-be invention, “strappies,” an easy to attach shoe accessory that converts flip-flops into proper work attire.
It was while attending a wealth-building seminar that she learned about SCORE, a Small Business Administration mentoring organization that walks potential business owners through the steps of starting a new business, including getting advice on how to apply for a patent. One of the early lessons Yehudah learned was that an invention isn’t always created from point A. “At the Gorilla Business School, part of the millionaire mind intensive, I learned that you don’t have to invent something from scratch,” she said. “You can improve on something that’s already on the market.”
Determined to get her product patented and brought to market, she spent her evenings and weekends doing research at the library and attending workshops. “I found that lots of seminars are free and there are programs that focus on helping minorities, so I started there,” she said,
Her niece gave her the name of a patent lawyer. “Using a lawyer ensured that my [patent] documents were in order, otherwise I wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on,” she said. “I had no idea how this stuff is done and didn’t want to do something wrong and wind up spending a lot of money unnecessarily.”
Yehudah went to the law firm of Cowan, Liebowitz and Latman in Manhattan and engaged the firm to submit her patent. One of the first steps was working with their draftsmen to turn her crudely drawn design into a variety of artistic renderings that would accompany the patent application. She also learned that there are different types of patents. Design patents like hers can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 in fees but a utility patent can cost in the vicinity of $12,000.
“I began to think about our Black ancestors,” she said. “When our people had less, we were often forced to create things. I think inventing is something we should reclaim.”
Through her research Yehudah learned about inventors such as George Washington Carver and Elijah McCoy—“the real McCoy”—inventor of a lubricator for oiling locomotive steam engines, as well as more recent inventors, such as Maria Van Brittan Brown and her husband Albert, who in 1966 created the home security system that utilizes television surveillance. Then there’s Madame C.J. Walker, who developed numerous hair products that revolutionized the way Black women do their hair. Another Black inventor, Sarah Boone, invented the ironing board.
Another key lesson Yehudah learned was that she could sell her patent or license her product to an existing business that would pay her a royalty for producing the product and marketing it.
Naturally the inventing bug got her interested in watching the popular television show “Shark Tank.” The show helped her understand what to expect when she stood before company executives with her product. “You are really supposed to have a business plan,” she explained. “Are you going to produce your product or have someone produce the product for you? What’s your target market?”
Following the advice of her SCORE mentors, Yehudah realized she had to develop her oral presentation, her “elevator” speech, to present her product to licensing directors in the very best way. She couldn’t approach company executives and not have an air-tight pitch.
“I called larger shoe companies like Steve Madden, Nine West and Chinese Laundry,” she said. “I called several times and miraculously got one founder on the phone.” The executive told her that they stopped buying outsiders’ inventions because they had gotten sued. That same executive recommended that Yehudah try to get on “Shark Tank.” When she shared what the executive said about not using outside inventions for fear of being sued, her SCORE mentors recommended that she offer to sign a waiver. So she called the executive back and this time he was more open to her idea.
Strappies is just one of a few designs Yehudah wants to develop. She hopes to be successful like inventor Lisa Ascolese, founder of “Inventing A-Z.”
“Some heavily advertised companies take your money and promise to help you make a lot of money off of your invention but in reality, they make no guarantees,” she said. “You have to be careful. You can wind up paying those companies a lot of money. You have to cover yourself because someone could steal your idea.”
In November 2015, Yehudah received her patent certificate from the U.S. Patent Office. She was now official. “If I can do it, others can, too,” she said. “Like our ancestors, we have this [inventing] thing in our DNA.”
