Jay, The answer kinda depends on the idea. Something that uses very little resources and can be run from a spare bedroom has a much lower threshold than something that demands heavy capitalization and lots of labor. One of the better places to start is a book by Don Lancaster: http://www.tinaja.com/ismm01.html He has some pretty good advise on how do view patents (I have several and find myself agreeing with him completely): http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp A final note on Don - his site is a pretty cool place for a hacker: http://www.tinaja.com/ A good search term for resource for the budding hacker business man is "midnight engineering" See: http://www.enteng.com/midnight.htm The front door to the same site: http://www.enteng.com/ Best of luck in your business adventures, Mark Browne -----Original Message----- From: tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org [mailto:tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org] On Behalf Of Jay Austad Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2004 2:25 PM To: TCLUG Mailing List Subject: [TCLUG] business stuff Ok, so this isn't really a linux question, but it's probably a question that many of the people on this list have wondered about at some point. Say a person has an idea, a potentially very good and marketable idea for a product or service. Where in the world would one start if they wanted to pursue starting a business out of it? I assume there are people on this list that have looked into this, or actually done this before. I've seen those places out there that want you to call them with your ideas, and they'll help you do patents, give you start up money, etc. But I assume most of those are just big scams. _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list