Getting Paid For Your Ideas

Many companies will pay you to come up with great ideas. Actually, almost any company that would be convinced that your idea would be useful for their business, would probably pay you if you shared it with them.

IMPORTANT! THIS ARTICLE IS NOT ABOUT PAID SURVEYS ONLINE: However, paid surveys is a real source of income for many people. For more information on how to make money filling out surveys on the web, please see this resource on making money taking surveys.

So, how can you get paid for your ideas?

Well, give me 2 minutes and I will explain how this works.

The concept is simple: You bring them an idea they believe will bring them money (or any other incentive), and they will reward you in cash.

Who Will Pay You?

Companies, organizations or sometimes even self employed people will pay you for sharing your ideas with them (some examples shortly). Why they would want to pay you is obvious. You give them a great idea, they make money, and they will reward YOU in cash.

There are basically two ways to start making money from this:

Method #1: Find Companies That Are Searching For New Ideas

Some companies will tell you directly that they are searching for new ideas, and that if share your ideas with them, then they will pay you if they decide to use your idea.

EXAMPLES: Here's a few companies that will pay you for your ideas:

• ThinkGeek.com pays you $250 in CASH (or a $300 TG Gift Cert) if they decide to use your suggestion. Furthermore, if you send them complete artwork that they end up using, they'll send you an additional $250 in CASH. Submit your ThinkGeek idea here
• Innocentive.com is another company that will reward your ideas. You can win cash awards of up to $1,000,000 for your creative solutions to Challenges in Business and Entrepreneurship, Chemistry, Engineering and Design, Life Sciences, Math and Computer Science, and Physical Sciences. They provide open innovation marketplace challenges that are posted by corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations who are looking for your help with product development and other business and science problems. And of course, each challenge has a significant cash award associated with it. If your solution is chosen, then you win! Submit your million dollar idea here

The examples above proves that there are companies out there willing to listen to anyone for input, and that will pay for ideas. However, there are probably hundreds or even thousands of companies online that officially say they will pay you for your ideas. A quick search in the search engines will help you to discover more of these great opportunities.

Method #2: Provide Great Ideas To Any Company

Probably most companies are willing to pay for your ideas if they can apply your ideas in a way that it is of any significant help for their business.

Realize That All Companies Need Great Ideas. All companies are dealing with challanges. Companies need to continually improve themselves to stay in business. And that's where you come in...

Almost all companies have clear goals on what to achieve, and if you could provide an idea that could help them achieve their goals faster, well then they will most likely pay you for those ideas. All you need to do is convince whatever company you're dealing with that YOUR IDEA will help them to achieve their goals faster, or convince them that your ideas will help them reach their goals in a cheaper way, less painful way, or simply in a much easier way.

How to make money from this? First, decide in which areas you could contribute to any business. For example, if you're good at organizing your home, try to think of great that spesific businesses could implement those ideas in their workplace.

GENERAL IDEAS: You could provide ideas that could be useful in any company, for example an idea that would make employees more happy and more efficient. Any company with employees could have use for such information.

NICHE IDEAS: You could also find spesific ideas targeted toward spesific niches, for example how to simply extend the lifespan of glodfish while they're staying at the pet shop.

There's a great deal of money to be made simply by providing your ideas to companies. You don't need to be an expert, however, it would make it easier to sell your idea if you could prove that you really know what you're talking about.

Method #3: Selling Patents

As defined by Wikipedia, a patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention.

If you have a great business idea, and if you think that your idea might be worth patenting, then you should first check if your idea really is unique and that there is no patent identical to your idea. A great way to search for patents is to use Google Patent Search at google.com/patents. Here you'll find more than 7 million patents.

The term "patent" originates from the Latin word patere which means "to lay open". Getting a patent will cost you some money, so you might consider selling the idea itself instead of recieving a patent. In some cases this would obviously be a mistake, in other cases this my be the easiest and fastes way to make some quick money. What you could do is "lay open" your idea with a trusted person or company in exchange for a reward. Naturally, make sure you don't spill the beans before you know for sure that you get your reward.

Method #4: Start A Company Based On Your Ideas

So what if you have a really great idea, but you don't want to sell it or share it with others. Then there's only one option: Use your idea to start a business. Let's say you have a totally new idea for a website, and you really believe that this could turn into a profitable business. What would you do? If you want to make money, and if you believe in your own idea, then use it to generate a solid income for yourself. However, you should note that most businessees fail in their first 3-5 years. If you want to keep your business alive, then you need to learn what you need to learn and apply your knowledge.

A great idea will never make you rich. It's what you decide to do with that idea that could make you a fortune.

Almost Any Company Would Pay For Ideas That They Think Will Help Them Succeed

Supreme ideas is a core of any successful businesses. It does not matter if the idea has been created inside the business by employees or the management, or if the idea has been provided from the outside by anyone else – the only thing that matters to the company itself is that they can apply the idea to help them reach their goals (without conflicting with internal values or the current business model).

Companies do not only want ideas that work – it's absolutely crucial to their survival.

If YOUR ideas could help them, well then all you need to do to make money is to convince the companies that your ideas will be of value for them, then share your ideas with them and get your reward.

I Want To Make Money - What's next?

Try some of the suggestions mentioned above. The suggestions given above might work, and then again they might not make it at all for you.

Or... you could just try to making money taking paid surveys. Said to be a sure way to make some extra income. I have doubts it could make you rich as some claim, but certainly paid surveys is a proven way to make extra income online.