Inventor Smart HQ #50 — Holiday Party Tonight + Year-End Highlights

📬 What’s Inside This Week’s HQ

• 🎉 Holiday Party Tonight @ 8 PM ET — Last live event of the year

• 👋 Welcome 7 New Members — Now at 1,961 inventors

• 🌟 Community Spotlight: Derek “DC” Washington — DC’s LEDs®

• 🎙️ Inventor Coach Podcast: Expand Your Window of Opportunity

• 🎙️ Inventor Spotlight Podcast: Denise Ramos & Pac-It-Pants

• 💡 Inventor Tip: Don’t Skip the Early Digging

• 🎥 Replay: Holiday Invention Fair Livestream

• 📘 Invention Playbook: What to Do When Someone Is Interested in Your Invention

• 🤖 AI Spotlight: Spinach AI — Meetings on Autopilot

• 🗓️ What’s Ahead: Final Event + January Schedule Next Week

🎉 Inventor Smart & NIC Holiday Party — Happening Tonight!

Join us TONIGHT, Monday, December 22 at 8 PM ET for our annual Inventor Smart x National Inventor Club Holiday Party — a fun, relaxed virtual celebration to wrap up the year together.

This isn’t your usual meetup. It’s our end-of-year hangout where the whole community comes together to laugh, share, connect, and enjoy some holiday spirit.

Here’s what’s happening tonight:

🎄 Everyone’s invited — members, Premium Insiders, newcomers
🎁 Show & Tell — bring something you’re working on (totally optional!)
💬 Open intros — say hi, share your invention, or just listen in
🎶 Holiday vibes — music, stories, and good energy
✨ BYOI: Bring Your Own Ideas 😄

Whether you want feedback, inspiration, or just a friendly space to unwind before the holidays, this is the perfect place to show up and hang out.

👉 Join live: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84250192071
📅 Tonight — Mon, Dec 22, 2025
🕗 8:00 PM ET
📍 Online

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👋 Welcome to Our Newest Inventors

We had 7 new inventors join the Inventor Smart Community App this week — welcome to the movement! We’re now at 1,961 members, just 39 away from hitting 2,000. Let’s reach that milestone before the new year — every share, invite, and repost helps us grow.

🆕 New in the Inventor Smart App

• Robot N1 SMART

• Styopa Mkheyan

• mns1027$ Monique

• Dennis 1957 (Dennis)

• ezetbkor

• sellsahome (Antonio Couto)

• Olamiposi Precious Olubiyi

✨ If you're new:
Introduce yourself, add a profile photo, or share what you're working on — this community is built to support your next step.

🤝 Help Us Reach 2,000 Members:
Invite a fellow inventor, share the app with a friend, or post your invite link — let’s hit 2K strong going into the new year.

👉 Join or sign in: app.inventorsmart.com

🌟 Community Spotlight: Derek “DC” Washington — DC’s LEDs®

This week, we’re spotlighting Derek “DC” Washington, an inventor, engineer, and entrepreneur from Rochester Hills, Michigan — and the creative force behind DC’s LEDs®, a line of LED-enhanced wearables blending safety, performance, and innovation.

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DC brings a rare mix of technical skill and artistic vision. With three patents, a registered trademark, and products ranging from LED guitar straps to illuminated pet harnesses and safety vests, his work shows what happens when engineering meets real-world creativity. He’s even been featured on America’s Big Deal and honored by the Michigan Manufacturers Association — proof of the impact he’s making.

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Beyond his inventions, DC is a natural community-builder. He’s active in sharing ideas, inspiring others, and supporting underrepresented innovators through mentorship and leadership. We’re grateful to have him in the Inventor Smart Community — he embodies the spirit of inventors helping inventors.

🔗 View DC’s Profile: https://app.inventorsmart.com/profile/1015

✨ Want to be featured in a future Spotlight?
Stay active, share your journey, and keep building — your story might be next.

🎙️ Inventor Coach Podcast — Expand Your Window of Opportunity

If you’ve got an invention idea and aren’t sure how big it could really be, this episode is a must-watch.

Brian Fried breaks down how to identify your true target market, uncover multiple uses for your invention, and expand your “window of opportunity” before you invest time and money.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to define who your invention is really for

• How to find additional markets and use cases

• Why early research can save you years of work

• How to start treating your idea like a business

🎥 Watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP_MVixCzwg

🎧 Browse all episodes: Inventor Coach Podcast
👤 Work with Brian: BrianFried.com

💬 Join the Conversation at InventorChat.com

Big ideas grow through connection — and that’s what Inventor Chat is all about.

It’s your space to ask questions, share updates, get feedback, and celebrate small wins — without the noise or sales pitches. Just real inventors helping each other make real progress.

Stuck on a prototype? Preparing a pitch? Curious how others are turning ideas into products? Join the discussion — your next breakthrough could start with one comment.

👉 InventorChat.com

🎙️ Inventor Spotlight: Denise Ramos — From Blowouts to Breakthroughs

In Episode 14 of the Inventor Spotlight Podcast, Samantha St. Raymond sits down with Denise Ramos, creator of Pac-It-Pants — an innovative all-in-one diaper + pants combo designed to stop diaper blowouts before they become full-scale disasters.

What started as a frantic daycare pickup turned into an eight-year invention journey filled with prototypes, pivots, perseverance, and a patented solution that helps parents handle the mess with far less stress. Denise shares her story of juggling motherhood, work, product development, and the realities of being a solo inventor learning the process step by step.

If you’re building a product from lived experience — or pushing through long timelines and tough “no’s” — this is an uplifting, relatable, and practical episode.

🎥 Watch Episode 14 on YouTube
https://youtu.be/EZf6V_LlDRs

🌐 Explore Pac-It-Pants
www.pacitpants.com
[email protected]

✨ Premium Insiders — Want to Be Featured Next?
Spotlight interviews are available to active Premium Insider members.
👉 Become/confirm Insider: app.inventorsmart.com/paywall
📩 Book your interview: [email protected]

💡 Inventor Tip of the Week — Don’t Skip the “Store Test”

One of Brian’s most underrated but powerful tips comes straight from Inventing Secrets Revealed and How to Make Money with Your Invention Idea:
Before you spend money, take your idea on a field trip.

Brian teaches that nothing grounds an invention in reality faster than physically walking the aisles where your product should live. This “store test” forces you to see competitors, price points, packaging styles, and whether your idea fills a real gap — or if you need to make it different, better, or more niche.

He writes about this as part of the essential early research phase — where you check not only online listings but real retail shelves, catalogs, and shopping environments.

🎯 Action Step:

This week, visit 3 stores where your product could be sold.
When you’re there, ask:

• “Where would MY product sit on this shelf?”

• “What problem does mine solve that these don’t?”

• “What price range am I competing with?”

• “What packaging style stands out?”

A 20-minute trip can save you thousands — and often sparks the next breakthrough.

🎥 Holiday Invention Fair — Watch the Replay!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 2025 Holiday Invention Fair — our annual live shopping showcase featuring real inventors pitching real products, all in front of a live, multi-platform audience.

This year’s event streamed across YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and inside the Inventor Smart App — and the energy was incredible. Our inventors came ready with polished pitches, special holiday offers, coupon codes, and some of the most inventive products we’ve seen all year.

If you missed it (or want to rewatch your favorite pitches), the full replay is now available.

⭐ In this year’s Holiday Invention Fair, you’ll see:

• Live product demos from 12+ inventors

• Holiday-exclusive discounts and codes

• Creative gift ideas you won’t find in stores

• Real stories of testing, prototyping, refining & winning

• A Q&A session featuring honest, hard-won advice from fellow inventors

📺 Watch the Replay: https://www.youtube.com/live/bnZJrLc6R0k?si=WzNPZeqd4fbSp9PY

If you want to present next year — or at an upcoming showcase — keep building, keep testing, and stay active in the app. We’d love to see you on stage next time.

📘 Invention Playbook — What to Do When Someone Is Interested in Your Invention

When a company, buyer, or product scout says, “Tell me more,” it can feel like the moment you’ve been waiting for — but it’s also where many inventors make their biggest mistakes.

In this week’s must-read Playbook, Brian Fried breaks down exactly how to handle early interest the right way so you stay protected, stay professional, and keep momentum moving forward.

You'll learn:

• The first materials you must have before any conversation

• When to use an NDA (and when you don’t need one)

• How to present your invention without oversharing

• What companies are really evaluating — beyond the idea

• The mindset that separates successful inventors from stuck ones

💡 Read: What to Do When Someone Is Interested in Your Invention
👉 https://inventionplaybook.com/p/what-to-do-when-someone-is-interested-in-your-invention

✨ New articles weekly at InventionPlaybook.com

🤖 AI Spotlight of the Week — Spinach AI: Your Meetings on Autopilot

Spinach AI is like having a smart assistant in every meeting — automatically recording, transcribing, summarizing, and organizing everything discussed. It captures action items, decisions, follow-ups, and can even update your CRM or send recap emails for you.

✨ Why Inventors & Teams Love It:
Perfect for product discussions, partner calls, prototyping conversations, vendor chats, or brainstorming sessions. Instead of scrambling for notes, Spinach keeps everything organized, accurate, searchable, and ready to act on.

🔐 SOC2, GDPR & HIPAA compliant — and your data is never used to train AI models.

⚡ Try Spinach → https://www.spinach.ai/

🗓️ What’s Ahead — Final Event of 2025

Tonight’s Inventor Smart & NIC Holiday Party is our last live event of the year! 🎉
Thank you to everyone who joined us throughout 2025 — from meetups and Q&As to spotlights, workshops, and big community moments.

We’re taking a short break for the holidays, and next week you’ll receive our final HQ email of 2025, including your January 2026 event schedule and what’s coming up in the new year.

✨ Stay tuned — big things ahead!

📸 Let’s See Those Faces, Inventors!

Real people. Real ideas. Real community.

Add or update your profile photo in the app — it only takes a minute and helps others connect with you during meetups and live events.

💬 Makes networking easier
🎤 Helps others recognize you
🎁 Bonus: DM us after updating and we’ll send a small thank-you gift!

👉 Update Your Profile Pic →

Show up. Be seen. This is your inventor community.

Level Up Your Inventor Game with the Inventor Smart Community

Why stay stuck in “idea mode” when you can supercharge your inventor journey?

Inside the Inventor Smart App, you’ll unlock:
✅ Live Q&As + insider events to keep you moving forward
✅ Ready-to-use tools — NDAs, pitch decks & more
✅ A supportive network of inventors who push you to go bigger

No fees. No fluff. Just momentum.

👉 Step into your next level → inventorsmart.com

Your ideas deserve more than the drawing board — they deserve to fly.

Take your invention to the next level with Inventor Smart 'Premium Insider'!

Enjoy monthly Q&A sessions with Brian Fried and industry experts, share your story on the Inventor Spotlight Podcast, and gain access to exclusive events and discounts, including a 10% discount at InventorMart and on services at brianfried.com.

🔗 Learn more and join today: Premium Insider

Meet Brian Fried - Your Inventor Coach, Author, Speaker, and Founder

Get to know Brian Fried, the Inventor Coach. With 15 patents and a successful licensing history, he has dedicated 18 years to coaching inventors. Explore his ventures like the Got Invention Show, National Inventor Club, and Inventor Smart Community app. Schedule a call with Brian at brianfried.com.