Cynical And Jaded Test
Cynical and Jaded? Well… take this test (give yourself 5 points for each answer you can clearly answer ‘YES’, 2 points for a maybe or sometime, and 0 points for a NO…..
1) Had your closest friends encourage you to keep your job at the local hospital (or whatever the most boring place in your town to work would be) because it had health benefits and company picnics and a good retirement plan?
2) Had your Grandma (or other family members) repeatably tell you to “Get a hair cut and go to law school,” every time you tried to share your ideas?
3) Sell an idea to one of the largest corporations in the world — and have to take stock in their company rather than cash — just before the corporation goes suddenly bankrupt? (ok, sorry, that is kind of unique, so scratch this question from the test, but we get 5 points for a YES IT HAPPENED answer.)
4) Ever waken up alone one morning and realized most of your friends were only hanging with you because you had money, and you wonder, “Now that I am broke, am I no longer interesting?
5) Made another fortune but still wake up alone (either with or without someone next to you) another morning and realize that you still don’t have many friends because all the people who are now calling and emailing and even knocking on your door are mostly just looking for you to hire them or buy them a truck, a house, a dog, or a plasma TV, and you know that you really aren’t that interesting, and you wonder, “How come no one wants to listen to my new ideas?”
6) Tried to simply and succinctly describe your ideas to an investor, but be told to write and submit a 60 page business plan instead?
7) Ever presented a 60 page business plan (with charts, diagrams and references) to investors and then be told that before any financial risk on their part, that you will have to actually generate revenue from your idea to prove that it works?
8) Ever had would-be-investors stop talking to you, because your idea has started generating $70,000 profit a week, which means that you no longer need the investors money, which seems to have made them pissed off that you didn’t somehow do a better job of convincing them early on to have taken a risk with you?
9) … realize that the only people who say they don’t care about money are the people who have always had lots of money?
10) Ever hired a patent lawyer?
11) Ever written a patent?
12) Ever paid a patent lawyer a $30,000 fee even though you wrote the patent?
13) Ever waited 3 years to hear about the status of a patent application?
14) Ever been granted a basic patent, that becomes a key part of a large corporation’s functionality and has a line-item value of about $100 Million, after you no longer own patent because it was part of what was purchased (and then resold) by the company that you sold sold your (soul) to, on the encouragement of seasoned business experts and a team of lawyers… and realize that your $100 million idea you never got a cent for….
15) Ever wondered why the CEO’s, Presidents, Vice Presidents and other executives at most technology companies have no technology background?
16) Ever wondered why most of the CEO’s, Presidents, Vice Presidents and other executives at most technology companies all have legal backgrounds?
So what’s your score?
You have an idea that is worth risking becoming Cynical and Jaded while you try to move it from your thoughts out into the world?