Got a good idea for a product that arose from a need you had?
That’s how Andrew Darlow invented the GalleryPouch™
Andrew, is a New Jersey-based photographer, author and inventor. He came up with the idea for the GalleryPouch™ custom bubble bag, after some of his artwork was damaged after a solo gallery show.
Andrew invented the GalleryPouch™ and developed it with Mark Rogers, the Founder and President of Dallas, Texas based ‘Frame Destination’. Mark is on the left, Andrew is on the right in this photo showing off their collaboration.
Created specifically for photographers and artists, it meets their unique needs of storing or transporting art. It’s also perfect for mirrors, collectibles, camera equipment or gear, rolled canvas, music cases, electronics, household items, and more.
Andrew chose to license his product and has some good insight for any of you who might want to know more about licensing a product idea you have.
He shared, “The process of negotiating the licensing agreement for the GalleryPouch™ was very helpful for my book contracts, and I believe it will also be very useful if some of my other inventions are licensed in the future.”
Andrew Darlow is quick to share how others can identify ways to solve problems and bring their ideas to companies like he did. Below is a photograph Andrew took of a Dalmation. It’s one of the first images he licensed to a publishing company.
If you’re into photography, Andrew’s photography, tips and reviews have appeared in numerous publications and other media, including People Magazine, Animal Planet, Reader’s Digest and Woman’s World Magazine.
Andrew is the author of four award-winning books, all related to photography as well. His website is AndrewDarlow.com
Meet lovely Andrew Darlow on this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show and learn about how you might license a product of your own. You can also get his great photography tips if you Click Here.
If you’d rather read the transcript of our podcast conversation it is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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0:00:19
Well, lots of things come from science, and other things come from people’s brains, just like that, because they see something and they go, you know. Hi, everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro. You’re going to meet a really lovely guy, very talented, very smart. His name is Andrew Darlow. I love what he invented. It’s a thing called Gallery Pouch, and it came out of a need that came up when Andrew was trying to get some of his artwork back from a gallery show. He’s an inventor, he’s a photographer, he’s an author, and it was damaged. He’s like, okay, this cannot happen. So he went ahead and created this thing called Gallery Pouch, specifically for photographers and artists who have very unique needs when it comes to storing or transporting their art. It’s also perfect for mirrors and collectibles and camera equipment and gear and canvas and music cases and goes on. But he didn’t do it himself and I invited him today to join the show because he’s probably got some really good information for everybody out there who’s got a good idea for a product that came out of a need. He partnered with somebody and he licensed this idea. So Andrew, welcome to my show. Good to have you.
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0:01:32
Well, thank you, Debbie. It’s really an honor. I really appreciate having the opportunity to chat with you.
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You sound so lovely on the phone. I have not met Andrew in person. I only met him through communicating on LinkedIn, but I already knew just from the vibe I was getting from you, Andrew, that you were special.
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0:01:50
Oh, thank you. That’s really kind. I try to treat people the way that I want to be treated.
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Yeah, you’re very kind. You’re kind in sharing other people’s important information, so I thought I’d step up and help you a little bit, share what you’re doing. You were happy to share what your experience was when you came up with this idea and how you decided to license it versus try and make it yourself. So just talk to that.
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0:02:14
Yeah, absolutely. So about 12 years ago, I had the honor of having a solo show of my flower photography in a really high-end flower shop in Manhattan and everything went great, the show went well but then there were pieces that were not sold so they had to come off the walls and so the owners just took them off the walls but they are not a gallery so they don’t really understand how to properly deal with art. So what happened was they ended up taking the pieces off and these are wood frames with glass and on the back it’s kind of a typical type of metal hanging wire which I’m sure you and your audience have seen before. And they put the back of the frame against the front of the wood frame and most of them got scratched and damaged. So that’s an expensive issue. But you know like sometimes with adversity comes invention. So I talked to someone who I knew for a few years through an online group similar to a Facebook group, and he has a company that makes custom mats and custom frames and everything that people who create art and sell at gallery shows and also just want to frame their own art go to him. So I said, can you make me custom bubble bags? And he had the bubble material, and he had some machines that could seal the plastic material, so he said, well, I’m gonna give it a try. So he did, and they turned out pretty well. They weren’t perfect, but they worked. And so I was protecting my large canvases, my framed prints, and it was just such a joy to finally have a custom bag made for my prints up to about 36 inches by 80 inches tall. Wow, that’s big. Yeah, that’s crazy. I was so excited. I was so excited, I said, okay, can we turn this into a business? So we worked together, we found a really nice material. It’s smooth on both sides. You may not have dealt with a lot of different material. Most bubble material, it easily pops, which I know people love, but I didn’t want that.
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Yeah, we love it.
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It’s just a heavyweight bubble material that’s smooth on both sides and he bought a very expensive nice machine that creates really beautiful seal so that you can present this to a collector or just move it from show to show and use it over and over. So one of the big things is that not only can they be made from very small like the size of like an iPad up to like the size of a wall, you also reuse them. So if you’ve ever seen anyone try to protect something with bubble, often they get a roll of bubble and a roll of tape. And by the time they get to their destination, there’s just a giant mess in front of them. And often it gets thrown in the garbage, which is heartbreaking. So I made something that’s reusable.
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0:05:09
That’s really great. I’m seeing all kinds of people trying to move stuff that’s really important to them, from mirrors to artwork to collectibles. And like, wow, they’re listening to you and they’re like, I got to get this thing this guy invented. So Andrew, you decided that you weren’t going to patent the idea. It is trademark, so I saw that that’s a fact. But you made a deal with a company called Frame Destination, if I’m correct, and a founder and president, Mark Rogers, down in Dallas, Texas. And you made what, a licensing deal?
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0:05:40
Yes. How does that work? What’s wonderful about licensing, a lot of people don’t realize that often maybe something that they’re wearing right now, it might have a Disney character on it, for example, that often is not made by the Disney Corporation. That Mickey Mouse T-shirt could be made by one of a hundred different companies, but Disney grants a license for the use. So this is the same thing in that I have this intellectual property which is essentially just my idea because sometimes there are patents, sometimes there are not. This is really not a patentable product but I do have an idea which was difficult for others to really just take. A lot of times you create like a little gadget and it’s easy for someone else just to make it. This was different because each one is handmade and custom. So I brought the idea to him and then he decided to work out a contract with me so that I could work out a percentage that I would receive on his net sale and then if everything went well then we would just keep either adjusting it or we just keep it the way it is which is really what we’ve done for like the last 12 years There it can get really complicated but the key is that if you have an idea whether it’s patented or not you can go to a company and You can work with them and they will create your product and give you a percentage of that as a royalty
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0:07:06
Well, that’s a very loud statement a lot of people probably feel uncomfortable sharing their big idea that’s not patented with a big company who could steal the idea. Is there any advice to that point?
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0:07:20
Yes, absolutely. There’s something called the Provisional Patent Application and that allows you to get a year where you can show anything to anyone, although it’s always good to have NDAs and I’m not a lawyer, NDA is a non-disclosure agreement, but technically you can show it to people in privacy and that will allow you then to convert it into a patent within that 12 months and that came about not too many years ago and it’s only about $65 for the lowest level depending on your income. So it’s a wonderful way if people want to just start learning about it, it’s called the provisional patent application. It can give you peace of mind and it allows you to put patent pending on any sell sheets or anytime you speak with someone. The key is you do not want to offer your item for sale unless you plan to really create a business. You don’t want to put it on a website that anybody can get to unless you really are ready to do that. You really want to keep it private and then you can wait that 12 months and then you can
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0:08:29
convert it into a patent if you’d like. Okay so you got a trademark and a patent
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0:08:34
or no? No I just got a trademark. This is a very simple product so there are a lot of products that are created that don’t have patent protection because either they’re very simple or they’re more custom often custom items like if you have a custom anything, could be a special dog house, it could be anything. And people on Etsy, it’s a perfect place to look at all these custom products. Yes, other people could potentially do them but there’s a bigger barrier of entry because they’re not just sending them off to a factory and having a hundred thousand of them made. So I recommend in my case, it was custom so it really worked out well. Each one is made by hand. It’s a special material and it’s not easy to actually run the business when you have a custom product.
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0:09:27
Awesome. So the licensing thing I’m sure is very interesting to a lot of people. You don’t have to give up your percentage that you made a deal with but what’s a typical range of a licensing percentage of profits that somebody might get and I heard you say net, not gross, so just a little enlightenment for the crowd listening.
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0:09:44
Well, when I say net, I mean the amount that the company sells it for and not obviously – it could change but not the MSRP. So if a company sells something for $100 to someone else and they market up to $200, let’s say, that $100, that is where the royalty rate usually comes in. So if you receive, let’s say, a common royalty rate is 5%, so you would receive $5 for every $100 of that product that goes out to a company.
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0:10:16
Okay, that’s very helpful. Thank you for that. And then you share with me, because you’re a major photographer and you have all kinds of books out there, in fact, four award-winning books on photography, good for you, tips and reviews. You have a photograph of a Dalmatian, which you let me share, which is one of the first images you said you licensed to a publishing company. So with all the people out there taking photos these days, how did you do that? A little education on that.
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0:10:43
Okay, so in that case, the company found that photograph. I’m not sure if they were just looking for dog photographs on one of my websites. I used to do a lot of dog photography. So that particular one, somebody found it. I didn’t even go to them and they contacted me and they said, we’d love to do a large poster of this image. So it was really an honor to be asked. So that was wonderful to see
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0:11:34
my dog photo of that Dalmatian
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that case that was a kind of a very small royalty. I was just getting started so I’ve learned since then sort of what the market rate is but you can only learn through experience and it was really nice to see those posters and to
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0:11:33
be able to also print them out. Sure, of course. So do they license it one time a photograph or for every time they use it or for that for sales of the poster how did that work just generically? Yeah that’s just for
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0:11:44
the sales of the poster anytime they sell in that case I would receive a percentage or some type of other credit so in that case a small royalty that I received and depending on how often someone reprints something, as long as your royalty agreement is written and looked at properly from someone who knows what they’re doing, you should continue to receive royalties in my opinion forever or at least for 20 years in my opinion.
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0:12:19
There is so much going on with royalties and copyrights with the world we live in these days. I use a website often called Pixabay when I need photos that are Free to use because I can’t afford to keep paying for every photo I use How do you feel about that as a photographer? I take a lot of pictures too And would you are you uncomfortable with the idea of people who have photos? Letting other people use them for free and how do those people get compensated or do they not?
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0:12:44
Oh, I don’t think those people get compensated. I personally I don’t like it because how do you know that someone who put that up there didn’t steal it from someone else? That’s my first main thing. And I believe that if you have something of value, it should be compensated in some way, whether you want to give it to a charity for use or you want to sell it. So I’m not that comfortable with that, but that’s my personal feeling.
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0:13:10
Yes. Well, I often have paid for, very happily, photographs that I’ve needed to use for things, but on a regular basis if you’re looking for a candle, you know, you need to tell the story about a candle. I don’t have time to take a picture of a candle. It’s a candle and I don’t have to, you know what I’m saying? It’s not like that proprietary. So I do, you know, throw my hat in the air and just applaud everybody who’s creating content for the rest of us to use, so good for you. Your four award-winning books all related to photography so anybody who’s interested in learning more AndrewDarlow.com that’s A-N-D-R-E-W-D-A-R-L-O-W dot com is there to help you out. Really wonderful having you today. I know you have a lot of tips and a lot of reviews. You’ve been in all kinds of media, People Magazine, Animal Planet. There’s one last thing you told me you’re working on which I didn’t have time to get into today, which we could do another time, but you can just throw it out there, Andrew.
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0:14:07
Okay, it’s called First Day Light Check. It’s a hashtag, you can check it out. It’s just my PSA for helping to influence people to check their lights front and back on the first of every month.
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0:14:20
You’re such a nice guy, Andrew Darlow. I’m so happy you joined the show today. Thank you so much for the insight. I think it was great knowledge to have for anybody who’s thinking about licensing a product, who maybe never even thought of it. Thanks to you, they’ll be sparked. Stay in touch, Andrew.
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0:14:36
Thank you so much, Debbie. It was fun.
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It was fun. Talk to you soon.
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Be well.
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0:14:41
Andrew Darlow. He’s the guy who’s got, in case you’re an artist or have something important you need to transport, Gallery Pouch. He’s the inventor. Check it out. At Frame Destination, that’s where you can get it.
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He’s the inventor. Check it out. Check it out. At Frame Destination, that’s where you can get it.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
