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Treasure Hunt - Courtesy of Birmingham News


Show promoter Bob Coker, of Eufaula, Alabama, has seen hundreds of hunting gadget inventors lose their shirts in his 22 years of running his show. He said those with smiling faces and bright hopes one year are often not around for the same show the next year.
"People are always coming up to me saying they have this great idea for a hunting product," he said. "I tell them to sit down and we'll talk about the costs involved with getting the product to market. They usually have no idea what I'm talking about."
Coker says he knew better, but he fell into the trap 13 years ago. He thought he had invented a pendulum sight for a compound bow that would revolutionize bow hunting. Instead, he got his own dose of reality.
"I first got a patent and that cost me $7,000," he said. "Then I spend $25,000 for the injection mold to mold the plastic sight. Then it was $10,000 for the clamshell mold for the packaging. Then I printed 5,000 color inserts for the packaging and that was another $3,200. Then I had to spend money on the bar code. I learned that without the bar code, nobody was going to carry the product. “All of a sudden I was $50,000 into it and needing to spend a lot more money on marketing. I finally realized that I was going to have to sell a bunch of those things just to break even. I never made a dime, In fact, I lost quite a bit."

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