Date of draft:
June 3, 2009
MARKETING PLAN
for the
Spring Compactor Invention
NOTE: The term "mattress" when used alone in this document also includes and means mattresses, box springs
and stuffed furniture.
Table of Contents
1.0 Purpose and Vision
2.0 Situational Analysis
3.0 Marketing Strategy and Objectives
4.0 Tactical Programs
5.0 Budgets, Performance Analysis and Implementation
6.0 Critical Issues
1.0 Purpose and Vision
1.1 Purpose of This Marketing Plan
Over the twenty year life of the U.S. patent, the Primary purpose of this marketing plan is to
organize the Inventor's process of seeking United States Patent Rights Investors for non-exclusive patent rights sales of the Spring Compactor Invention for the geographical area of the
United States of America and its territories. The short term - one year to file foreign patent
applications - immediate need and secondary purpose of this marketing plan is to organize the
Inventor's process of seeking and finding foreign country investors for exclusive patent rights in
individual foreign countries where the investor takes the lead and manages the foreign patent
rights for the Spring Compactor Invention or alternatively resells the patent rights to others some
time during the life of the patent. Once this plan is done, investors and others can read this plan
to understand what the Inventor is trying to do and further evaluate the value to them of investing
in this long term venture.
1.2 Vision
The Spring Compactor Invention Project is built upon the assumption that mattresses and similar
stuffed furniture need to be excluded from landfills to extend the life of the landfill, to minimize
roadside dumping, and the mattress components recycled as valuable products creating jobs and
cash flow for our investors. The value added to the mattress recycling process via the Spring
Compactor Invention is its ability to compact mattress springs into sizes acceptable to scrap steel
buyers. The Spring Compactor Invention compaction process reforms the bulky - air filled -mattress steel springs into either Class 1 or Class 2 scrap steel. This makes their handling
manageable, affordable and results in higher value to the scrap steel buyer.
2.0 Situational Analysis
Existing landfills are running out of space and recycling in many forms is being used to stave off
the terminal end of these facilities. This plan addresses mattress recycling which if fully
implemented will help - not solve - the landfill space crisis.
There are million dollar mattress grinder machines out there and they are competitive to the
Spring Compactor Invention. When grinding a complete mattress to make it less damaging to
the landfill machinery - i.e. spring sets no longer get bound up in landfill machinery wheels and
mattresses no longer cause air pockets or voids in landfills via their in whole disposal in landfills
- a great deal of money and basically the same quantity of materials is going into the landfill.
The value added being the cost savings to the landfill operators' landfill equipment.
Non-profits are successfully tearing down mattresses and recycling the contents which greatly
reduces the quantity of mattress materials going to the landfill and generating a cash flow for the
non-profit organization which they use to support their charity.
The bulkiness of the mattress springs remains a problem and the Spring Compactor Invention is
targeted at making the bulky mattress springs into Class 1 or Class 2 recyclable scrap steel to first
eliminate the need to dispose of the springs in a landfill and to create a positive cash flow for the
operator of the machine.
In 2008, the Spring Compactor Invention Prototype was tested in Garden City, Missouri at the
RAMM, Inc. Warehouse and proved that it can compact mattress springs. This current recession
hit just as the then modified prototype was about to be put into limited production level
operation. At this writing the prototype has been mothballed at another location.
Lessons learned via the prototype that directly apply to future Spring Compactor Invention
recycling operations:
- •Dry storage for incoming mattresses is a must as trying to dry wet mattresses is an
unnecessary additional cost burden and time waster.
- •The mattress recycling facility can greatly reduce mattress transportation costs by being
located close to it supply of discarded mattresses.
- •A supply of 200 mattresses a day when combined with high scrap steel prices and high
foam prices and high cotton prices may well be profitable without outside subsidies as
long as overhead is kept very low.
- •A supply of 100 mattresses a day with some subsidy to offset mattress transportation
costs and tear down costs (State funded trainees were used at one time.) appears to be the
breakeven area for a small mattress recycling operation.
- •If trucking is the selected mode of transportation - dock facilities with trailers used to sort
recyclables and provide on-site storage pending shipment will reduce fixed processing
plant foot print sizes.
- •Normally water and rail - when available - are cheaper forms of transportation than
trucking and investors should be encouraged to seek these services in their mattress
recycling site selection.
- •Having a 460 volt three phase power supply optimized the running of the heavy duty
hydraulic pump required for the prototype.
- •A forklift for moving bins and pallets is a necessity.
- •A vertical bailer is acceptable for the mattress soft goods contents with a horizontal bailer
being desired for the foam.
- •Locating the on-site office near both the dock and the employee break room assists in
employee availability improving customer service for mattress drop offs.
- •Restricting customer access to the operating area should reduce insurance costs.
- •Shipping/receiving dock investments have value to customers, workers and the efficiency
of the operation.
- •A covered open air canopy with capability of hanging mattresses can be used to dry wet
mattresses.
- •High speed Internet access is almost a necessity.
3.0 Marketing Strategy and Objectives
No man is an island and the Spring Compactor Invention is an integrated mattress recycling
process step that targets the steel coil springs and other steel which are part of the discarded
mattress.
3.1 Include Multiple Cash Flow Streams In Our Marketing Strategy For
Investor Value Added Enhancement
3.1.a Recyclable Mattress Contents
It is a fact that mattress manufactures build - as best they can - unique mattresses in order to
create their market niche. This makes mattress recycling interesting as these manufacturing
differences produce a mattress recycling supply stream of varying - but similar products. In basic
terms most recycled mattresses contain:
- •A cover which some believe can be recycled as pet bed covers or reusable shopping bags.
- •Cotton which politically may be excluded from clothing, but may be recycled in paper.
- •Felt or Bonded urethane foam which may be recycled into carpet cushions.
- •Foam which has a very lucrative recycling market of its own.
- •Steel to include coil springs which may be compacted and recycled.
- •Box springs wood which can be reused as dimensional lumber or recycled as fuel or
mulch.
NOTE: In the above list - an effort to provide at least one viable recycling method for
each mattress component is mentioned. There are usually many more options available.
There will yet be some minimal by-product that will require landfill disposal.
3.1.b Direct Resale of Reusable Mattresses
One very profitable cash flow stream is the reusable mattress and box springs which have been
pre-maturely discarded and are suitable for direct resale. Note: Governing bodies have differing
requirements for sanitizing these products prior to selling them to the general public. Bed bugs
may well require even further treatment to make the unit salable.
3.1.c Non-Profit Organizations
Non-Profit organizations have literal tax advantages and have already proven to work in at least a
couple of United States locations. When these tax advantages offset the cost of transporting and
tearing down mattresses as well as disposing of the unwanted remains - this gives mattress
recycling an opportunity to thrive. A more important aspect of non-profit operations may well be
their ability to use their public places as mattress recycling drop off centers where private citizens
willingly load up their unwanted mattress and provide free to the non-profit transportation of the
mattress and/or box springs directly to the non-profit recycling facility or collection point.
Another tax advantage to an investor working with a non-profit is the ability of the investor to
count certain expenditures as tax free donations.
3.1.d Government Subsidies and/or Grants
Just as tires proved earlier, mattress recycling needs government financial subsidies to be
profitable to the private sector investors as without some playing field leveling - even the
government can not compete with free roadside dumping costs to the consumer.
3.1.d.1 Government Legislation
- •Legislative bodies with assistance from executive branch bodies can create and
implement mattress recycling facility licensing requirements aimed at meeting local
recycling goals.
- •Legislative bodies can ban mattresses and box springs and stuffed furniture from landfills
which greatly assists mattress recycling via mandating an alternative disposal method for
these items.
- •Legislative bodies can mandate minimum landfill tipping fees to cover the costs of the
landfills collecting, storing, and transporting mattresses to licensed mattress recycling
facilities.
- •Legislative bodies can reduce roadside mattress dumping via the legislative threat of
mattress dna testing combined with fines adequate to pay for the dna testing, proper
disposal of the mattress, court costs, investigation costs, and perhaps community service
in roadside cleanup.
- •Legislative bodies can require new mattress sales to include a recycling fee tax which
would go to the appropriate trust fund for disbursement as enforcement and oversight of
the recycling program and future subsidies to the recycling facilities on a per mattress
recycled basis.
- •Legislative bodies can require new mattress sales to include a certain percentage of
buyers paying recycling fees to properly dispose of the mattress they are replacing with
this fee set at levels to cover transportation costs of the mattresses and box springs or
stuffed furniture to the mattress recycling center and tear down costs with a bit going to
the enforcement trust fund.
- •Legislative bodies can designate grant funding for mattress recycling facilities that create
new jobs.
- •Legislative bodies can designate start up grant funding to ensure their jurisdiction has an
adequate mattress recycling capability to divert mattresses from landfills.
3.1.d.2 Why Government Legislation?
If one were to assume that each of the 300,000,000 citizens of the United States had one full
sized mattress and all these mattresses were to be disposed of side by side and end to end at one
time - the area covered by these discarded mattresses would be about twenty percent of the
surface area of the State of Rhode Island. Alternatively, this would require a landfill of over 300
square miles or a one-mile wide strip of mattresses running 300 miles in length.
3.1.d.3 Stimulus or Grant Created Jobs
At this writing, every industrialized nation has a need to create jobs. As a rule of thumb, doing
manual mattress tear down over an eight hour period using hand tools, a person can disassemble
about twenty-five mattresses. For a mattress recycling facility operating at 100 mattresses per
day, this creates a minimum of four new jobs just for mattress tear down. There is also a need
for jobs to collect mattresses, operate machines, supervise, accounting and payroll, tear down
box springs and tear down stuffed furniture, sort materials, and pack and ship recycled products.
Grants and/or subsidies are indeed a cash flow stream to those who obtain them.
4.0 Tactical Programs
4.0.a Market Segment Targeting Strategy
We cannot survive just waiting for the customers/investors to come to us at our website. Instead,
we must get better at focusing on the specific market segments whose needs for mattress
recycling match our Spring Compactor Invention patent rights offerings. Focus on targeted patent
geographical segments is the key to our future.
Our marketing segments are two in number with subsets of each: (1.) The United States of
America and (2.) Other countries of the world that issue individual patents.
Therefore, we need to focus our marketing message and our patent rights product offerings on
these two segments . We need to develop our message, communicate it, and make good on it via
making timely patent applications pursuant to our written agreements.
4.1 United States
4.1.a Target Area for our United States Patent Rights
At any time, there are now 300,000,000 legal, millions of tourists, and an unknown number of
illegal human beings within the outer boundaries of the United States of America and a goodly
percentage of these humans daily sleep on a bed with a mattress. On average, these mattresses
become excess material at their ten year end of life cycle.
In attempt to very conservatively quantify the annual mattress recycling market for the United
States, we will use the 300,000,000 indigenous persons as a bench mark and ignore guest rooms,
hotels, motels, dormitories, prisons, hospitals, other care facilities, etc. Further, we will assume
that sixty percent of the total number of mattresses have internal steel coil springs and make the
conservative estimate that each household has 2.5 members of which the 0.5 portion does not
have a box springs included with the mattress and that the 2.0 members of 25 percent of the
households are married and sleep on the same bed. For the latter two categories, the bed is
assumed to consist of a box springs and mattress plus frame. (Frames are ignored here as they
can be directly recycled or reused elsewhere.)
- • Dividing 300 million via 2.5 persons/household yields 120 million households.
- •Each household has one mattress for the 0.5 portion of the household yielding 120
million mattresses.
- •Twenty-five percent of the households or 30,000,000 units have only one mattress
and one box springs yielding 30 million mattresses and 30 million box springs..
- •Seventy-five percent of the households or 90,000,000 units have two mattresses
and two box springs yielding 180 million mattresses and 180 million box springs.
- •This conservative estimate yields a total of 330 million mattresses and 210 million
box springs as the potential United States mattress recycling market.
- •Attempting to define an average annual mattress recycling market for the United
States, we divide 330 million mattresses via the 10 years/life-cycle of a mattress
yields 33 million mattresses and we divide 180 million box springs via the 10
years/life-cycle of a box springs yielding 18 million box springs per year as the
total United States annual mattress recycling market.
- •In attempt to identify the annual United States market for mattresses which have
steel coil springs (or similar) we multiply 33 million mattresses per year via sixty-percent of mattresses having steel coil springs and the total annual mattress
recycling market for the Spring Compactor Invention in the United States is
19,800,000 mattresses.
- •In attempt to identify the annual United States market for box springs which have
steel springs (or similar) we multiply 18 million box springs per year via ninety-percent of box springs having steel springs and the total annual box springs
recycling market for the Spring Compactor Invention in the United States is
16,200,000 box springs.
- •Assuming 27 pounds of steel per mattress and 10 pounds of steel per box springs,
the United States potential annual steel recycling is 534.6 million pounds of steel
per year for mattresses and 162.0 million pounds of steel per year for box springs.
- •This yields a conservative United States estimated 348,300 tons of recycled steel
per year potential using the Spring Compactor Invention to make the steel springs
recyclable.
4.1.a.1 Feasible United States SpecificTarget Areas (City/Metropolitan Area
Level)
Replicable studies have shown, and even studies on new mattresses have shown, that the cost of
transporting mattresses is a targeted market size limiting factor on both new, used and discarded
mattresses. The unsightly roadside dumped mattress is a direct result of the lack of economically
feasible alternatives. Mattress dumping is the cheapest disposal method currently available to
the consumer and is frequently implemented as evidenced by simple visual survey.
Knowing that mattress transportation costs are limiting factors, it behooves us to identify
concentrated populations centers where travel distance is minimal and the number of mattresses
available for recycling provides an adequate supply.
In our earlier attempts at mattress recycling it was shown that at 200 mattresses per day of a five
day work week, should be adequately profitable. The break even point in those early calculations
was 100 mattresses per day of a five day work week.
Back calculating 100 mattresses per day supply for five days per week and 52 weeks per year, a
supply side of 26,000 mattresses per year is needed. Using the 10 year life of a mattress would
require an area with a total of 260,000 mattresses within a reasonable driving distance to the
mattress recycling facility or other mattress collection points.
Some target cities and Metropolitan Areas - certainly not an all inclusive list, but for this project
the low hanging fruit - follow as possible targeted examples:
Akron 210,682
Albuquerque 482,956
Anaheim 338,666
Anchorage 276,379
Arlington 366,922
Atlanta 426,338
Aurora 298,640
Austin 692,724
Bakersfield 284,044
Baltimore 641,839
Baton Rouge 225,090
Birmingham 233,649
Boise City 196,759
Boston 581,046
Buffalo 280,841
Chandler 231,773
Charlotte 604,237
Chesapeake 218,023
Chicago 2,871,499
Chula Vista 209,407
Cincinnati 311,996
Cleveland 455,566
Colorado Springs 379,866
Columbus 738,940
Corpus Christi 281,188
Dallas 1,228,127
Denver 565,393
Des Moines 195,916
Detroit 897,157
Durham 205,669
El Paso 592,937
Fort Wayne 221,582
Fort Worth 605,519
Fremont 207,274
Fresno 463,687
Garland 221,502
Glendale 203,012
Glendale 243,301
Grand Rapids 195,763
Greensboro 233,787
Henderson 242,753
Hialeah 229,598
Honolulu 381,754
Houston 2,049,949
Huntington Beach 195,992
Indianapolis 787,751
Irving 198,262
Jacksonville 791,631
Jersey City 239,764
Kansas City 443,569
Laredo 208,283
Las Vegas 551,596
Lexington 271,233
Lincoln 240,903
Little Rock 184,830
Long Beach 481,383
Los Angeles 3,866,382
Louisville 712,496
Lubbock 209,194
Madison 222,361
Memphis 647,439
Mesa 451,772
Miami 380,540
Milwaukee 582,392
Minneapolis 372,092
Mobile 192,415
Modesto 213,469
Montgomery 200,651
Nashville 549,163
New Orleans 464,622
New York 8,158,957
Newark 278,812
Norfolk 241,490
Oakland 400,829
Oklahoma City 532,517
Omaha 411,630
Orlando 203,601
Paradise 218,664
Philadelphia 1,465,762
Phoenix 1,435,968
Pittsburgh 320,789
Plano 257,375
Portland 546,150
Providence 178,029
Raleigh 332,347
Reno 201,617
Richmond 193,659
Riverside 290,619
Rochester 213,264
Sacramento 458,078
Salt Lake City 181,224
San Antonio 1,248,099
San Bernardino 199,033
San Diego 1,286,369
San Francisco 750,040
San Jose 908,317
Santa Ana 347,217
Scottsdale 229,236
Seattle 574,211
Shreveport 198,080
Spokane 198,345
St. Louis 325,438
St. Paul 279,982
St. Petersburg 248,058
Stockton 281,405
Tacoma 198,914
Tampa 322,999
Toledo 306,509
Tucson 519,176
Tulsa 388,596
Virginia Beach 445,474
Washington 558,891
Wichita 359,303
Winston-Salem 194,385
Yonkers 198,311
Metropolitan Area Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY MSA 876,420
Metropolitan Area Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA MSA 613,836
Metropolitan Area Amarillo, TX MSA 208,165
Metropolitan Area Appleton-Oshkosh-Neenah, WI MSA 342,154
Metropolitan Area Asheville, NC MSA 211,284
Metropolitan Area Augusta-Aiken, GA-SC MSA 457,228
Metropolitan Area Barnstable-Yarmouth, MA NECMA 205,128
Metropolitan Area Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX MSA 374,991
Metropolitan Area Biloxi-Gulfport-Pascagoula, MS MSA 343,423
Metropolitan Area Binghamton, NY MSA 251,698
Metropolitan Area Brownsville-Harlingen-San Benito, TX MSA 320,801
Metropolitan Area Burlington, VT NECMA 191,088
Metropolitan Area Canton-Massillon, OH MSA 402,644
Metropolitan Area Charleston-North Charleston, SC MSA 509,856
Metropolitan Area Charleston, WV MSA 253,850
Metropolitan Area Chattanooga, TN-GA MSA 447,488
Metropolitan Area Clarksville-Hopkinsville, TN-KY MSA 197,481
Metropolitan Area Columbus, GA-AL MSA 272,035
Metropolitan Area Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL MSA 357,163
Metropolitan Area Dayton-Springfield, OH MSA 944,934
Metropolitan Area Daytona Beach, FL MSA 465,925
Metropolitan Area Duluth-Superior, MN-WI MSA 238,184
Metropolitan Area Erie, PA MSA 279,401
Metropolitan Area Eugene-Springfield, OR MSA 311,356
Metropolitan Area Evansville-Henderson, IN-KY MSA 288,929
Metropolitan Area Fargo-Moorhead, ND-MN MSA 166,396
Metropolitan Area Fayetteville, NC MSA 284,047
Metropolitan Area Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR MSA 266,980
Metropolitan Area Fort Collins-Loveland, CO MSA 226,021
Metropolitan Area Fort Myers-Cape Coral, FL MSA 387,091
Metropolitan Area Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie, FL MSA 295,646
Metropolitan Area Fort Smith, AR-OK MSA 192,395
Metropolitan Area Gainesville, FL MSA 198,326
Metropolitan Area Green Bay, WI MSA 214,244
Metropolitan Area Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC MSA 904,729
Metropolitan Area Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle, PA MSA 615,025
Metropolitan Area Hartford, CT NECMA 1,105,174
Metropolitan Area Hickory-Morganton-Lenoir, NC MSA 318,368
Metropolitan Area Houma, LA MSA 191,227
Metropolitan Area Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH MSA 315,204
Metropolitan Area Jackson, MS MSA 425,383
Metropolitan Area Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA MSA 460,147
Metropolitan Area Johnstown, PA MSA 237,674
Metropolitan Area Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI MSA 446,699
Metropolitan Area Killeen-Temple, TX MSA 299,740
Metropolitan Area Lafayette, LA MSA 372,027
Metropolitan Area Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL MSA 448,646
Metropolitan Area Lancaster, PA MSA 454,063
Metropolitan Area Lansing-East Lansing, MI MSA 447,349
Metropolitan Area Longview-Marshall, TX MSA 208,250
Metropolitan Area Lynchburg, VA MSA 207,426
Metropolitan Area McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX MSA 510,922
Metropolitan Area Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay, FL MSA 460,977
Metropolitan Area Merced, CA MSA 196,123
Metropolitan Area Naples, FL MSA 195,731
Metropolitan Area Naples, New London-Norwich, CT NECMA 252,958
Metropolitan Area Ocala, FL MSA 237,308
Metropolitan Area Odessa-Midland, TX MSA 243,389
Metropolitan Area Pensacola, FL MSA 397,085
Metropolitan Area Peoria-Pekin, IL MSA 345,954
Metropolitan Area Portland, ME NECMA 251,438
Metropolitan Area Provo-Orem, UT MSA 328,142
Metropolitan Area Reading, PA MSA 354,057
Metropolitan Area Roanoke, VA MSA 228,534
Metropolitan Area Rockford, IL MSA 354,774
Metropolitan Area Saginaw-Bay City-Midland, MI MSA 402,949
Metropolitan Area Salinas, CA MSA 361,907
Metropolitan Area San Luis Obispo-Atascadero-Paso Robles, CA MSA 233,291
Metropolitan Area Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc, CA MSA 390,199
Metropolitan Area Sarasota-Bradenton, FL MSA 538,783
Metropolitan Area Savannah, GA MSA 284,090
Metropolitan Area Scranton--Wilkes-Barre--Hazleton, PA MSA 621,641
Metropolitan Area South Bend, IN MSA 258,056
Metropolitan Area Springfield, IL MSA 203,942
Metropolitan Area Springfield, MO MSA 300,980
Metropolitan Area Springfield, MA NECMA 591,110
Metropolitan Area Syracuse, NY MSA 740,771
Metropolitan Area Tallahassee, FL MSA 260,611
Metropolitan Area Utica-Rome, NY MSA 298,878
Metropolitan Area Visalia-Tulare-Porterville, CA MSA 353,175
Metropolitan Area Waco, TX MSA 202,983
Metropolitan Area Wilmington, NC MSA 213,580
Metropolitan Area Yakima, WA MSA 218,318
Metropolitan Area York, PA MSA 370,518
Metropolitan Area Youngstown-Warren, OH MSA 595,215
4.1.a.2 Feasible United States Target Areas (Transportation Hubs)
Transportation modes are normally categorized into pipelines, trucking, air, water and rail. Of
these, pipelines is not feasible and air is normally too expensive for mattress moving.
The key to identifying a target area based upon transportation networking is to identify shipping
centers that have empty cargo capacity coming in to them. A due diligence evaluation of the
feasibility of utilizing this unused capacity to move discarded mattresses to a co-located mattress
recycling facility is certainly a viable opportunity, but beyond the scope of this plan. Walmart
made this "Never an empty truck" policy famous.
4.1.b Why Non-Exclusive Patent Rights In The United States?
- •In the Inventors first two United States Patents - a lot of time was wasted seeking an
individual manufacturer who would buy the rights and place the patent into production.
This inventor is just too small to deal with large controlling manufacturers and un-wanting to be in the position of betting all future income on a single third party.
- •The prototype that actually worked very well for a prototype was welded together in a
muffler shop using 1/8 inch clearances that worked well enough crushing mattress coil
springs while concurrently avoiding spring wire bind ups. Thus, entrepreneurs can
basically make a working Spring Coil Compactor Machine locally and get on with the
business of mattress recycling. For these folks, our offering is going to be a single
machine patent right agreement that includes licensing fees.
- •There is a definite need to keep mattresses out of land fills and when one can
simultaneously tap into the cotton, foam, felt and steel reuse markets to sell these
products, there should be a positive cash flow as long as the legislative environment
financially supplements the entrepreneur's up front and transportation costs for getting
mattresses out of landfills and into the recycling streams.
- •Quality manufacturers will still rise to the top suppliers as they will be able to provide
better machining, higher efficiencies, and a host of improvements to the Spring
Compactor Invention. Further, up front costs have been lowered to make it easier for
companies to give this mattress recycling a go. With the emphasis being on the licensing
fee to create future residual incomes for investors, manufacturers and the Inventor - which
is fair as this money stream only exits when the hard working mattress recycler is making
money as well.
4.1.c United States Targeted Investors
4.1.c.1 Manufacturers of compactors
Manufacturers of other compactors already have experience in the design, and manufacturing of
related products. I t behooves us to go directly to manufacturers as this eliminates one extra layer
of communication as opposed to selling the patent rights to someone who in turn then goes to the
compactor manufacturer to build the machine that goes into production.
4.1.c.2 Departments of Local and/or State and/or Federal Government
Many local governments own and operate their own waste collection and disposal facilities. For
these local governments the Spring Compactor Invention will help save their landfills, create new
jobs, and provide additional cash flow. In many jurisdictions, the government is merely the
licensing agency and must be involved in order to obtain the necessary permits and licenses to
operate a mattress recycling facility within their boundaries. For those investors intending to
export or import Spring Compactor Invention machines, the investor will need to get the
appropriate import/export licenses from both countries involved.
4.1.c.3 Grantees
When the Government identifies a widespread problem, it often provides grants to schools, non-profits and even for profit organizations to address and rectify the problem - in this instance
discarded mattresses headed to landfills or roadside dumping. It behooves us to encourage
investors to check out the availability of grant funding as a source of revenue for their project.
4.1.c.4 Angel Investors
There is a segment of Angel Investors who want to actively participant in their investment and
mattress recycling offers them the opportunity. They can manage the mattress recycling
operation to include making the most profitable arrangements for the sale of the recycle stream
products. There is even room for Angel Investors to creatively develop new uses or products
from the mattress recycling stream by-products to increase their income.
4.1.c.5 Non - Profits
Non-profit organizations are uniquely postured to take advantage of not only the tax breaks they
receive, but perhaps more importantly government grants and government job subsidies for
training and the like. Non-profits have already shown that they can become sustainable entities
in the mattress recycling industry.
4.1.c.6 Landfills
Large landfills can collect special mattress tipping fees that may well ensure that on-site, co-located or nearby mattress recycling facilities become sustainable over the long run - especially if
the landfill also owns the mattress recycling facility.
4.1.c.7 Local Entrepreneurs
Once our homemade prototype worked to compact mattress coil springs it became obvious that
some local entrepreneurs should have the opportunity to build their own spring compactor
invention machine and go into the mattress recycling business. To make sure this opportunity
exists, our marketing strategy needs to contain a one-machine license agreement for local
entrepreneurs.
4.1.c.8 New Mattress Manufacturers
Using the no empty truck policy, new mattress manufacturers have the opportunity when
transporting their mattresses out to their distributors to place recyclable mattresses in the same
trucks on their return trip. This should reduce mattress recycling transportation costs and via
recycling used mattresses, the new mattress manufacturers may well be able to refurbish and
reuse the recycled materials directly into new mattresses while taking used mattresses out of the
market place slightly increasing the need for new mattresses to meet demand.
4.1.c.9 Philanthropists
Philanthropists often have green tendencies and may well invest in green activities to ensure their
legacy clearly reflects their personal concern for their fellow man and the Earth itself.
4.2 Foreign Patents (Countries foreign to the United States of America.)
4.2.a Target Area for our Foreign Patent Rights
4.2.a.1 Short List of Feasible Foreign SpecificTarget Areas
(City/Metropolitan Area Level) Based Upon Population Only
- • Tokyo, Japan 32,450,000
- • Seoul, South Korea 20,550,000
- • Mexico City, Mexico 20,450,000
- • Mumbai, India 19,200,000
- • Jakarta, Indonesia 18,900,000
- • São Paulo, Brazil 18,850,000
- •Delhi, India 18,600,000
- •Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto, Japan 17,375,000
- •Shanghai, People's Republic of China 16,650,000
- •Metro Manila, Philippines 16,300,000
- •Hong Kong-Shenzhen, People's Republic of China 15,800,000
- •Kolkata India 15,100,000
- •Moscow, Russia 15,000,000
- •Cairo, Egypt 14,450,000
- •Buenos Aires, Argentina 13,170,000
- •London, United Kingdom 12,875,000
- •Beijing, People's Republic of China 12,500,000
- •Karachi, Pakistan 11,800,000
- •etc.
4.2.a.2 Feasible Foreign Target Areas (Transportation Hubs)
Island Countries may well prove to be targets where transportation hubs are feasible. A future
target one would want to consider is the European Community should that body actually become
a one patent community.
4.2.b Why Exclusive Patent Rights In The Foreign Country?
It is all because of the Inventor's smallness. The Inventor is currently incapable of dealing
directly with over 100 countries, so the Inventor's marketing plan targets exclusive patent rights
in foreign countries to keep the number of entities the Inventor is dealing with directly to an
optimum number. Those investors who purchase exclusive foreign patent rights to the Spring
Compactor Invention in a foreign country to the United States, may well decide to further sell
non-exclusive patent licensing rights within that Investor's foreign country. The agreements will
so state and the investor will be responsible for collecting all royalties and licensing fees due the
Inventor in that country and forwarding them on to the Inventor pursuant to the agreements.
The price of the foreign Country patent rights package for the Spring Compactor Invention
which we are marketing will include the cost of our attorney to file the application, a set-aside
amount for our attorney to respond to that country's first two patent licensing inquiries and a
contribution to keeping the Inventor in business to further this venture. All due diligence
requirements for that country to issue and maintain patent rights in that country are solely the
absolute responsibility of the investor as are the costs beyond the filing of the patent application
and replying to the first two patent licencing inquiries on the patent for that country. The
investor should - at a minimum - anticipate patent translation fees for non-English speaking
countries, patent maintenance fees, cost to either manufacture or import a Spring Compactor
Invention machine according to the requirements of that country, import/export duties if
shipping, all required government licencing/permitting fees, insurance requirements, host nation
accepted courtesies, and in some countries legal bribery.
4.2.c Foreign Targeted Investors
4.2.c.1 Manufacturers of compactors
In country manufacturers are ideal targets as in addition to minimizing the number of contacts the
Inventor must deal with, many countries require patent implementation and production of the
machine within the first three years of the life of the patent. Otherwise, patent rights may be
forfeited in that country according to that country's patent law.
4.2.c.2 Departments of Government
Depending upon the form of government a foreign country, it may well be that the government is
the only source in a foreign country with which the patent rights to the Spring Compactor
Invention may be of interest as the government owns and operates all phases of the waste
disposal process. In many countries, the government is merely the licensing agency and must be
involved in order to obtain the necessary permits and licenses to operate a mattress recycling
facility within their boundaries and/or to import/export product across their boundaries.
4.2.c.3 New Mattress Manufacturers
Using the no empty truck policy, new mattress manufacturers have the opportunity when
transporting their mattresses out to their distributors to place recyclable mattresses in the same
trucks on their return trip. This should reduce mattress recycling transportation costs and via
recycling used mattresses, the new mattress manufacturers may well be able to refurbish and
reuse the recycled materials directly into new mattresses while taking used mattresses out of the
market place slightly increasing the need for new mattresses to meet demand.
4.2.c.4 Angel Investors
There is a segment of Angel Investors who want to actively participant in their investment and
mattress recycling offers them the opportunity. They can manage the mattress recycling
operation to include making the most profitable arrangements for the sale of the recycle stream
products. There is even room for Angel Investors to creatively develop new uses or products
from the mattress recycling stream by-products to increase their income.
With foreign patents, the United States Angel Investor can secure a documented business in a
foreign country to which travel costs and/or per diem fees may well be tax deductible. The
investor needs to verify this as it is a moving target. The upside is the value to the investor of
being able to visit a country of their choice over the next twenty years while making each trip a
business trip.
4.2.c.5 Landfills
Large landfills can collect special mattress tipping fees that may well ensure that on-site, co-located or nearby mattress recycling facilities become sustainable over the long run - especially if
the landfill also owns the mattress recycling facility.
4.2.c.6 Philanthropists
Philanthropists often have green tendencies and may well invest in green activities to ensure their
legacy clearly reflects their personal concern for their fellow man and the Earth itself.
4.3 What to do with the Prototype?
The 2008 economic down turn with all its ramifications caused the owner of the Garden City,
Missouri Mattress Recycling Facility to file for bankruptcy. As the Inventor used his personal
money to pay for the building of the prototype, its auxiliary hydraulic system, and several
accessories - the prototype was excluded from the bankruptcy proceedings and is now moth
balled in Garden City, Missouri. Should there be an investor out there willing to provide
transportation of the prototype to a large city, preferably Kansas City, Missouri, provide a one
year paid lease on an acceptable warehouse or similar structure and its utilities (460 V 3 phase
electric supply) - then the Inventor of the Spring Compactor Invention and owner of the
prototype along with the individual who operated the Garden City, Missouri mattress recycling
facility would certainly appreciate entering into negotiations with this investor to 1.) Start up a
mattress recycling operation in Kansas City, 2.) Be able to lease access to the prototype to others
who might be interested in purchasing patent rights to the Spring Compactor Invention. 3.) Some
split on royalty rights in the United States is certainly on the table. The Inventor is already old
and does not desire to put licensing fees on the table unless absolutely necessary as he sees this as
his future food and rent.
5.0 Budgets, Performance Analysis and Implementation
5.1 Needs and Requirements
Our target investors are very dependent on reliable information and technology. They use the
Internet for their preliminary research as well as for communications within their business and
outside of their business.
These are businesses that want to do the right thing environmentally and they shop for reasonable
long term investments with both a profitable rate of return and green value to their fellow man
and the Earth.
Our United States Spring Compactor Invention one site licence investor will need a minimum of
$250,000 to start from scratch or for those with existing infrastructure in-place a minimum of
$130,000 to start up a mattress recycling facility to include a locally made machine.
Our standard one site investor will have at least one-million dollars to get their mattress recycling
facility off the ground with a stay with it ability over the life of the patent.
Our standard manufacturer of the Spring Compactor Invention will need between one and fifteen
million dollars to start up production of their machine with - in our opinion - the lower range
being accessible if the manufacturer utilizes the prototype for its initial testing.
5.2 Competitive Forces
Googling "mattress recycling" will quickly identify several on-going mattress recycling
operations. Non-profits, high consumer priced service, legislatively mandated landfill
prohibitions, and foam only mattress recycling groups are currently participating in the mattress
recycling business.
Our marketing edge for the Spring Compactor Invention machine is its ability to increase the
value of the mattress springs as scrap metal once the springs's volume is altered to the
appropriate dimensions.
5.3 Communications
The local newspaper, radio, TV, direct mail, and seminars are excellent media for contacting
potential investors . Unfortunately, the Inventor's marketing budget is inadequate to gamble on
those media at this time.
Our communication will be via the Internet. We will build our outreach program around the
website, http://www.mattressrecycling.biz. We will use free ezine/email articles distribution to
get the word out to as many readers as we can reach while creating links back to our website. We
will post selected articles on our website and use RSS to reach interested parties. In the future
we hope to enhance the website with an interactive Wordpress blog. And, we will solicit Angel
investors via Craigslist.
5.4 Keys to Success
The main key to success is making the offering of the Spring Compactor Invention patent rights
to investors crystal clear with emphasis on the twenty year or thereabout life of the patent over
which they will get a return on their investment. Many potential investors would much prefer
our offering to the less creative offerings of the emerging green world, if only they knew the
value to the environment and their other customers of this green effort's easy to count
measurable results, i.e. so many thousands of mattresses kept out of the landfill via the Investor.
Word of mouth is critical in our marketing. We will have to make sure that once we gain an
investor, our mutual efforts result in a win-win venture so that they will tell other Investors..
We must always remember to sell the patent rights, not the end product as the Investor will
control what the end product is and how it best serves mankind. We must communicate to our
investors an understanding that they are taking on a relationship with the Inventor to use his
invention in a way most suitable to their vision, not just buying a canned end product.
5.5 Emphasize Service and Support
We must differentiate ourselves from other compactor vendors via emphasis on the return value
of compacting the mattress coil springs as a step in the mattress recycling process. We need to
establish our patent rights offering as a clear and viable alternative, for our target Investors, to the
grind and dump style of mattress recycling or the lower return value of selling non-compacted
mattress spring sets to the scrap steel buyers.
We must differentiate ourselves via being upfront about our Spring Compactor Invention patent
rights offerings by posting our proposed agreements on our website for people to surf and thus
cut down on lead time for Investors wanting to capture the patent rights to a given market before
their competitor Investor does. This is especially true in the foreign patent market where once
they are gone - they are gone forever.
5.6 Expense Budget
The Internet expenses to set up and use the website are already being funded via the Inventor's
other monetized websites. The Inventor has already procured and is already using article
submission software to get free articles out to the article directories where editors and web
masters can distribute these articles through their networks. The RSS code and RSS links are
already available to the Inventor with RSS links being updated as articles are added to the
website and pinged to make them available across the Internet. The Inventor has Word Press,
and it will be implemented subsequently to the writing and posting of the Spring Compactor
Invention Business Plan, Marketing Plan, and distribution of a reasonable number of free articles
to gain site traffic. The Craigslist effort will commence subsequent to the website containing the
offering agreements, business plan and marketing plan.
5.7 Sales Forecast
Sales of the foreign patent rights - which includes our Patent Attorney filing the application -
must be completed within the time allowed via the Paris or Patent Convention Treaty (PCT).
Which at a minimum is February 2010. As our Patent Attorney needs upfront application
preparation time, the actual cutoff date for foreign patent applications at this time is November
2009. When our Attorney files the PCT application, it is our understanding these deadlines for
foreign patents may be extended up to six months. For those Investors seeking only United
States Patent Rights, the Spring Compactor Invention's provisional patent application was filed
in February 2009 and our Patent Attorney is already preparing the non-provisional utility patent
application for the United States. So, sales of United States Patent rights are targeted at any time
between now and February 2029.
5.8 Sales Forecast by Type
The United States Patent Rights Sales Goal is 50 sales during the life of the patent.
The Foreign Patent Rights Sales Goal is 75 countries prior to December 31, 2009.
5.9 Measurement and Comparison
1. Tracking and follow-up will be done using computer and/or server database software.
2. Counting of how many mattresses, box springs and/or stuffed furniture are recycled will be
used to quantify the number of mattresses diverted from landfills.
3. Reported quantities of recycled materials by type will be used to measure the actual success of
the process.
4. Financial reports will be used to document the value of the Spring Compactor Invention in its
use.
5. We will report the number and location of foreign patent applications on the website as
promptly as we can. This will notify Investors not to waste their time on countries that are no
longer available and make known to surfers countries that remain available for their buying.
6.0 Critical Issues
Whenever possible based upon funding availability, the Inventor intends to use some of the
money generated by other sales to purchase foreign patent rights to other countries on a can do
basis. As the initial filing of applications for these foreign patents is time critical, this will allow
those extra foreign country patents to be sold over the life of the foreign country patent. If this is
not timely done, foreign country patents will not be available to the Inventor or the Investors
once the filing deadline passes. For those countries, the Spring Compactor Invention becomes
public domain and neither the Inventor or the Investors will profit therefrom.
Saying no: can we say no to special deals that take us away from the target focus? Yes, we must.
Can we say no to unprofitable deals? Yes, we must.
Will we work with Investors to make this a win-win venture? Yes, we must.
