Chasing Big Guns

There is always possibility to contact some of big guns, those that are leaders of the industry. If only you can find a way how to contact them! You are not the only one; there are millions of others who want to send them emails. Their email addresses are not in public domain anyway. You are too late there as well.

At that point I have decided to investigate the three biggest ones: Microsoft, Apple and Google and see whether they have some channels open for new ideas. Here is the result:

Google

I took Google first, knowing how much efforts they put into new ideas and products. Everybody has heard that their developers and obliged to spend 30% of their time on pet projects, trying to develop some grand idea.  They must be open to other people’s ideas.

After lot of search I have managed to find the place. There is a web page asking you to tell them about your idea:

After reading the page I realized that I can’t tell them too much. If I do, they can do with it whatever they want. I was kind of expecting that.  How else can they protect themselves?

I have still decided to populate the form, put my short version of the idea and submit. So what do you think that happened after that: I never heard a word from them about my idea! At least that they have read it. What could have I expected? They must have millions of such “grand” ideas.  This is in effect a kind of spam. The best way is to ignore it.

Apple

They are the top brand. They deliver great products. Must be interested in other people’s ideas! After lot of search I have come to a page with this text starting with:

They tell you right away: get lost, we are not interested.  At least it was easy. No need to send something and have a false hope.

Microsoft

I have decided not to search their websites for some open door to send them my idea. There must be other ways to reach them. A bit of creative thinking… I have read in newspapers that a new CEO has been appointed in Microsoft Australia a while ago. Her name was Tracy Fallows. I have tried to find her email address on the Internet. After a bit of efforts, amazingly, I have managed to find her email address. The first one of a real people on such position accessible for contact!

I immediately send an email explaining that I would like to get in contact with someone whose job is to investigate other people’s ideas. Unexpectedly she returned my email. She gave me an email address to write to. “Good luck” she wrote at the end. Thank you Tracy, now I know that real people with names and email addresses work there.

I send an email to the address she gave me. I didn’t want to risk anything: “Tracy Fallows asked me to contact you”, I put in the subject. This email with such subject won’t go to the junk email for sure! The response came quickly. There is a group in California whose job is to examine other people’s ideas. There was an email address to follow. Perfect that’s what I was hoping to get.

My email went straight away. It took several days for the response to come back. Short email came telling me that they do not consider ideas or in their words: “business proposals which are based upon early stage concepts or ideas”.  So, if I had the startup already working, they would potentially have a quick look at it.  Dead-end again!

At this point I gave up big ones.  They live world apart. After all they were not ones that launched Twitter, FaceBook, GroupOn or number of others that we don’t hear about any more.  Small guys did that and then either grew big with them or went bust.

 Is this the end of it and a point to give up? The problem is that I really do have a good idea! My reasoning is that if I am good enough to come up with the idea that nobody else has, and see things that others don’t, I must be good enough to sort that out and get through this maze.  You just watch this space.

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