Hanh mitakuyapi / Hello my relatives.
Back in the early 1980s, I developed, marketed, & patented a product that relieved pain & muscle spasms using little "pressure pointers" & elastic straps to stimulate / relax acupressure points. It made a profit both years I marketed it.
I had way too many irons in the fire at the time & couldn't give it the time & attention it deserved, so I put it on the shelf "for a couple of years".
Recently, I was hounding the Spirits (ie, strong prayers) for something that I could put in the market that would support me & the church I head, since we have both been staring starvation & death thereby closely in the face. It must be: effective; cheap to make; easy to make, therefore fast to make; & have a strong market already bcs it takes lots of time to build a market demand, & don't have time to squander.
(I "lived" on $9,000 total income for 2008, & unless there's a miracle, so far in 2009, I've garnered a total of $8,370. No unemployment compensation, no welfare (gack! hiss! even the thought of it should go 'way! fast!!), & very little (obviously) in the way of jobs.)
Anyway, the Spirits popped the memory of my TheraPressure System into my consciousness!
It meets all of the requirements. Acupuncture / acupressure are systems with a 4,000+-year history of effectiveness. "Barefoot doctors" successfully treat all manner of conditions with them & have for thousands of years. The parts are inexpensive, & easy to make. And the U.S. pain market alone is something like $35 Billion / year. Duwahleh! Better yet, we now have The Internet & the World Wide Web for marketing, & sites like Amazon & eBay. My heart leapt as these realizations dawned.
That was in something like late July or early August of this year. Since then, I have participated in "webinars" on selling on sites like Amazon & eBay; made / bought the tools needed to make the parts, & kept praying. After all, if you don't speak up, you won't be heard.. the Spirits are no different in this regard than any other part of the world.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I was visiting with a friend on the Internet & she asked about the system, so of course I was delighted to tell her about it.
In the course of all of this, the Spirits blessed me with another Thought of Note - magnets work wonders on pain & other conditions, so I should update the System to include them. Which I did, so now we have the TheraPressure System, & the MagneTheraPressure System, & I'm within $250, at this writing, of getting them on the Internet. I prayed for "a suitable shear to cut the sheet metal needed for these Systems' clips", & found more than one on eBay.
When I couldn't participate in the auctions because they always seem to end when I can't get to a WiFi site or other Internet access, a friend said, "I can do it for you, & you can pay me back when we win one. How much do you want to pay?" I told him "As close to $100.00 as possible without going over, but use your best judgement. I'd hate to lose out for a measly couple of bucks." He got it for me for $102.10 including shipping! When I opened the box, I found a well-made piece of equipment, probably worth 2-3X what I paid. Heaven forbid it doesn't cut the metal for the clips used in my System, but "if" that should happen, I can sell it for what I have in it, easily.
Today, I went to a sheet-metal shop to see about something better for our needs than what I had been using, & the shop foreman gifted me with a piece big enough to build over a dozen kits.
Looks like a winner! OK - I blush a bit about the "couple of years" actually being more like 11 couples of years, but I counter it with, I've always been 15-20 years ahead of the curve, so I should now be about at the top of it. Way to go!
I'll keep you posted. I have no great objection to not eating 'whenever".. I do have a great objection to not being able to, for simple lack of money. That's just not the Indn Way.
Mitakuye oiasin. All (are) my relatives.
