America has always been the land of tinkerers, from Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford to Steve Jobs and the guy who created the Flowbee. But today’s basement inventors have it easy in ways their predecessors couldn’t have imagined. In the past, someone with a new idea would have had to actually build the thing themselves, find a market for it and figure out how to get it mass-produced. Now inexpensive technology means that anybody can quickly transform an idea into a physical product. Google SketchUp makes it easy for even the sloppiest untrained draftsperson to mock up a 3-D digital model. Any inventor can contact a Chinese factory, many of which are so hungry for American business that they will create a prototype for next to nothing. Sites like Etsy.com make it easier to reach a market, and others, like Quirky.com, allow users to simply suggest an idea and share the royalties if it makes it to the market.
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