Ouch. You do know that teaching is my shrug job. So many inventors go into teaching because they are allured by both tenure and government funding agencies. Many teachers have gone to the "Dark Side" of the State Science Institute.

Getting promoted this year without government dependence and no tenure system was challenging, but worth it.

My relationship lasts for years, so ability to pay or willingness to pay has a different meaning than an immediate transaction.

Well, you know better than I what will fly. For me it is just another job.

Yes I have plenty of those and you immediately know that they are novices. I do discourage them a little, because I do not want them to come back later and suggest that I lead them on. And it is easier to not have a bad client at all then have to get rid of a bad client.

Hello DB,
I have a few spare dimes... :)
If "great ideas" are so bountiful, I should be able to buy quite a few dozen and become wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. If I had a dime for every guy who brought me his new golf putter, driver or other "sure fire" product to produce tooling for, that he thought would make him rich, I would be a major depositor in a bank in the Caymans... Usually when they realize the cost of development, tooling, production and how difficult/expensive it is to finance something others realize is not such a "great idea" they let it go. Those that don't, pay me and rarely see a good ROI. I do not discourage them. I do not know what the public will go for. Who can explain the pet rock, or the Chia pet?
True inventors are greatly outnumbered by dreamers.
Respectfully,
O.A.

I was always told that those that can, do and those that can't, teach.

(At first glance I thought you said "leeching". LOL)

What is amazing is that so many of those go into teaching.

Some must deny the genius in others to come to grips with their own mediocrity.