[edgall]

But inventing does not guarantee a golden payday. Only 2 to 3 percent of all inventors make any money from their inventions, experts said.

Key point. It takes more than just an idea to bring an invention to market. Most inventions never get to market for the simple reason their inventors lack the business acumen and don't get the right people involved.

After inventing something the only thing you need to worry about is finding investors, patenting, finding a business person, finding a manufacturer, prototyping, safety testing, finding suppliers and coordinating it all so that you can make a profit. Most people sadly try to do it all themselves, but it takes a special kind of person to know how to do it all themselves and get it right the first time.

[MichaelGG]

Are you sure? Has there been a study done on inventions/patents to know how many are that useful? For instance, if I come up with a, I dunno, a coffee filter that's 2% more effective, sure I've invented something. But I might not make any money ever because a 2% efficiency increase is irrelevant for non-industrial-scale things, generally. (Or maybe that 2% gain costs 5% more.) So maybe a lot of people are just inventing "stuff" that while technically an invention, isn't really that useful, business acumen or not.