Like anything else, to improve your odds of success at licensing a product idea, you need to be able to play the game longer and smarter.

The longer you’re in the game, the better chances you have of reaching your goal.

Take it from me. I’m not a gambler. In fact, I consider myself a no-risk entrepreneur. Early on in my career, I realized that I needed to find a way of increasing my chances of success at bringing my ideas for products to market.

Related: 3 Takeaways From Lori Greiner’s Invent It, Sell It, Bank It.

I flat out did not want to work for anyone else. I was newly married, and my wife was obviously not going put up with me struggling to make a living.

Truth be told, I’ve only ever really worked for one company. Back in the mid to late 1980s, I was the manager of design at the Bay Area-based toy startup Worlds of Wonder for two years. I’ve been creating and getting paid for my ideas since my early 20s.

So, you could say I’ve only had one job. But, from my perspective, every time I got paid, that was a different job.

Sometimes the money came in fast and sometimes it came in very slowly, but I taught myself how to make a living from being an inventor. (I explain how much money I made from products I licensed onto the market in this video.)

Here’s a big tip. Don’t take inventing advice from anyone who hasn’t made a living from inventing. And I really do mean make a living. It’s one thing to bring a product to market. It’s an accomplishment to bring two products to market! Still, it is something else entirely to support yourself and your family day in and day out with royalties that your creativity produced.