My experience in the US Navy led to an understanding of induction pumps and led to a job where I got to tinker with different designs working out of a garage. Eventually a company was formed and it has grown to 25 employees, 12 million annual sales and two spin off companies about half its size. Tinkering works. I thought about bringing my rustproofing formula to market, but there is nothing proprietary about it, thus can be reproduced quite easily by competitors.