In high school I developed a "C" shaped mount that made it possible to affix closed loop liquid coolers (now pervasive, like those now made by NZXT and Corsair)

In high school I developed a "C" shaped mount that made it possible to affix closed loop liquid coolers (now pervasive, like those now made by NZXT and Corsair) to graphics cards in a time where the only real option for water cooling a GPU was to spend hundreds of dollars on a water-block, radiator pump etc if you wanted to overclock. With a CLC and my mount you could get nearly identical performance for $80 (circa 2012). Initially, I published progress on the Overclock.net forum. People eventually asked if they could buy it and in time I was laser cutting hundreds a week and shipping with the help of my younger brother. I basically used the income from this project to pay for college and eventually sold the IP to a well known PC accessories manufacturer. Asetek fortunately waited to dig up a private doc outlining IP claims they they had provisionally patented the notion of "affixing a CLC to a GPU" prior, but fortunately by the time they tried to bother me I'd already sold. My biggest take away was how powerful building an audience can be - without that none of this would have happened. Here's a showcase of the mounts from a corsair employee https://forum.corsair.com/blog/system-build-inspiration/the-obsidian-350d-with-3-hydro-series-coolers/ https://forum.corsair.com/blog/system-build-inspiration/the-... Another more clear image of the mount: https://www.overclock.net/media/no-title.3710949/full https://www.overclock.net/media/no-title.3710949/full