Finally, you can realize your true calling as an inventor – and without doing any investing, promoting, drafting, designing or marketing. Well, we take that back. It will cost you $10.

But with less money than a ticket to the pictures, you can submit an idea to Quirky and, potentially, begin making mucho mula.

Quirky is an online crowdsourcing invention factory (and Challenger Brand). Ideas are submitted, then researched and voted upon by Quirky staff. The winners go online for the community to judge. The best ones get handed back to the Quirky design team and slated for presale. Once enough online orders are filled, the product goes live – and you start making money.

But not just you. And that’s where Quirky gets interesting.

Everyone in the mob that contributed to the product gets a slice of the pie. It might be 0.13% of a slice, but hey. So if you do a survey that provides market research on who would use a machine to suck the water out of tofu, you get a share. And if you provide a comment about a logo for an herb garden, you get a share. And if you think of a better name for a broom that strains itself – the Broom Groomer – then, well, you get a share.

Quirky calls this “Influence,” and the more you have the richer you are. You gain Influence for submitting an idea, committing to a product in resale, voting for a winning product idea or just giving constructive criticism or insight on an idea.

Then, for each unit manufactured and sold, the crowd gets 30% of the total revenue from direct sales on Quirky.com. They also receive 10% of revenue from indirect sales – wholesale orders and worldwide retail sales. That 40% is divvied up according to your Influence percentage. Easy breezy.

An abridged history of the company might be in order. Ben Kaufman, 16, invents an iPod accessory company called mophie. His parents re-mortgage their house and lend him $185,000 to develop it. Nice parents. He wins “Best in Show” at MacWorld 2006, raises $1.5 million in venture money, then sells mophie in 2007 and decides to build a company around the process instead. Quirky is born.

And, in one fell swoop, the Quirky model antiquates all the traditional avenues of merchandise design and production. Using only the power of the Internet and its avid minions…

You’ll have to excuse me. I have Influence to accrue.