Please consult a patent attorney for more information about filing for a patent, and getting your idea to market. That airplane thousands of miles above you. The memory foam pillow on your bed. The headache pills. The toothbrush. Your guitar. The internet. All of these things began as dreams.
If someone else can dream something and turn it into a reality, time and time again, you can too. But, when it comes to inventing things, the real trick is sticking the journey through or going from idea to invention to market. All you have to do is read and learn , develop a good sense of focus think essentialism, or one priority at a time , do your research, test, test, test, and stick it through! Coming up with an idea or inventing a product is a process that takes commitment, dedication, and self-belief.
By cultivating a growth mindset a mindset in which your brain is very active , and by working hard, your brain can grow and change, making it easier for you to solve problems and find new solutions. The rough times are what weed out others from achieving their goals. If you want to invent a new solution to oily hair shampoo , no one is stopping you.
To come up with a really great idea, all you need to start doing is tuning into your own frustrations. This sort of in-depth experience gives you unique insight into the daily workings of a particular industry. I know all the jewelry suppliers, and I know what products and ideas are currently trending. I needed a desk that had features that would give me quick access to a variety of tools; that was large enough for all my mixed media projects; and that was also sturdy enough it could take hammer blows and an occasional brush from a blow torch.
It was small and expensive. Today it is even larger. What are other people always complaining about? What do your friends want? To find out what people are complaining about, read forums, turn to your social media accounts, and read reviews.
Open your mind to all the problems people are talking about. If you do have competition, pay special attention to your product name, price range, materials used, what the product claims to do, packaging, and who the manufacturer is. You can do a lot of this research online, but you can also do it in-person. Drop into a store that you think would be a great candidate for stocking your product in the future.
Check out what merchandise is taking up shelf space and figure out where your product might sit within a similar store. That said, not every product that has been patented can be found in stores.
The U. Patent Search. If you do find a patent similar to yours, worry. How the patent is worded can make all the difference. If you need help at this stage, contact a patent attorney and get their opinion. Try to sample your ideal audience, and not just anyone. If you want to explain your idea to someone in-depth and are worried potential theft, you can get them to sign a non-disclosure agreement NDA —a legal document that states both parties intent to keep information confidential.
You can create one for free on the RocketLawyer website. For example, if your idea is a new way to remove cat sand from a cat litter tray, you could ask people what bothers them most about the process of doing it. Of course, you could also calculate your price based on the cost of materials and manufacture.
Pricing a product right is as much an art as it is strategy informed by careful research. Read our article on strategic ways to price your products or services. A licensee is a company that agrees to manufacture and sell your product idea. Like a book publisher, licensees usually send you payments in the form of royalties, so for each product sold, you earn a percentage.
A great way to find potential licensees is to look for products similar to yours and then to look for the name of the manufacturer. You can usually find it right on the box! You can do this on your own too using the lean planning methodology.
Use the research process to help you get a good sense of the type of customer your product will serve. Not only will this impact how you design the product, but also where you distribute it, and how you market it. If it is a low-cost item, you will need to be able to sell large volumes.
On the flipside, bigger ticket items work much better in low-volume niche situations. Keep it simple. Another way to reduce your risk is to stick to simple items, as they are easier to execute and cost less to develop. Ideas that are easy to explain are also typically easier to sell.
Follow a clear path to market. Try to steer clear from complex distribution networks and focus on utilizing existing ones. Exploit attractive markets. Growing markets are easier to be successful in than shrinking markets. Also, some industries are much more receptive and hungry than others for innovation.
Have a clearly defined customer. It should be easy to identify the type of person who would likely buy the product. Ensure the product is tailored to these consumers' needs and preferences.
By taking the time to understand your specific customer, it will be much easier to implement your marketing efforts and see a return on them. Make sure it is within your personal limits both technically and financially. Walk before you run. One way to cover your bases financially is to get other people to share the risk. Also, learn the ropes with simple ideas: There will still be tons to learn without tackling something with massive barriers to entry.
For example, if you want to sell a power-product innovation, you may not know that if you want to sell to major retailers you will have to plan for the time and cost of safety testing. To avoid these unknown pitfalls, make sure you research and ask others. Christopher Hawker is the president of Trident Design, LLC , a product development and commercialization firm working with everyone from independent inventors to large corporations, based in Columbus, Ohio.
The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. Cerebration and group-think are key components to turning invention to innovation.
Creating a corporate culture where the goals are measured in simplified KPIs and easily measured metrics might actually stifle innovation in many ways. Looking at the companies and organizations that are considered successful in innovation Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook , we see some common behaviors and environments. The first is the culture of cerebration, of promoting employees to share and internally market their ideas and projects.
Some of this could be influenced by a higher concentration of like-minded talent, such as in Silicon Valley, where former colleagues and trusted friends have migrated from company to company while maintaining their social networks and friends of shared interests and hobbies. But all of these companies have also created a corporate culture that recognizes the value and the opportunity of cerebration and group-think. They have created a system that operates both as a business, and as an idea factory.
We learned that the only way for businesses to consistently succeed today is to attract smart creative employees and create an environment where they can thrive at scale. Transforming a business from invention to innovation might not be a huge change, an enormous investment, or a massive restructuring. It could be as simple as adding some simple social concepts and some new ways of managing and measuring success into the existing structure.
Think back in your career to when you were an eager young University graduate with dreams and ideas. How valuable would it have been to work alongside Jobs, Schmidt, Zuckerberg, Joy, Brin, Bezos, or one of the hundreds of other visionaries that we respect today? We all have the opportunity now, to take our experience and knowledge and invest that in the organization. We can take a break from our traditional leadership roles of meetings and schedules and take the time to step back, and give back, and be the leader that supports the innovation lying dormant within our own businesses.
Bill Walker is an IT guy, globalization driver, door opener, and super-dad traveling the globe to solve the sticky problems.
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