First post, inventing my own product

[tommyh]

Hello! First post here after some lurking. What a great forum! Also, on the last few chapters TMF ...

Just a warning, this is going to be sort of a stream of consciousness/brain dump kind of post.

Anyway, I wanted to put some ideas out into the world so that I could get some feedback, but more than anything I figured that publicly posting some thoughts would help motivate me to execute my idea.

I am interested in developing a product that fits into the category of soft goods/personal accessories. More specifically, it is something that nearly everyone already owns, and I intend to add a set of features to it that I have never seen implemented before. The set of features that I've come up with solve several problems that I have encountered with these types of products. It's also important that the feature set that I'm developing can be implemented into a whole line of products instead of just one. I have shared my idea with some people that are close to me and the general response has been "why has nobody done this before?" I know, consulting friends and family is not a good way to do market research, but it has been encouraging nonetheless.

Right now I am working on a prototype. Since I have the skills and resources to build these kind of items myself, I am not currently using a professional prototype builder to help me. All of the work is being done with my own two hands, and every day my prototype gets a little bit closer to completion. Luckily I have a job that allows me to have long stretches of time off which allows me to sink a lot of uninterrupted time into working on this project.

Once I have a finished prototype, I will start some market research. One thing that I think represents a major barrier to people bringing their inventions to market is that it is hard to know whether anyone will buy your product after dropping some major cash on a professionally manufactured factory run. Right now I have two ideas for gauging demand. My first idea is to make a small batch of my product myself and selling on Etsy. I have a weekly open air market near my home and my second idea would be to sell at the market.

If I'm able to sell out my inventory quickly then I think I will start moving into a bigger production and distribution capacity. I am lucky to have a nearby factory that is able to do both large and small batch manufacturing. I like the idea of keeping things made in the USA, but I'm open to going overseas if there is enough value in it. For distribution, I plan on doing a website (shopify/bigcommerce/etc.) as well as contacting brick and mortar retailers to sell stuff the old fashioned way.

One thing that I'm still trying to figure out is how to manage inventory and distribution for what I intend to be essentially a one man operation. Does anybody have their own invention dropshipped by a wholesaler? Any advice from forum would be amazing.

I also have some ideas rattling around in my head about advertising and viral marketing, but this post is getting long so I think I'll wrap things up here.

Please if you have any input, I am eager to hear it. Thank you for reading this far!

 

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[Raoul Duke]

https://thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/one-simple-idea-stephen-key.30946/
https://thefastlaneforum.com/commun...deas-stephen-key-webinar-upcoming-call.56906/
@StephenKey

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071800441/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

This can help you. It is geared towards licensing. Just another thought.

 

[tommyh]

https://thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/one-simple-idea-stephen-key.30946/
https://thefastlaneforum.com/commun...deas-stephen-key-webinar-upcoming-call.56906/
@StephenKey

http://www.amazon.com/One-Simple-Idea-Startups-Entrepreneurs/dp/0071800441/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357144404&sr=1-2&keywords=one simple idea

This can help you. It is geared towards licensing. Just another thought.

Thanks for the link!

Licensing is something that I've considered... I need to do more research on the subject, but the idea of launching my own line of products is appealing to me. Maybe it's for control, maybe it's just my ego. But, Licensing might be more practical.

 

[tommyh]

https://thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/one-simple-idea-stephen-key.30946/
https://thefastlaneforum.com/commun...deas-stephen-key-webinar-upcoming-call.56906/
@StephenKey

http://www.amazon.com/One-Simple-Idea-Startups-Entrepreneurs/dp/0071800441/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357144404&sr=1-2&keywords=one simple idea

This can help you. It is geared towards licensing. Just another thought.

Another thing that just occurred to me is that I've always had the idea of creating a sell-able business bouncing around in the back of my head. Not that it would be impossible through licensing, but it does seem more natural to sell a business that has it's own line of products.

 

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[OldFaithful]

Hi @tommyh and welcome. Have you been searching the invention section of the forum? There are a number of interesting threads there about prototyping and production startup.
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/forums/inventing-innovating-licensing.86/
Sounds like you're on the right track. Build your prototype, evaluate in the marketplace, revise & build another prototype. Rinse and repeat until your customers are happy. Some folks here suggest pre-sales to fund the first production shipment, but that's up to you and your customers. Then start shopping the numerous manufacturing options for the method that works best for you. Since you have the skills to make your own prototypes, why not consider setting up your own manufacturing operation. Start small. No one answer here will fit every product or every market, so the sky's the limit and your options are endless.

Getting you invention provided to you in it's final form by an offshore drop-shipper has it's own risks. Particularly that once you gain sales, they may skip you and sell your invention directly to your market. If your product has multiple parts, consider having the parts made by separate sources and assemble at your location. Just a thought.

BTW, did you finish the book or have you only read the first few chapters?

Best wishes & Godspeed.

 

[tommyh]

Hi @tommyh and welcome. Have you been searching the invention section of the forum? There are a number of interesting threads there about prototyping and production startup.
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/forums/inventing-innovating-licensing.86/
Sounds like you're on the right track. Build your prototype, evaluate in the marketplace, revise & build another prototype. Rinse and repeat until your customers are happy. Some folks here suggest pre-sales to fund the first production shipment, but that's up to you and your customers. Then start shopping the numerous manufacturing options for the method that works best for you. Since you have the skills to make your own prototypes, why not consider setting up your own manufacturing operation. Start small. No one answer here will fit every product or every market, so the sky's the limit and your options are endless.

Getting you invention provided to you in it's final form by an offshore drop-shipper has it's own risks. Particularly that once you gain sales, they may skip you and sell your invention directly to your market. If your product has multiple parts, consider having the parts made by separate sources and assemble at your location. Just a thought.

BTW, did you finish the book or have you only read the first few chapters?

Best wishes & Godspeed.

Hi OldFaithful, Thanks for the reply. I've been reading through that section of the forum a bit, I need to dig in more.

As far as making a first run of my product on my own, I think that's a great idea. I've never had to manufacture anything before, so I will have to see what my capacity will be after I finish up a few prototypes. It's a "cut and sew" fabric product so once I have some finalized patterns then I will be able to build these units relatively quickly.

I've got plenty of hurdles to get over before I'm ready to start having a factory do my manufacturing, so I'll just be thinking about it for now and I'll cross that bridge when I have to.

Still trying to figure out what my initial selling vehicle will be (shopify website, on ebay, on Etsy, B&M, etc...). I'm a bit vexxed about this, but in the end I think I ought to just pick one and see what happens. Hell, maybe I should try all of them. What have I got to lose, right?

I'm currently on the last two chapters of the book, planning to finish it over breakfast tomorrow. And then, off to work on the prototype...

 

[OldFaithful]

maybe I should try all of them

Not a bad idea. There are a number of threads here that detail the struggles of eCommerce sellers who have been tied to only 1 sales funnel. Sometimes a change in fee structure, or the prohibited items list, or merely bad reviews, can close the sales funnel...leaving the seller high & dry.

 

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[Touseyd]

so hows the prototype coming along?

 

[Donna_Lee]

so hows the prototype coming along?

Creating and venturing a product is a lot of fun, and hard work.
You may want to look into licensing your product, rather than trying to sell it yourself.
I was granted a US Utility patent on one of my inventions, and I'm currently trying to find someone to licence it. So far I have received a "No" by every company I've called thus far; but I'm determined to find my product a home, so I'm not giving up. lol.

Before you sink a pile of time and money into your invention, I would suggest you do a patent search for an item like yours, so you know if your product might infringe on an existing patent.

If you think you have a patentable invention, at the very least you should file a provisional patent. it will give you a year to try and shop your product, and you will be able to claim; "patent pending" status.
Since you have already disclosed you invention to some people, you only have a year from disclosure to file.

You can file the provisional patent yourself online, and there are many good books out there that can help guide you.

Good luck and keep on inventing!

 

[tommyh]

so hows the prototype coming along?

I've been putting a lot of work into it lately. The features that I'm adding to this product have passed the proof of concept test which is pretty exciting. Not gonna lie, it's pretty cool

I'm currently building a dozen or so samples to hand out to friends for testing. This particular product fits into the outdoor recreational gear category and I need some feedback on fit and finish so that I can finalize a design. I know there are pitfalls to getting feedback from friends, but I can't really think of another way to get the kind of feedback that I need.

After I have a finished design I plan to build a few more and try to sell them on a small scale to establish demand. If that goes well then I'll need to start thinking about really ramping up and selling. Still a lot of work to do though...

 

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[tommyh]

Creating and venturing a product is a lot of fun, and hard work.
You may want to look into licensing your product, rather than trying to sell it yourself.
I was granted a US Utility patent on one of my inventions, and I'm currently trying to find someone to licence it. So far I have received a "No" by every company I've called thus far; but I'm determined to find my product a home, so I'm not giving up. lol.

Before you sink a pile of time and money into your invention, I would suggest you do a patent search for an item like yours, so you know if your product might infringe on an existing patent.

If you think you have a patentable invention, at the very least you should file a provisional patent. it will give you a year to try and shop your product, and you will be able to claim; "patent pending" status.
Since you have already disclosed you invention to some people, you only have a year from disclosure to file.

You can file the provisional patent yourself online, and there are many good books out there that can help guide you.

Good luck and keep on inventing!

I've considered much of what you are saying.

As far as patents are concerned, I'm still getting the hang of searching for things on the US patent office website. Finding exactly what you're looking for can be a bit of a pain to say the least. I will definitely be filing a provisional patent once I get a better grip on the labyrinth that is the uspto website.

I'm still open to licensing, but I really want to try and build my own brand by applying my design philosophy to more products. I see other companies in the same category with hundreds of SKUs. I see no reason why I can't put the features that make my product unique into a similar number of SKUs.

Another reason that I want to build a brand is that I have a pretty interesting back-story to my business. I live on a sailboat and I'm literally designing and building all of my products from inside my little home. Think "tiny-home" but smaller! I think that adventurous hipster types might find the that kind of thing appealing. Obviously, I wont be doing any large scale manufacturing from home but at least I can get my start from here.

Just as an aside, I find it kind of interesting that there seems to be a real lack of inventors and designers on here that are developing physical products. It seems that the vast majority of people on the fastlane forum are working on digital products or other services. I don't know it that bodes well or poorly for us inventors, but I just thought that it was interesting. I think that the barrier to entry is a bit higher for making physical products which keeps most people out of the game. I hope that means that I will have an advantage after I get past some of those barriers!

 

[tommyh]

It's been a while since I started this thread, a few updates and thoughts...

I've been working on my prototype quite a bit, and I have to say that I underestimated the complexity of fully designing a consumer product from start to finish. The four or five prototypes that I've designed and built have been put into use and are very good, at least in my own biased opinion. The particular features that I am really innovating on have turned out really well and some of the people that I've recruited as testers have shown enthusiasm for what I've done.

This all fine and good, but I'm at a point where I need to figure out how to get these things built. I'm pretty good at cutting and sewing fabric, but my prototypes are not a professional product. I need to recruit some professionals.

Trying to find help on this subject has been difficult. Without giving too much away, I'm making backpacks with some very unique features. If I were making some kind of garment there would be copious resources available to me for making patterns and getting an actual product made. Not so much for non-garments. Another complicating factor is that I am working with a lot of specialized materials and I'm trying to meet some specific technical specifications that eliminate many of the textile makers out there.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw out my recent thoughts so I could get some feedback. What I'm looking for right now are resources for moving a cut and sewn product from prototype to finished product. I'm also looking for a someone who makes custom sheet metal products in small batches. Stamped sheet metal is probably out of the question for the expense of having tools/dies made.

Thanks for reading this far and if anybody out there has any advice please don't be shy.

 

[million$$$smile]

Not sure if this would help, but have you looked into contacting cnc fabricating and machining companies for your sheetmetal work? Most of the time they can quote you a price if you have some form of drawing. In fact if you have any 3D CAD drawings, you most likely can get a quote online.

Regarding cutting and sewing the fabric. I would contact a textile college and see if it is possible to speak to one of the professors either via phone or email. I'd ask if he knows of possible assemblers of your type of product. I would also look at Canvas Sewing Contractors on ThomasNet.com as an example to contact contractors for sewing.

Also you might look into this: Dun4Me
similar to upward/elance but for light manufacturing of prototypes and goods.

As far as local help to maybe get the patterns ready for production, I'd definitely contact any school in your area that has any type of textile design classes. Don't be afraid of Craigslist either. If you lay out your needs perhaps in 'gigs' category, you just might meet up with someone that can really be of help.

Don't give up and good luck!

 

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[tommyh]

Thanks for the suggestions! Those links look promising.

I've never even heard of a textile college, but after some quick googling I found one nearby.

Very encouraging.