Progress Thread: SuccessInMind's invention

[SuccessInMind]

Hey guys. I've done progress threads before, but this time I'm fully committed to executing this idea and see it become a reality. I took a seminar class over the summer that really opened my eyes about the reasons for why I my life wasn't where I wanted it to be. I've had tons of business ideas in the past, but I've never followed through with any of them for one reason or another. However, I learned that to be an entrepreneur, one must be UNREASONABLE:

Unreasonable: Being more committed to the results than the reasons for why they can't happen.

I'm going to be unreasonable with this idea and my goal is to have my company up and running by May 2012. I finally found an idea for an invention that solves a problem that millions of people have. I've set a goal for myself to accomplish something every week so that May 2012 becomes a reality rather than just "mental masturbation." (I forgot who, but someone here said that term and it's become one of my favorite phrases)

So far:

-I've asked a lot of members of the market segment that I'm after about whether they would use my invention of not and if it would solve their needs. I've talked about this idea to friends and people who I've just met and all have said YES. I took that as a very good sign that this idea is worth pursuing.

-I have a friend/artist who is willing to draw my invention for me (since I suck at drawing!).

-I've also made a list of several manufacturers who I will contact next week to negotiate prices on making a prototype.

-I have an NDA, courtesy of a friend in law school who is also an entrepreneur.

Next action items on the list :

-Get price quotes on prototypes from manufacturers. If the price is too high then my goal will be to save up the money to pay up.

-Come up with several marketing/distribution strategies. Just like it says on TMF, when it comes to innovation, the real war is won with distribution. Manufacturing is only half the battle.

On a side note, it's been really hard trying to do all of this on top of going to school full-time, working 20 hours a week, and having big projects due in all of my classes (trying to graduate by this December). But as a very good friend has told me, I need to be selfish with my time. I wake up 5am every morning so I can study and stay ahead of my classes and I'm asleep by 12am at the absolute latest. I have to say no to hangout with friends and other fun things. But that's what it means to be UNREASONABLE.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress and hopefully I can inspire others on this forum to be UNREASONABLE and to TAKE ACTION.

[SuccessInMind]

UPDATE:

Getting my prototype drawing done by a friend. First draft should be done by this weekend hopefully. We'll see how it looks, but I'm expecting at least one more draft before I use it to go talk to some manufacturers. Shout out to Likwid24 for hooking me up with one of them.

Next action:

Need to brush up on my negotiating skills. Since there isn't anything in the market like my product, I really have no idea what a reasonable price for a prototype would be. On the high-end, products that use similar materials cost about $20-$25 bucks. I'm guessing since this is a prototype that it might take around $50-$70 to make, but I really don't know. Hopefully it's not anymore than that, but we'll see.

[77startup]

Good luck, I'm glad to see you taking initiative.

[HenkHolland]

SuccessinMind, good luck with your plans.
One thing that struck me though when reading your post was the date of May 2012.
Is your invention that complex that it requires so much time to get ready?
As you know: Not the big will eat the small, but the fast will eat the slow.

[SuccessInMind]

Hi HenkHolland,

I plan on getting things rolling way before May 2012 (around February actually), but I'm also aware that there are things that may come up in the process that might make things go a little slower than I want. For example, I may go through many prototypes before I find the right one that I want to go ahead with and that's going to take time and money. Or maybe the first couple batches end up being more expensive than I am able to pay, so it will take time for me to accumulate the funds that I need in order to pay up. Point is, things may come up that will take some time for me to adapt to in order to move forward and May 2012 seems like a feasible goal (for now).

It's a process

[Rickson9]

A huge part of your time should be spent getting customers to pre-order from/pre-pay you.

[SuccessInMind]

Interesting. But why would they pre-order/pre-pay for something they don't know they'll like or don't know if other people like? Shouldn't I focus on testing my idea out first and see what the market thinks before I start thinking about getting people to start paying up?

[SuccessInMind]

UPDATE:

Got the first drafts of drawings of my invention. Looked pretty good, but needed some work. Looking forward to getting the final drafts tomorrow and start negotiating with a couple manufacturers before the end of the week.

[Likwid24]

One thing that struck me though when reading your post was the date of May 2012.
Is your invention that complex that it requires so much time to get ready?
As you know: Not the big will eat the small, but the fast will eat the slow.

Inventing a Product is a long process. You don't just tell the manufacturer your idea and have it made overnight. There's A LOT involved. Unless your a huge corporation with your own factory and have tons of experience, it will take time.

May of 2012 is being very optimistic. I started in April and my product is very simple to make. I don't expect it to be ready till at least December at the earliest.

[deepestblue]

At the least I would set up an online survey and find out if people are willing to pay whatever amount for it. But Rickson is right, pre-ordering is best. Before delving into development I would get an artist rendition of what it would look like, what it would do - create a sales letter for it where you are allowing the first 100 to commit to buy. Then would send traffic to it via PPC or JV traffic deals with related sites (paid banner ads on their sites). I'd set up this process and if I could get 2 people in 500 or even 1000 at first who see it that are willing to fork over their $ for it I'd figure I may have something.

[SuccessInMind]

UPDATE: Just got picked up the final drawings. They look very clear and precise. My friend even threw in an artist's rendition of the product just like deepestblue mentioned. Planning on contacting some manufacturers by the end of the week.

Action items:

-Negotiate prices on prototypes
-Continue to come up with marketing/distribution strategies. I've ordered the book Ca$hvertising from Amazon to help me get my head in the right mindset.

[SuccessInMind]

PS: Anyone who comments on this thread will get speed rep from me. Kindly speed rep me back

[SuccessInMind]

UPDATE: In the process of setting up a meeting with a company located close by to the Silicon Valley who can possibly take my idea to the next level. This company has a very good reputation and they can do everything in terms of marketing, branding, prototyping, testing, etc. So if they choose to work with me, it'll definitely cost me some of my equity, in fact maybe around 60% or more. However, choosing to work with me would also be a great sign that they believe it's a million-dollar idea worth investing their time and resources on.

I really don't mind if I end up with 40% or less as long as the split is fair and we're working together to make sure we bring a successful product into the market. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The meeting won't take place for at least a month or two so I have plenty of time to do more research and get more knowledge in that arena. In the meantime, I'm getting my artist friend to draw some variations of the product that I suggested to her so that I can show its full potential by showing the different directions that we can take with it when it comes time to meet.

Also, Ca$hvertising finally came in the mail

Action items:
-Keep working on the drawing with my friend for the next couple weeks.
-Look for other companies who may be interested in working with me. It's always good to negotiate with more than one company, especially if they're competitors.
-Read Ca$hvertising and possibly other marketing/advertising books to come up with a clearer strategy on how to market and distribute.

Feeling like things are starting to take a more intense pace. I'm very excited!

[Likwid24]

This company has a very good reputation and they can do everything in terms of marketing, branding, prototyping, testing, etc. So if they choose to work with me, it'll definitely cost me some of my equity, in fact maybe around 60% or more.

What kind of company is this? I hope it's not one of those inventrite companies or something similar. And 60% seems like way too much to give up. By giving up more than 50%, Your losing control of your product.

[SuccessInMind]

What kind of company is this? I hope it's not one of those inventrite companies or something similar. And 60% seems like way too much to give up. By giving up more than 50%, Your losing control of your product.

It's not one of those companies. I haven't even met with the company yet so I have no idea how much equity I would give up, but I'm just assuming that much considering that they would be paying the costs for prototyping, testing, branding, etc.

When it comes time to negotiating all of that, I'll be sure to get a lawyer on my side who can make sure the deal is fair, but right now all that stuff is just speculation and I don't plan to make any ironclad decisions yet until the time comes and I have more information.

[SuccessInMind]

UPDATE: My team and I have found someone who is willing to create our first prototype so that we can start testing it out and getting feedback. So right now we're focusing a lot on improving our designs that we have right now so we have a better idea of the different directions we can take with this and can pick which ones we want to make prototypes of. It's funny, I compared my original idea to the designs we have so far and it's amazing how much we've improved on the designs. The product is starting to look a lot more sleek and aesthetically pleasing which is what we are going for.

Enjoying the process!

Action Items:
-Finish up the designs (1-2 weeks from now)
-Choose an initial design to go with for our first prototype (2-3 weeks from now)
-Get prototype made (4-6 weeks from now)
-Start getting some focus groups together to test out our prototype and get feed back (Within 2 months from now)
-Work on patenting process

[Kak]

Hey man how was cashvertising??

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

[SuccessInMind]

Hey man how was cashvertising??

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

Ca$hvertising is a very good and easy read. I learned a lot. Highly recommended!

[tom_rob]

How goes the progress Success?! Thanks for posting your progress...

Tom

[SuccessInMind]

How goes the progress Success?! Thanks for posting your progress...

Tom

Hey Tom,

Progress has been halted for now, just because I am finishing up my last quarter of school. Finals are this week so I will be going full steam ahead next week once I'm finished. Currently working on getting a prototype made hopefully in three weeks. Thanks for following my progress, I hope to be posting more once this week is over and I graduate