Starting off with a risky idea.

[RomeoMe]

Brainstorming problems for my first long term business venture i stumbled upon a contraption idea that would make multi monitor setups look seamless, it is something that already exists but i found a way to make it less noticeable and way cheaper, firstly i discarded it because i was looking for just online business due to my lack of capital, however i noticed that i can't stop thinking about it, and so i'm reconsidering it now, this is more or less my thought process, worse case scenario i learn how patenting and idea to prototype development works, best case scenario, the multi-billion company that runs a monopoly in my country in that sector buys me out, although it will take some considerable money to quick start the actual plastic molding/3D printing for it (which i don't have much of) it is way cheaper than i first assumed, i have family members who are interested in being angels investors for pretty much anything i try at this point, but i'm not sure if i trust them, i'm also considering crowdfunding, that's the situation.

Do you think that it is worth investing money you don't have into something you have no experience doing?(it's not like i will be repaying loans for the rest of my life or anything if it fails).

Edit: the only thing that turns me off right now, is that if it fails miserably, i will have to face the people who money i will have wasted/go back to having no saved money myself and nothing to show for it.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Risky idea

Are any ideas NOT risky? If the idea is NOT risky, then it's no idea, it's just a low-entry, low-barrier cattle call that likely isn't solving any problems or delivering any skew.

Edit: the only thing that turns me off right now, is that if it fails miserably, i will have to face the people who money i will have wasted/go back to having no saved money myself and nothing to show for it.

Not if you convince them to invest. That means they BELIEVE IN YOUR IDEA, and YOU. It's not the same as just taking money to pay some bills. It's an investment, and investments fail.

Ideas "that you can't stop thinking about" usually have some meat behind them.

While your idea seems to have some potential, it sounds like something you will need to organize skillsets for. Which means mostly leadership vs project management.

Put together a plan on how you can execute it, and then, step by step attack those challenges in the plan. Yes, the plan will have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hurdles to jump, solve, and figure out. Which is why entrepreneurship can be both frustrating, and exhilirating.

 

[Johnny boy]

This clever contraption makes the bezels on your multi-monitor setup disappear

It will also set you back $109.

www.pcgamer.com

this?

 

[Mat79]

Have you identified your target market/your ideal customer? Is this a problem that many people have? Of the people who have this problem are they truly hungry for your solution? I have dual monitors myself, but the gap never really bothers me. However I also don't do gaming on it. You said that there is already a company that offers something similar, are you able to figure out about how many sales they do in a year or so? Perhaps by looking at the number of reviews their product has on Amazon or whatever site they may sell from. Or maybe even calling and just asking.

Is your solution much cheaper and easier to use than the one the previous poster linked to? (The Asus ROG Bezel-Free Kit(opens in new tab))

My first thought is that there wouldn't be much of a market for it (one that isn't already be satisfied by the products already available). But I honestly don't have the experience to make a well-informed judgement about that type of product. If you're interested in serving gamers or others who may be in the market for this, there may be more products or solutions you can come up with that might require less investment to produce and have greater demand, at least for your first business.

Also, are you able to make a dozen or so prototypes and see if you can sell a few? You won't really know if it's worth it until you can find people who actually want to buy it.

 

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[RomeoMe]

Are any ideas NOT risky? If the idea is NOT risky, then it's no idea, it's just a low-entry, low-barrier cattle call that likely isn't solving any problems or delivering any skew.



Not if you convince them to invest. That means they BELIEVE IN YOUR IDEA, and YOU. It's not the same as just taking money to pay some bills. It's an investment, and investments fail.

Ideas "that you can't stop thinking about" usually have some meat behind them.

While your idea seems to have some potential, it sounds like something you will need to organize skillsets for. Which means mostly leadership vs project management.

Put together a plan on how you can execute it, and then, step by step attack those challenges in the plan. Yes, the plan will have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hurdles to jump, solve, and figure out. Which is why entrepreneurship can be both frustrating, and exhilirating.

You are right, instead of worrying about it failling i should just focus in making sure it will work.

This clever contraption makes the bezels on your multi-monitor setup disappear

It will also set you back $109.

www.pcgamer.com

this?

View attachment 44466

Exactly, but in a cheaper way that doesn't have such a noticeable lighting difference, in the actual videos of people using it, you will see that they are more visible than in those pictures and angle dependent to some extent.

Have you identified your target market/your ideal customer? Is this a problem that many people have? Of the people who have this problem are they truly hungry for your solution? I have dual monitors myself, but the gap never really bothers me. However I also don't do gaming on it. You said that there is already a company that offers something similar, are you able to figure out about how many sales they do in a year or so? Perhaps by looking at the number of reviews their product has on Amazon or whatever site they may sell from. Or maybe even calling and just asking.

Is your solution much cheaper and easier to use than the one the previous poster linked to? (The Asus ROG Bezel-Free Kit(opens in new tab))

My first thought is that there wouldn't be much of a market for it (one that isn't already be satisfied by the products already available). But I honestly don't have the experience to make a well-informed judgement about that type of product. If you're interested in serving gamers or others who may be in the market for this, there may be more products or solutions you can come up with that might require less investment to produce and have greater demand, at least for your first business.

Also, are you able to make a dozen or so prototypes and see if you can sell a few? You won't really know if it's worth it until you can find people who actually want to buy it.

Yeah, all of that makes sense, Asus one is ridiculous overpriced even for what it is, but just the fact that nobody even bothered to rip them off and they themselves never followed up on it, might be an indication that the few people with multimonitors don't care enough about it, however I did notice a lot of complaints mainly about bad built quality, thin monitor compatibility and price, so that's where I'm looking into improving them.

And to make sure that there is market for it, I was thinking about using crowdfunding, make a working prototype that is as close as possible to the final product (if I'm right it should be fairly cheap, but I won't have a definite answer until next week), and use it to gage interest through Kickstarter or a similar website, then if it is indeed funded I could use that to pay for the initial production, and if it turns out not many people are interested I can move on with my problem searching and use the prototype for myself.


Of course, I recognize that running a successful crowdfunding campaign is no small feat, and it will itself require a lot of time, so I will still thinker with it for a bit.

The way i see this, is that if i can just push out a simple product that checkes all the boxes for not a complete failure, and learn how the whole process works from idea to execution, that will be great, there are probably many other ideas that could achieve the same thing as this one with less effort and more returns, hell, one is probably right in front of me right now and i just can't see it yet, i just really want to actually have something going instead of just thinking over and over again, that's the first stone i have to crack, of course, while being careful not to rush things.

Thanks a lot for your answers!

Edit: Oh yeah, i realized that i didn't make this clear, i don't have the slight clue about how well this thing would sell, that's why i'm thinking of going for crowdfunding, from Amazon reviews alone and reviewers reactions it seems like a lot of people are pleased with Asus's product just from the fact that it exists, however it's been almost 2 years since release, and it does have a lot of problems that i can potentially solve, so that is what i will be targeting, i do realize that the amount of people who have a multiple monitor setup for gaming is very slim, i couldn't find statistics for it, but i imagine it's restricted to a very small group, so that's also another thing i should consider.

 

[Johnny boy]

Sell it with influencers. Send it out to people.

It's not that risky, just make them and sell them. Don't go pay someone 50k to make it for you, just make a basic version for cheap for now.

 

[RomeoMe]

Sell it with influencers. Send it out to people.

It's not that risky, just make them and sell them. Don't go pay someone 50k to make it for you, just make a basic version for cheap for now.

That's a good point, i was afraid of not being able to keep up with orders if it actually succeeded, but at that point i can just reinvest the returns into expanding it.

I will get over some issues i'm having with the design, see exactly how much it will cost to make, and go from there.

 

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[RomeoMe]

Quick update, I had some personal issues come up, so the project was on hold for a while, when I went back to working on it, it became clear that the design was not going to work for several reasons, the main ones being weight and the quality of the "image" in relation to the screen itself, it might be a good one to come back to, but for now i will look for something else, at least I learned something, and that is always good.