What is next?

[G-99]

I am hoping for a little help with what to do next. But first let me give a little back ground about my self. I did a little introduction in the lurker thread that was started a few months back. Here is a quick recap; I have ten years experience in the pharmacuital/biopharma industry as a mechanical designer. MJ wrote something in that thread that I have been thinking hard about for the last few months. He said I have the fastest fastlane available and that was inventing. Well because of what MJ wrote I did what he said and for the last three weeks I lived at my computer every spare minute I had. I came up with a solution to a problem I have come across and everyone else has also. I first started with pen and paper and now I have designed up the solid model and all the detail drawings to have a prototype made up. I have even gone as far to run the model through CFD (Computational fluid dynamics) program to make sure the air flow is right on it.

My question is what do I do after the prototype is made? Let me explain; I know I need a product line. Right now there will only be two products but there is a few different variations of it.

a. Where does that money come from for the product line?
b. Do I try to get a business loan?
c. Should I not get a business loan and use my home equity?
d. I need to market it, where does that money come from, the same as above?
e. Do I cost out how much it will take to make ten per say and start there?

I can come up with the prototype money after a few weeks and I have a friend that can do the website with no cost to me. I need to add my product line to my website. Do I use real pictures for the website hence the product line or do I even need a real product line and save that money and use my 3D solid models on the website instead?

I would also like to know if this is the fast lane direction I want to be going in or is there another way do it? I have no business experience so this is why I am so lost. If anyone cant point me in the right direction it will help me out a lot. If there is any part of this that needs to be clarified please let me know.

Thanks.

Thanks.

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

After you follow JScott's advice talk to fanocks and servicefly. They are geniuses in the realm of getting your customers first. Do that and you won't need any money. It'll be there. Along with many products already sold.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

a. Where does that money come from for the product line?
b. Do I try to get a business loan?
c. Should I not get a business loan and use my home equity?
d. I need to market it, where does that money come from, the same as above?
e. Do I cost out how much it will take to make ten per say and start there?

A - You might need to bootstrap it from investors, family, credit cards, 401K liquidations, etc. I would suggest getting a prototype first as this will make the investor/loan proposition much easier. If I had something in my hand that I can actually see/feel/use, I am more likely to invest, as would others.

B - This is an option but will probably require some form of collateral, as well as a formal proposal/business plan. The answer depends on your assets.

C - Depends on the risk / reward / interest rates. If you can get a 4% SBA loan, I'd take that over a home equity loan.

D - Hard to say without knowing the product. Can you sell to wholesalers? Then they buy from you in bulk ... you show them the product, they like it, they say "We want 2000 of them"

E - Your manufacturing costs will go down as units produced go up. However, your baseline cost of 1 unit would be a good starting point as the expected upper cost of production per unit.

As for "is this fastlane", hell yes assuming the market for your product is sizeable enough and you have the margins to move product. Also to echo what Jason said ... as you move forward past the point-of-no-return, you'll want to research patent protection if possible.

Finally, congratulations on taking these steps. I think you've made some awesome progress already. Speed+:great::groove:

 

[G-99]

My first suggestion is to speak with a patent attorney about protecting your idea, and perhaps extending it in such a way as to make the idea more generic, and therefore more "protectable." He should be able to help you determine if there are other patents out there that cover the same territory, and also be able to tell you if the idea can reasonably be protected.

This is what I needed to know, I have been looking into a patent but never thought about a Patent attorney.

D - Hard to say without knowing the product. Can you sell to wholesalers? Then they buy from you in bulk ... you show them the product, they like it, they say "We want 2000 of them"

Yes you can buy from bulk, the product is a "standard product" someone can place a order and it can pull it off the shelf.

E - Your manufacturing costs will go down as units produced go up. However, your baseline cost of 1 unit would be a good starting point as the expected upper cost of production per unit.

This is why i think making a prototype is a good idea for fine out any hidden cost i might have not thought about.

As for "is this fastlane", hell yes assuming the market for your product is sizeable enough and you have the margins to move product. Also to echo what Jason said ... as you move forward past the point-of-no-return, you'll want to research patent protection if possible.

Finally, congratulations on taking these steps. I think you've made some awesome progress already. Speed+:great::groove:

Thanks you for the speed, for the past few months I have been thinking hard about where I am going in life and how I really don't like working 6:30am to 4:00pm I am tired of the same thing and i would like a change. With working on this idea for the past few weeks this is all I wanted to do. I have really disliked going into work. I have also sparked new ideas different from the one I am currently working on. I guess I can say I have found the right mind set on where I want to be.

Thank you all for the help I know I will have more question and I will keep you updated on the progress.

 

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[G-99]

I just wanted to give some insight on my progress. I have not been able to make a prototype yet because the money I has set a side for it went towards tubes for my daughter's ears. I know this is a set back but I still have been productive with the extra time and review my design again. Come to find out I found a flaw. It is a minor flaw and would not effective the prototype, but I just went a head fixed the problem. I have also been taking the time getting drawing packets together to send off for quotes.

I was thinking the other day about not having a product name. I am having a little trouble coming up with one. What is a good way to come up with a catchy name that will be right for the product? I want the name to stick so when someone see the name they will know exactly what the product is.

 

[phade]

What is a good way to come up with a catchy name that will be right for the product?

Find the most simple, bare bones description of what it is, what it does, how it's used, and/or the feeling it will give you, and distill into a one or two word product name.

i.e. The Hula Hoop. What is it? A plastic hoop. how do you use it? By 'doing the Hula.'
Or the Snuggie. It keeps you feeling warm and fuzzy in a SNUG robe perfect for performing rituals under a full moon.

 

[G-99]

Find the most simple, bare bones description of what it is, what it does, how it's used, and/or the feeling it will give you, and distill into a one or two word product name.

i.e. The Hula Hoop. What is it? A plastic hoop. how do you use it? By 'doing the Hula.'
Or the Snuggie. It keeps you feeling warm and fuzzy in a SNUG robe perfect for performing rituals under a full moon.

Thank you, I will make a list tonight and see what I can come up with.

 

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[G-99]

I took another step today. I want to thanks you guys again for the information you gave me. I did the best thing so far, I took your advice. I talked to a patent attorney today about my design. The information I got from talking to him was so helpful. With talking with him it answer a lot of question I had about the process and he talked about other uses for my product I did not even think of. So the next step is getting a product patent search done to make sure there not something else out there close to my design. Once that is done we can figure out what patent we want to go with and start fill out the paper work to apply for one. I should have done this a few months ago and I would not have been running around in circles wasting time......

 

[RJP]

Wondering how this is going.

A few thoughts on this:
- Usually a good idea to use a patent attorney who also has a degree in the field of the invention. In other words .... if it is a electrical type invention, use a patent attorney who also has a degree in electrical engineering. If it is a mechanical type invention, use a patent attorney who has a minor in mechanical engineering, etc...

- Always, always, make and test a prototype. Don't rely on solidmodeling, finite element analysis, and computational fluid dynamics software. Look at what happened with the recent Boeing 787. They believed they could do the whole thing much faster with only software until they realized the wings would probably fall off. Now their project is 2 years late.

- Get the broadest patent possible. Your patent attorney will know this anyway. You want to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to "design around" your patent by simply changing some small aspect of it.

- Since you are a designer/draftsman, you should be able to save yourself a few bucks by doing the patent illustrations yourself. The real meat (protection) is in the claims anyway. The illustrations are done a particular way, but you should be able to do them. (Your patent attorney can verify you do them correctly).

- Sounds like you line of distribution is pretty direct. (In otherwords, it does not sound like you are going to be competing with every other consumer product out there ... marketing to Joe sixpack) Sounds like you will be marketing directly to a certain industry. This is usually a good thing; direct line of marketing/distribution. How about simply licensing the idea (after you have it protected) to someone like Baxter? (Or someother medical device company?) If you like the inventing process, you can license it, and free up your time to go on to invent other similar devices.

- Family and friends, most times, will not tell you with 100% honesty what they think of your idea. They mean well, but usually will tell you what they think you want to here. I don't mean to sound cynical here, it's just that they usually don't want to dissapoint you. So, don't put too much into that. Do as much research as you can instead. Once your idea is protected, seek input from people in the industry. Sounds like you are in the industry .... so it sounds like you know it is a solid idea.

- Spend as little as possible until you are confident it is needed and will sell. If it is an "engineered product" that you can sell single units of (and make a profit), then don't go out and have 1000 made until you know you can sell them.

Good luck with your endeavoers. It is very interesting. Keep posting if you can. If it provides a benefit and addresses a problem which is not yet addressed as effectively, you may have something good indeed!

 

[G-99]

I wanted to apologize for taking so long to respond to your post. First off I want to thank you for taking the time to write up this very useful information. The truth is I have lost all motivation to do anything else on it the last few weeks. It even went as far as not coming on this site, then to the extreme of not even getting on the computer all together in the evenings. I don’t know where this lack of motivation came from; maybe I am just tired, maybe it is fear of failing or lack of funds to get something started. Even thought I have some funds to get things rolling. I can see why I have fear of failing (not the norm) but I’m still young and I have time on my side, I can recover if need be.

This past weekend my wife and daughter went out town to the in-laws, so Friday night I decided I was going to eating dinner in front of the TV. I was flipping through the channels when I saw an infomercial for the windshield wonder. I about spit my beer out and started to laugh. I laughed because I had this idea a few years ago. I still have the drawing I started on cad. Anyways it got me thinking about the product I wanted to do and why I lost motivation. I figured I would use the windshield wonder as an example, I took out a note pad and starting writing out what problems this product solves. I thought if I did this it would get me thinking about what problems my product will solve. After I started writing I was getting excited again because no one really needs a windshield wonder they can to it the same old way by hand. But this product makes a hard task easy like all products do. So then I started thinking about my product and I wrote down the problems it will solve. I also wrote down who my target market was going to be and I started thinking about how to market it to them. At work they hired a new marketing guy that started a few weeks ago and come to find out he has his own marketing business that he does part time. I talked to him about my product for a few minutes today and we are going to have lunch this week to point me in the right direction. I feel good today because I took an action step towards getting thing moving again.

Motivation, what will get me and keep me motivated. I thought about this a lot this weekend. I was looking up the surf report Saturday morning and I could not get the live cam to come up. This made me irritated and I said to myself, man I wish I live on the beach and all I would have to do is look out the window. That did it, I woke up I started my vision board. I’ve read about you guys making them all the time and I figured out this weekend on why you make them. I starting printing out the other things I wanted to add to my board also.

This week I am going to start over again not on the design part but on the action steps. I need a plain I just can wing it anymore, I don’t want to get lost and overwhelmed to the point I lose motivation again. I going to start using this site as it was intended to be used by not just skimming over the information but really reading it. I am going to go back to the starting a plain post and I am going to really read it. This is my starting point I need a plain if I want to make this work. I also realized the vast amount of information on this site that I have been missing and not taking part in. I guess you can say I heard everything on here but I did not listen to it. There is a difference between hearing someone and listening to someone. I have also realized what everyone means by surround yourself with people who will help you and motivated you. I see that now, all I have been doing the last few weeks is gaming. There is nothing wrong with gaming but it has gotten me no where with the success I want to achieve in life.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

So what do you feel put you off track and unmotivated in the first place? Not having a clearly defined vision of what you'd like? You mentioned a view of the beach is motivating you ... anything else? Your reflection reminds me how I felt years ago ... something "NAGGING" at your subconscious, whispering in your mind "this is not how it should be".

 

[G-99]

I think it is that I never made a path to follow. I was not sure what to do next, I was so lost to the point I just put it a side. Even though the information is out there on what to do. I still got into a funky mood where I did not want to do anything. I have been working a lot of hours at work and not sleeping great. Maybe that had something to do with my mood. Maybe I was a little depressed who knows. I know it sounds crazy but I tried to snapped out of it this weekend and move forward. I guess I need to find out somehow if people need this product. Maybe I don’t need to know and I should just do it.

I know of lots of things that can motivate me. Being financially free, self employed, those are the big ones. We all want “things†but at the end of the day it is still a “thingâ€. I want to be able to not wake up at 2:00am thinking did I make that door swing right for those gas springs? When this stops happening I know I made it.

If you don’t mind me asking how did you over come your subconscious mind and did you follow through with it or did you move on to something else?

 

[kurtyordy]

Here is what I would recommend after extensive reading on this-

1. file provisional patent, protects rights for one year, give you time to see if feasible before filing full patent. From what I understand, a prototype is not needed at this phase.

2. talk to current manufacturers in the same field about licensing the patent. This will allow you to utilize their economy of scale and their distribution system.

3. after agreed, file full patent.

 

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