By Edward Vondell
It is obvious the industry is filled with talented, creative, and hard-working professionals that have many brilliant ideas. However, because they do not always have a path to innovative growth in their businesses, or learning how to patent, protect, and monetize their creative designs, many of them never make it to the market or get gobbled up by bigger players.
The author’s company strives to bring unique ideas to the pool industry and has succeeded at introducing innovative, patented products to the market. However, the road to innovation started off bumpy, as it took several years to develop a system of proven processes.
The team studied and adopted steps used across various industries. As a company, it was decided to share these practices with industry colleagues so they could avoid making costly mistakes or risk being deceived by marketing scams.
Prior to the pandemic, the company shared its knowledge through seminars at various regional trade shows. This article provides information that was presented in these seminars and also highlights a 10-step process that includes some basics on understanding the patent process and how to avoid invention marketing scams.
Turn ideas into true business opportunities
From service techs to builders, retailers, and even workers at manufacturing companies, the industry generates unique product ideas. However, without a specific process to bring these designs to market, these would-be entrepreneurs become frustrated and never realize their dreams. Most people underestimate their creativity, productive capacity, intelligence, and full potential.
Even for the author’s company, the team made several attempts before establishing a formal process to create new, innovative ideas, which turned into patent-protected products that could be manufactured. To get started, professionals need to have a step-by-step method and a good understanding of the patent procedure. Having a proven process to follow will help inventors get their ideas to market.
As soon as someone begins thinking about finding a solution by creating a new product or service, they have started the first step of the process—‘The Intent to Invent.’ This is the beginning of a long process that can take months, even years. Searching for instant gratification or a ‘get-rich-quick’ scheme is the enemy of realizing the dream of bringing a product to market. However, it is important to start with the desire and then achieve goals with persistence. Both these factors are important steps along the journey to bringing a product to market.
Proven 10-step invention process to monetize new product ideas
To provide structure to the process of bringing ideas to market, the author’s company created a 10-step process to guide its team to a successful product launch.
Step 1: Intent-to-invent mindset
Companies must be actively thinking and looking for something to invent. Once an idea comes to mind, one must be motivated and ready to start a structured approach to getting the product to market. If the item or service is what customers want, combined with patent protection, it can make people and companies millions of dollars.
Step 2: Solve problems
Finding a product or service that will solve a problem is what customers need, so be sure the invention being pursued is something that achieves the goal or makes life easier for builders, retailers, service professionals, or consumers.
Step 3: Desire
Inventors need a burning desire to make it happen. There will be many roadblocks in bringing the product to market, so be passionate about an invention and driven to see it through. This is needed to keep going and to get through challenging times.
Step 4: Persistence
Do not give up when refining a product or service. Going back to the drawing board multiple times is common and, most likely, necessary. As inventors spend time examining the item and the market, they will likely find ways to improve, and might even come across a better concept along the way.
Step 5: Collaborate
This step is important whether one is working in a company or alone, as help is needed in getting the product or service to market.
It is important to have a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in place if working with outside partners. This applies to designers, suppliers, prototype makers, machinery companies, and even market-research firms.
