Making Your Idea Into an Invention
Make one of your dreamy ideas come true. If something is sparking within you, telling you that something will work if certain arrangements of time, space and matter were made, perhaps you should take the next step. Be bold, try it. Your instincts may be correct and your idea might work.
I wanted a bird feeder that would make birds do a trick for a seed. I invented one with a crankshaft that activated a seed valve when the wheel turned. It worked in the lab, but not in the field. A squirrel chewed it up like a piece of toast. It took 5 minutes. After several more prototypes, one finally worked that squirrels would not ruin. I redesigned the top and wheel frame to be made out of plastic. I made silicon molds and molded birdfeeder parts in the garage. It took another year to produce the first one and it finally worked just as I hoped, and I patented it.
Prototypes are one thing, but real products last under all conditions in the market. Ten years later the final prototype unit still cranks out. It actually took three solid years to do all the testing and make changes, to make it so that it would last ten years.
The next thing to consider is how to get your invention into production and produce it so that it can be price competitive with whatever the alternatives are out in the market place. That gets into a whole other set of costs. Marketing is another set of costs. Packaging has its costs and must be coordinated with the marketing program. Making the first run of inventory is another whole set of costs. If each unit costs $100 to make and you order 1,000 units to be produced, that is $100,000. Financing is needed. And then there are organizational costs to be considered such as a place to stage production of the product and then where to store it.
I did not get to the production stage because the cost of production molds. I did not have access to financing for the rest of the venture. You may have. You can see what I accomplished at solar-fountain.com/birdfeeder.html
I may never recover the investment that I put into this invention. However, the concept is here to stay, where it did not even exist, before me. Part of the reason why it does exist, beside me, is because of the new materials and technology that is available. It is incredible what you can make right in your garage. Intricate plastic parts can be molded right at home. Twenty years ago you would have been limited to wood or non-molded parts.
My invention works as I dreamed of it. One day it will be known as well as any other expensive gizmo - because it works so well. People are dazed watching the birds use it. Under their breath, some mutter "that must be worth millions." Some of the very same people are investing in the stock market, but would never consider investing in something like this.
Is it worth it? Hard to say. From a philosophical view, yes because it advances the quality of life in general. From a personal point of view, the experience may be worth the investment, even though the inventor may not get any richer. Your invention could be the same, or maybe you could afford to follow through to the next level.
Christopher Gates was the Assistant Director of the Madison County Industrial Development Agency and an Officer of the Canastota Development Corporation, in New York, from 2003 to 2007. He is has two graduate degrees from Syracuse University, a MBA and MPA. He started his own small business in 1986, which has five shareholders. He patented five of his own inventions, two of which are marketed from exclusively the web today. He also created LocalRental.com, where renters can promote virtually any type of rental item. He turned the Canastota incubator around in a couple of years. He claims to have worked in over a hundred different companies at various levels, where he saw their secrets of success, and failures.