Product Development Assistance. Who Needs It?

You may need product development assistance. Inventing a new product requires many different skills. Some of them you may have, some of them may need some work and some of the skills you might not have a clue about. Many inventors put product development in the last category.

Unless you are an engineer or have some experience as a craftsman you will probably need some product development assistance when the time is right. Remember that in most cases this is not step one in the invention process. You will want to evaluate your idea and do a patent search before embarking on the development phase.

Before we get into where to go to get product development assistance I want to cover what product development is and why it is important. There are many reasons why product development is critical to the invention process:

1. It brings your idea to life. Nothing is as exciting as seeing your invention idea for the first time in a physical form. It takes a lot of work to get an invention off the ground. Seeing it in real life is one of the moments that will make it worth all the work.
2. It flushes out additional patentable ideas. During the product development phase, you will find out what works and what does not work. Believe me, you will find out many things that do not work the way you think they will. That is a fact of life when you are creating something from scratch. There is no way to know for sure if something will work, unless you build it and test it.
3. It gives you insight into your customer needs. Product development forces you to think like your customer (it should anyways). From how a product feels to how it gets used. It is amazing what you can learn by watching someone else using your product. Until it is a tangible item you will never know.
4. It helps you determine the cost of your product. Estimating the cost of a product before it goes through product development is difficult at best. It is critical to have a good feel for the cost to produce your invention. Not many people will pay $60 for the worlds fastest apple peeler. It is always a good idea to determine your costs early as this will become one of the criteria you will use to evaluate the sanity of your idea.

So now that we have shown the value in new product development lets cover where you can get some assistance for your invention.

There are many product development companies out there that have no regard for the actual needs of inventors. Most of them want to sell you their high priced services that were designed for large corporations like Black and Decker or Charbroil.

There are several problems with these types of companies. The first is the cost. Most of these firms will not do anything for less than $5000 and they really want to charge you $6000-$12,000. What this means is that you end up getting tons of overpriced services that you don't need when you are starting out and may not even need at all. What I have found in working with these companies is that the services they offer do not work for inventors.

When you have a limited budget and you are not sure about the viability of a new idea, it does not make sense to spend $8k for a rendering and virtual prototype.

What most inventors need is a less expensive way to flush out their idea and get to a physical prototype. Some places to look for help include:

• Technical colleges
• Art colleges
• Freelance designers
• Prototype shops

If you are having trouble in this area and need product development assistance with your idea contact us and we will point you in the right direction.