Product prototyping question.

[AJB]

I have an idea for a bushcraft product. It’s very simple and I’m surprised no one else has done it, I could describe it in its entirety in one short sentence, and it would design itself in your mind. I’m sure it would work, I’m sure people would want to buy it and I’m sure there is a ready and continuing market for it.

However, I don’t have the ability to make a prototype (wholly in metal) as proof of concept. And even if I did, I wouldn’t know what the best next step would be to get it made and sold, whilst protecting my role in it.

I’ve been through this once before with Vango, an idea that they loved and reassured me about until they had the idea as a whole, then they stopped talking to me – I guess it was rubbish or we’ll soon see it in the shops!

Has anyone got any real life experience in prototyping or turning an idea into a product?

Thanks for reading,

Andy

 

[g4ghb]

No experience of prototyping in the real world but have 'played' and bodged items for myself in the past. Depending on the type of work involved (I've a arc wlder still in the box that i haven't ever used - so welding is out...) i'd be happy to offer you some help at getting a mk 1 into life. And i'd do it just for the fun too!

 

[AJB]

Cheers mate

 

[Bravo4]

Research and Development, or rip-off and duplicate, take your pick.
Extreme example. I worked for a guy who had invented a number of widgets for fiber optic networks. Had them patented and promtly pirated by GE. If the guy can ever beat them in his lawsuit he will be quite wealthy. I seriously doubt he can afford to maintain such against GE.

15 years off and on in the Bicycle industry; one company R&D's a new product, next year 100 companies r&d it. If that first company is a big one like Shimano, they can afford to vigorously protect their ideas. If it's a really good idea/product, from any company, it's only a matter of time before everyone has a version.

I think the way the little guy might go about it is to make, sell, market, and distribute the product in-house. If it is a patentable idea, do so but realise someone is going to come along and improve or alter it, and run with it. You can try and stop them in the courts or keep innovating and capture your share of the market as best you can.

I've a couple of things I would love to have made but know I don't have the skills, timing, the sense or motivation to pull it off as a business venture. Really it's that I just want one, nobody makes them anymore (or yet), and they are (could be) highly sought after. I have balked at the price of an item before and set out to make my own version. This has led me to have a much greater understanding of and appreciation for why some items cost as they do.

For working metals, maybe look into heavy ''foil'' weights for prototypes. Many can be cut with scissors, easily shaped, etc.

I don't want to discourage but I think that taking a design to an established company for consideration, is going to be a tough route.

As a consumer, I'm coming around to purchasing things that are made by people that: I know, know of, I can see a picture of making it, people who actually make their own stuff (see sopwamtos). I do or rather would like to think this is a slightly growing trend for consumers in general. As a (part-time/former, I don't like being a clerk) retailer, more often people are asking where things were made. Then they ask why it costs so much. I would love to tell them, go 'make one' yourself.

 

[1972]

Ive pm'd you AJB

Unfortunately as Bravo4 says 99.9% of the time it boils down to who has the biggest bank balance when it comes to protecting your ideas/products.
Again as Bravo4 says the only way to do it is to constantly innovate and make your previous product obsolete.

This thread on BB is a good example of it:
http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?101622-S-amp-W-ripped-off-a-french-designer



But maybe were getting a bit ahead of ourselves here

 

[AJB]

Thank you both, you get free ones of the production line Don't hold your breath!

 

[1972]

Does it need to be metal to prove the concept?
As there are plenty of other low(ish) cost ways of making a model if it just for presentations etc.

 

[AJB]

Does it need to be metal to prove the concept?
As there are plenty of other low(ish) cost ways of making a model if it just for presentations etc.

I could answer that, but I'd have to shoot you

I've been thinking about that, and I think I could make a full size mock up, but it would have to be metal to prove it works and can take off vertically, oh bugger

 

[Bravo4]

Making good designs obsolete drives me nuts.

"they don't make em' any more
they closed the factory after the second world war"
on the soundtrack of "Gizmo!" 1977, an inventor's must-see.

The niche, go after the niche. A guy (Kent Ericson of Moots bikes) starts making MTB frames back in the day. MTB frame production gets big, goes overseas. The guy stays local and makes some of the first titanium frames, he innovates a design known as the YBB. The original design was over 100 years old. As the guy's competition with Ti frames grows, the guy basically gives a couple of makers the YBB design. He did not own the design so he did not have to protect it. I find it interesting just how helpful he was in sharing the design with his competition. The guy kept following his niche until the business was no longer enjoyable (maybe a bit beyond) and he sold off to Walt Disney Co., I think it was. Never really altered the design other than to keep up with component combatability inventions/set-backs. The frames are still hand-made, cost maybe $4,000 retail(frame only) and Moots has more business than they can handle.

I don't know much about the knife scene but I would imagine it similar. Quality and customer service are what the little guy needs to make it go. Learning the craft aspect of a trade is becoming harder and harder. Evidenced by some of Robin Wood's posts and links, and my old man. He makes custom furniture and is a one-man show with plenty of business, but absolutely no capacity to train an apprentice or sub-contract in any way. The business would simply not work.

Anyway, my hat is off to people who make things and I think you should go ahead and pursue a working prototype. A good idea really is only about 1% of it.

Eventually, someone got this idea to work.
edit: now that I see a free one is involved, build it...
Did the voice of Darth Vader think Cosner was nuts for wanting to build a baseball park in a cornfield? Absolutely. Did the spirits of long departed, somewhat obscure ex-baseball players show up for a game in that very cornfield? Not really but you never know.

 

[TeeDee]

Which metal? Idea of Size ? What sort of tolerances?

PM if required. I work in aviation engineering with a wacking great workshop.

 

[Pcwizme]

As a product design enginner, if you need any thing working out let me know, im full conversant in multipul types of computer aided design and currently going thru the patent prossess with one of my projects from uni.

Dependant on what you need making up i could be your man (although i dont have a wacking great workshop only a little cozy workshop)

 

[helixpteron]

Perhaps consider speaking with the inventor, Trevor Baylis, here.

 

[slammer187]

Keep your idea to your self and patent it...if it's really worth the money then patent it.
I want to show you an example of why you should keep it to yourself!

About a year ago I designed a wood gas stove....it differed from all other designs because I designed it to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A_da97TGTU

I got an e-mail from a guy a few weeks later who stated his full name and where he was from to me asking how I built this stove and If I'd show him, So I made this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfrBdp11pyE

A few weeks ago I saw this in the papers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmi-I6B2tC0
This guy had the same name and was from the same place.
This guy won €5,000
Do I care?...no, but credit to the designer would be nice.

Patent your idea and then no one can touch it...think before you do anything and don't be as stupid as me haha

 

[Shewie]

Maybe get a couple knocked up and put them out to a few guys on here to test them in the field. Take any comments or criticisms positively and tweak your designs to fit.

Going into production will be the hardest aspect but there are ways and means of achieving this with a little help fomr the right people, and it seems from the previous posts that folk are willing to help where they can.

If it's a product aimed directly at the bushy market then your customer numbers won't be that big anyway so it should be doable as a small operation.

Good luck with it anyway

 

[Paul_B]

Patents are a costly process to fully maintain. It is not the cost to get something patented (cue patent lawyers with initial patenting fees then their annual fees to maintain/renew the patent, etc.). Then there is the case that unless a patented idea is pretty much as far as it can go then someone will come up with a modifications that is sufficiently new to be classed as a new invention but in reality is just an improvement of your original idea but somehow it gets past the patent office. Then there are the ripoff merchants who can be anyone from a foreign factory that makes your invention then decides to copy it and sell it for themselves. Or the types that make it despite your patent relying on the fact that you will either not find out or not have the money to defend your patent. The fact of a patent is that it does give you a means to prove that an idea was your's but it doesn't provide any protection for the idea on its own. For protection you need to get legal, that takes money.

The best ideas are ones that you can develop through to a marketable product (with the manufacturing process developed) then sell it to a big company who can defend the patent. I once worked for a reasonable sized research company who had a couple of corridors of offices and small labs. The residents in those labs and offices had patents in their and the company's name that totalled into 3 figures. There were only about 14 rooms along those two corridors. There were other floors too that were probably similar in terms of the number of patent holders. That's all very good but I think the number of those patents that were money earners could be counted with the fingers. I think that basically goes to show that an idea is the start of the process not the end. Its good that you have that start and I wish you well in running with it. I think there are probably quite a few on this site who can work with metal. It just comes across like a forum with people who are quite handy.

 

[Bravo4]

If the kid is getting $$$ for an award in a contest, that is judged in some way based on the orignality of the design, as in designed by the designer that presents it for an award....that is incredibly lame.

Had to have a look at the BT site and the closest thing I could find at a glance, under Rules...

"1.20. The nature of a project will determine the equipment used in the project. The merit of a project will lie in the use made of scientific apparatus and in an exhibitor's understanding of its functions, not in the equipment itself."

seems like the idea is still patentable.....for now

Credit to the designer would seem mandatory to me. No mention, really?

 

[slammer187]

If the kid is getting $$$ for an award in a contest, that is judged in some way based on the orignality of the design, as in designed by the designer that presents it for an award....that is incredibly lame.

Had to have a look at the BT site and the closest thing I could find at a glance, under Rules...

"1.20. The nature of a project will determine the equipment used in the project. The merit of a project will lie in the use made of scientific apparatus and in an exhibitor's understanding of its functions, not in the equipment itself."

seems like the idea is still patentable.....for now

Credit to the designer would seem mandatory to me. No mention, really?

Yeah he claimed full credit but I wouldn't bother patenting it...it would cost too much and I have no real intention of selling the stove

Also AJB if you say what type of product you have the idea for (e.g. Tent, Rucksack etc) you will get plenty of help because I'm sure that there are plenty of people on the site who make things like this regularly!

 

[Bravo4]

PM for slammer187

I was overwhelmed with the process of filing for a patent, too much bs for me.

 

[johnboy]

I have an idea for a bushcraft product. It’s very simple and I’m surprised no one else has done it, I could describe it in its entirety in one short sentence, and it would design itself in your mind. I’m sure it would work, I’m sure people would want to buy it and I’m sure there is a ready and continuing market for it.

However, I don’t have the ability to make a prototype (wholly in metal) as proof of concept. And even if I did, I wouldn’t know what the best next step would be to get it made and sold, whilst protecting my role in it.

I’ve been through this once before with Vango, an idea that they loved and reassured me about until they had the idea as a whole, then they stopped talking to me – I guess it was rubbish or we’ll soon see it in the shops!

Has anyone got any real life experience in prototyping or turning an idea into a product?

Thanks for reading,

Andy

Hi Andy,

My advice is as follows based on the fact I assume you have no ability to produce engineering drawings or make a prototype yourself...

1. Make some initial sketches of the product with some rough dimensions and sizes on them.

2. Have a cast about for someone in your local area who produces engineering drawings on one of the more common CAD packages such as Autocad or ProE etc. Talk to them and pay them to produce a set of initial engineering drawings for your design and get a disk / CD Rom from them with the CAD package drawing files on it. This is the bit you need to be mindful about. If you have an idea for a product but no engineering knowlege then It's likely the design engineer will have to have a reasonable ammount of input into the final design and getting the thing to be able to work from a manufacturing point of view. Ensure you keep a written note of the process that takes place ( email trail etc) this protects you if the design has significant merit and becomes very sucessful.

3. Once you have a set of fully dimentioned engineering drawings you can approach an engineering workshop and pay to have them make up the components or complete a prototype. Expect the cost for this to be reasonably expensive as one offs or short runs cost cash to make.

4. Once you have your prototypes you can trial them and see if any improvements can be made and feed the improvements back into the design.

5. Talking about patents is a bit premature as someone pointed out. The design has to be novel and patentable. You might need to consider the design you have thought up is not breaching an existing patent ( patents exist even without product in the marketplace) other avenues for some sort of protection might be a design registration for example... Taking professional advice from someone with knowlege of the patent/ design registration process is adviseable.

6. Once you have a product that is ready for production ( drawings sorted out production prototypes done etc) than you have a choice to either fund manufacture yourself ( starting a company making and marketing your product) or approaching an existing company to do this for you. There is a huge difference in going to a company with an prototype product professionally manufactured with drawings behind it and a design registration done with some idea of cost of manufacture and some market research done on market size and likely selling prices. Than going with some sketches and a prototype knocked up in the shed.

I know which one I'd like to be seeing if you were approaching my company.

My considered advice is to tell as few people about the idea as is practicable and to pay for services rather than getting stuff for free off of folk. That way if it's a winning idea that is going to take the bushcraft world by storm you have an audit trail and XXX was paid by you to produce drawings etc there is no ambiguity that XXX was part of the 'design team' and helping as part of some sort of deal real or imagined.

I would definately not talk to any manufacturers at the moment. I get about 2 calls at work a month from folk who have a winning idea for a new product etc... My advice to them is exactly what I've written above. I do not want to hear what the idea is as it just puts me in a difficult situation as if I'm working on a product that has a similar concept or idea then I'm going to have to prove it was 'our' idea not the person on the other end of the phone if things go pear shaped.. That advice comes straight from our patent lawyer.

All of the above is not aimed at jibing any generous or kind offers you have been given. It's just my practical advice based on my experience in engineering, design for manufacture, product marketing and product protection.

Good luck and I wish you well.

 

[AJB]

Hi Johnboy,

Thank you very much for that. That’s more or less the process that I’d arrived at in my head with specific variations due to the nature of the product. The importance of the paper trail is something I’m very familiar with from previous work rolls. The point about not relying on ‘amateur’ input but paying for and recording professional services is well made.

Very helpful, thank you again

Andy