Browse Category: Inventor Education

The Importance of Packaging

Next time you walk into a retail store, take a look at the products on the shelves. Typically, in most situations, the packaging is high quality and properly conveys the ideas of the product to the consumer. It’s absolutely vital to have packaging that is of the highest quality – it may be the deciding factor for the average, every-day customer.

Here are some examples of creative packaging for consumer products:

Festina Watches - To prove that the watch is water-proof!
Festina Watches – To prove that the watch is water-proof!
Pasta La Vista - Showing the pasta as "hair" on the chef! Cool!
Pasta La Vista – Showing the pasta as “hair” on the chef! Cool!
Beard Paintbrushes - a creative spin on a common product.
Mustache Paintbrushes – a creative spin on a common product.

To stand out in a competitive marketplace, you will want to have amazing packaging. What can you do, with your product, to enhance the initial reaction from the consumer? That’s for you to decide, and find out! Try doing some testing – this is important for all retail. Figure out what attracts your demographic of customer.

  • Don’t clutter your design.
  • Use fonts that are clear, and help convey the product purpose.
  • Understand the retailer’s method of presentation – can it be universally used in any retail setting?
  • Include everything you need to properly display the product and it’s function.

Your product success relies heavily on good packaging. Don’t prevent customers from buying your amazing product, simply because the package was sub-par. Go the extra mile – make it count!

Steps to Getting a Patent – What You Need to Know!

One of the most vital parts of the inventing process is getting a patent. We have compiled a list of things to do to get your patent going! All of this information comes directly from the USPTO website:

What is Sourcing? Do I need it?

What is sourcing? Is it something you need to get your product onto the store shelves? The answer is simple: YES! 

Sourcing is one of the most important foundations your product is built around. It’s necessary to get your invention from the design phase or prototyping into mass production.

The purpose of Sourcing is to secure quality manufacturing and obtain deliverable cost information.

To gather this information, it’s not as easy as a Google search or a phone call. You must work with a reputable company to get the sourcing done. The information gathered while sourcing will help better the financial position of the inventor when it comes to mass production and keeping the costs down. The sourcing process is vital to the entire inventing process – lackadaisical sourcing can be the demise of your product and goals.

Once you have sourced your product successfully, you will know what your margins are and what your profit of sale could be! Need help with sourcing? Click here!

Getting a Product on the Store Shelves: HOW TO!

Typically, the final goal for an inventor is to get their product on the store shelves. But….how? There are many things to keep in mind, but we’ve cut to the chase and listed a few of the most important factors:

  • Presentation is everything! If you are going to be pitching your product to a big box retailer, or even a small company, your product presentation must be pristine!
  • A video demonstration. Tons of products are submitted on a daily basis to the big box stores. Yours will stand out if you have a high quality video that shows every function of your product, as the consumer would use it.
  • A realistic price point. You need to understand the market value for your product. Large retailers may not take on your item if the price point is drastically different than products in the same categorization.
  • Persistence! These large companies may receive hundreds of product submissions every year! It’s up to you be as persistent as possible – you know what they say, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease!”
  • Is my product ready? This is a very common mistake. Do not send your product for store evaluation until it’s ready. If you don’t have a warehouse with product ready to go, you may set yourself up for failure if a large retailer wants to put in an order for more than you can handle. Know what your capabilities are – work with your manufacturer to come up with a plan.

It’s very difficult to get a product to take off, initially – but never fear! With persistence, presentation, realism, and goals, this process will be way easier. Planning is the most important thing you’ll ever do as an inventor.

Licensing: What exactly is it? Is it for me?

When developing a new product it is important to understand the dynamics of the inventing process. We see many inventors who may not understand the proper steps or path to follow to give their product the best chance for success. It is important to keep realistic goal! It is important to know exactly where you are at in development and what can be achieved in each step,  and know how much traction you can gain towards your end goal of production.

It is important not to get ahead of yourself or the stage of development you are in, this can lead to mistakes and wasted resources. One common error new inventors make often is the expectation of a license deal early in development; this is extremely rare! I know there are companies that will contact you after you file for a patent; they sell you on the idea that they will secure a deal for your concept, that there are tons of companies they can market your product to that will take your idea do all the work, pay for everything, and all you have to do is collect a check.

This simply is not true; it is one in a million. It has been our experience that a product has to be brought through many stages of development before a company will even take a look at giving a licensing deal. Usually proven product sales are needed in order for this to happen; meaning you have spent money on the proper steps to get there, by then it may or may not be beneficial for you to take a licensing deal. You only get a small percentage of the sales.

Definition of LICENSING: Licensing means renting or leasing of an intangible asset. It is a process of creating and managing contracts between the owner of a brand and a company or individual who wants to use the brand in association with a product, for an agreed period of time, within an agreed territory.

Your best option may be manufacturing it yourself – do you really want someone else profiting on your idea?  Don’t be a victim of low-cost licensing deals. It may be the biggest mistake of your inventing career.

What Does your Product DO?

As an inventor, the very first thing you should do in the process is make sure your product purpose is concise. Especially when you are working with patents, your mind must be made up when it comes to the specific function of your idea.

Here are a couple of things to do:

  • Write down the function of the product. For example, “My product will pick up animal waste with built in plastic bags, so the owner doesn’t get any of it on their hands.” This is a clear and concise purpose, of which can be expanded upon in the product development phase.
  • Get a professional drawing of your product. Make sure the engineer working on the idea has clarification on the product’s purpose.
  • Don’t change your mind often! The more you change things, the more likely you are to completely distract from the original idea. Stay firm – unless your product needs engineering changes to improve functionality.

Sometimes, in the production development process, friends and family may get involved to suggest changes and fixes to make your idea “better”. Be very cautious. Unless your family member is an engineer, you should consult your production company before implementing changes!

Lesson to be Learned: Don’t Rush Into Marketing!

As an inventor, the desire to promote and market your product or idea is strong. You want the world to know about it, and support you. There are some huge drawbacks to that, and we’d like to explain them to you:

  1. If You Market Too Early, You Don’t Leave Room For Changes – If you market your product in it’s infancy, you’re promoting a look and feel that may not be as refined as your final version. Having potential customers on board and then changing everything will not look good on your brand.
  2. Consumers Won’t Rally Behind an Unfinished Idea – One of the biggest issues with crowdfunding is when inventors try to raise money before there is a prototype or plan in place. Using crowdfunding to get your initial capital for production is a bad idea – consumers won’t give money to a campaign that isn’t “for sure”. You need to invest in a working prototype, drawings, and a timeline so your investors feel comfortable about the final product.
  3. Marketing Won’t Solve Your Problems – Some invention companies will tell you that they’ll market your unfinished product for an insane amount of money, before it’s even developed! Don’t fall for this – it’s the biggest scam around. Would you buy a product based on just a paragraph of text and a computer generated image? Probably not. You cannot properly market a product until it’s completed!

In the invention process, rushing is never a good idea, no matter where you are in the process. Some of the most successful campaigns out there have a solid timeline, proper backing, a team of professionals, and goals set in place. There may be setbacks here and there, but with a concise vision, it’ll do wonders. If you take anything from this blog today, just remember this – don’t fall victim to a “marketing your dreams” scam. It won’t work. Do some research!