Idea-Actual business

cartman555

Hey everyone,

I have an idea for a product which I feel there would be a significant market for globally if developed and marketed successfully. I just have a few questions in relation to this:

1. Is there anyway of measuring the potential of a product without telling people and risking someone stealing your idea? (I know this may be only possible to a certain extent)

2. What would be the first steps to take in relation to gaining advice into setting up a business?

3. I feel that my product could be presented to several large companies but how would you go about doing this, would I need to patent the product first?

4. How would I go about getting the physical product developed?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Gloomtastic!

If it's a new product the first thing you have to do is patent your product. It takes time and costs a lot of money but your idea is worthless to you without it.

All your questions are irrelevant unless you patent it first.

cartman555

cartman555 wrote: »

Hey everyone,

I have an idea for a product which I feel there would be a significant market for globally if developed and marketed successfully. I just have a few questions in relation to this:

1. Is there anyway of measuring the potential of a product without telling people and risking someone stealing your idea? (I know this may be only possible to a certain extent)

2. What would be the first steps to take in relation to gaining advice into setting up a business?

3. I feel that my product could be presented to several large companies but how would you go about doing this, would I need to patent the product first?

4. How would I go about getting the physical product developed?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

First you should bounce the idea off a few people you know and see what the feedback is. Patenting can be time consuming and costly, and you don't want to do it unless your sure its going to be worth it.
Whenever I have an idea for a business ill put it down in a business plan and send it to a few of my friends to 'unravel' if they can. If it comes back all positive then start thinking about the next steps. The steps you take will depend on the product and the industry its in.

cartman555

Deleted User wrote: »

First you should bounce the idea off a few people you know and see what the feedback is. Patenting can be time consuming and costly, and you don't want to do it unless your sure its going to be worth it.
Whenever I have an idea for a business ill put it down in a business plan and send it to a few of my friends to 'unravel' if they can. If it comes back all positive then start thinking about the next steps. The steps you take will depend on the product and the industry its in.

Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm just wondering do you get them to sign a non-disclosure agreement before you present them with the business plan, just so something like what happpens in the Social Network doesn't happen?

Chet Zar

cartman555 wrote: »

Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm just wondering do you get them to sign a non-disclosure agreement before you present them with the business plan, just so something like what happpens in the Social Network doesn't happen?

I'd love to see my friends' reaction if I were to send on an NDA in my email asking for their feedback on an idea I had. Laughed out of it methinks!

It's interesting you mention the Social Network as that film and the whole Facebook story perfectly illustrated how it's not about ideas, which are a dime a dozen - it's about execution. There's very little new under the sun and most ideas are variations on existing ones (not sure if this is true for yours of course .

So I wouldn't be too worried about a mate running off with your idea. How about getting feedback from family, getting them to be really honest? Have you done much research on the existence of similar products, etc?

cartman555

Chet Zar wrote: »

I'd love to see my friends' reaction if I were to send on an NDA in my email asking for their feedback on an idea I had. Laughed out of it methinks!

It's interesting you mention the Social Network as that film and the whole Facebook story perfectly illustrated how it's not about ideas, which are a dime a dozen - it's about execution. There's very little new under the sun and most ideas are variations on existing ones (not sure if this is true for yours of course .

So I wouldn't be too worried about a mate running off with your idea. How about getting feedback from family, getting them to be really honest? Have you done much research on the existence of similar products, etc?

ha yeah I know the whole non-disclosure thing seems a bit too much with friends but If I was to say present my product to the local enterprise board would I be able to find a standard NDA or would I have to go to all the cost of getting a solicitor to draw it up?

The thing is I have come up with a few idea's but one seems to stand out, it's just hard to know if it would be actually a great idea or If I'd be wasting my money and time investing in it.

Well there would be one slightly similar product in the market but I'm still in the very early stages so I haven't done any significant market research yet.

I wouldnt bother with an NDA if your presenting to the enterprise board. They are civil servants not entrepreneurs who are going to steal your idea.

Trawl the net and find an NDA if needs be, and just add in a specific clause about your product and add their details into it. The chances of someone dropping everything in their life and stealing your idea to start a business is very slim so I wouldnt worry about it unless your inventing the wheel or something!

HelenT

It is important to get everyone to sign an NDA. Anyone who says otherwise is foolish and has lessons to learn.

Step 1: Talk to potential clients about your idea to gain market research - talking to friends and family unless they are potential consumers is redundent - they will tell you what you want to hear.

Step 2: Find out how much value (money they are willing to handover for your product) potential clients see in your offering

Step 3: Do the maths and if it is going to pay look at patents, trade marks etc.

Best of luck - I hope you are onto a winner!

HelenT

HelenT wrote: »

It is important to get everyone to sign an NDA. Anyone who says otherwise is foolish and has lessons to learn.

Step 1: Talk to potential clients about your idea to gain market research - talking to friends and family unless they are potential consumers is redundent - they will tell you what you want to hear.

Step 2: Find out how much value (money they are willing to handover for your product) potential clients see in your offering

Step 3: Do the maths and if it is going to pay look at patents, trade marks etc.

Best of luck - I hope you are onto a winner!

OP best follow helens advice, get to a lawyer then a spend a grand on getting an NDA drawn up, since your family and friends arent intelligent enough to give feedback on a business idea. :pac:
The lesson I've learned is that its foolish to think people are going to sign an NDA for you unless you are directly discussing a business deal involving the potential idea or its a potential partner. You are not looking for either in this case

If every time you have an idea you want anyone you tell to sign an NDA, you will never get anywhere, thats from someone who has ideas on a weekly basis, of which 99% of them wouldn't work and get pulled apart when analysed. Thats the reality for most single product ideas, and the unfortunate thing is they can easily get copied in china once the product gets to market
Thats aside from the fact that unless you have a lot of cash its very hard to enforce an NDA

Chet Zar

HelenT wrote: »

It is important to get everyone to sign an NDA. Anyone who says otherwise is foolish and has lessons to learn.

Step 1: Talk to potential clients about your idea to gain market research - talking to friends and family unless they are potential consumers is redundent - they will tell you what you want to hear.

Step 2: Find out how much value (money they are willing to handover for your product) potential clients see in your offering

Step 3: Do the maths and if it is going to pay look at patents, trade marks etc.

Best of luck - I hope you are onto a winner!

Wow that's pretty simplistic stuff right there.

The whole 'friends/family will tell you what to hear' is a myth imo - if they were going to tell you what you want to hear so that you then go off a spend a load of time and money on something that isn't going to work out it'd be pretty bad form wouldn't it?

I can't see how an NDA is worth the paper it's written on when it comes to ideas - if someone really wants to 'steal' your idea they will find a way - no problem.

OP I would do more research anyway to start with and then you can always come back for more advice - even something as simple as the Google Keyword Tool is a good start. Plug in keywords associated with your idea or your competitor's product - seeing search volumes is a good start as regards demand and other factors.

cartman555

Thanks for your input everyone.

Would a good place to start, assuming my research goes well, be enterprise Ireland? Does anyone have any experience with them?

Oh and If I was to go down getting a NDA drawn up, does anyone have any idea of the solicitor's fee for drawing up such a document?

And in relation to patents I've seen that a full EU patent could cost up to €5000. However, according to http://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/patents_fees.aspx an Irish patent would only cost less than €500 anyway so that might be a good place to start.

bobdole968

i remember hearing that once you patent something in one country you only have a certin amount of months to patent it in the rest of the world. might be worth checking out before you get any patent. havnt done it myself yet so dont take it word for word

If your sure the idea is good and you want to give it a shot, talk to enterprise ireland maybe the person there will be able to direct on the next steps.

I would recommend you take your product and write a business plan around it, how its going to be manufactured and how its going to make money. When your finished and happy with that you want to be finding/identifying prospective partners (assuming you dont have the funds to launch your product properly yourself).

When you've narrowed them down write an abstract about your product that doesnt give away too much of the key details. Send it to the potential partners and if they show interest, then draw up your NDA, or what you really want is a NCND - non circumvention, non disclosure agreement. You could get one drawn up for 100 euro or 5,000 euro. The better the lawyer the tighter the agreement if you want to enforce it (in most cases). You get what you pay for when it comes to legal fees. Or do what i said and trawl the internet for those types of agreements, study them, understand them and then cut and paste your own one together specific to your product (thats if you don't want to spend on a lawyer).