Inventors can cut costs for a low cost introduction with financing from the manufacture.

{Don Debelak’s new book, Turning Your Invention into Cash is now available on Amazon for $3.49. Go to Amazon.com and enter inventions Don Debelak to purchase. From the author of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Bringing Your Product to Market.}

By Don Debelak

How is the inventor Doing Now

This article first appeared in Entrepreneur magazine in the early 2000s.
Note:  Do a search for Pen Again and you will find the product all over the Internet.  Go to penagain.net and look up the company story.  In 2009 Pen-Again  joined forces with Propel-r Innovations Inc and Baumgartens Ltd. to market and distribute the PenAgain internationally and in the US respectively.

The Entrepreneurs: Colin Roche, 33, and Bobby Ronsse, 33, co-founders of Pacific Writing Instruments in Pacifica, California

Product Description: The PenAgain is a writing tool shaped like a wishbone. The user’s forefinger goes through the wishbone and rests on top of the pen, which lets the weight of the finger hold the pen to the paper. Users don’t need to squeeze the pen, which is a great feature for older users. But function isn’t the pen’s only selling point. Its sleek, futuristic look appeals to teenagers and young adults as well as high-tech-gadget lovers.

Startup: About $15,000 to produce the first 5,000 units in 2002. The investment paid for patent costs, temporary tooling and the initial production cost. Some of the temporary tooling and initial production costs were borne by the manufacturer, who then received a commission on every PenAgain sold.

Sales: expected to exceed $3 million in 2004

The Challenge: introducing a radically different product to a market of prospects who don’t realize that existing products in the category aren’t already meeting their needs

Colin Roche and Bobby Ronsse developed an innovative ergonomic pen-but before the product could succeed, they had to persuade a market of traditional-pen users why they needed a better writing instrument. By taking these steps, such as focusing on an eye-catching design and getting the word out, they’ve been able to build a million-dollar business:

Steps to Success

1. Get people’s attention. Roche knew from the start that “if the product didn’t look cool, nobody would buy,” he says. “We didn’t want to limit the product’s appeal to older users, and even then, people with arthritis don’t want to call attention to their problems. Style was all-important [for] the product to succeed in a big way.” They decided early on that the product had to have a high “AGM (attention-getting mechanism) factor” to generate the curiosity that would spark word-of-mouth advertising.
2. Latch on to a trend in the market. While the PenAgain is radically different from other pens, it was introduced at a time when pens were changing in the market. According to Roche, “Pens are wider in the grip area, and now many pens have a soft area just above the tip for users’ comfort. The PenAgain is the first truly ergonomically designed pen on the market. Many buyers know there is a shift toward comfort and design in writing instruments.” The partners had a big break right before their first School, Home & Office Products Association (SHOPA) trade show convention in 2003 in Atlanta. Says Roche, “SHOPA put out a report on the U.S. writing products industry that stated the industry was changing, and the report listed the PenAgain as an example of an innovative ergonomic product carving a niche in the industry.”
3. Proceed carefully. The partners knew they might need to make changes to get the right look. Roche explains why they didn’t immediately move to overseas production: “We knew we would eventually need to produce the product in Asia to get our costs down. But we felt we would need to make initial product changes, so we went to a small U.S. manufacturer and ordered 5,000 pens. Our costs were high, and we didn’t make much money, but we were able to do our market test and flush out any major design issues in real time.”

Roche took the same care with their sales strategy: “We started selling just to 12 stores in the [San Francisco] Bay Area where we could offer support. We limited our sales to about 50 stores when we still had U.S. production-because the cost of production was high and the product from the temporary tool wasn’t as polished as a product from a permanent mold. We wanted to sell only our best product to the broad market.”

4. Never stop networking. When you have a new product, you need to find sales groups willing to promote a dramatically different product. Roche explains how they set up their current distribution chain, which has 40 distributors and about 200 manufacturers’ reps working through 30 manufacturers’ sales groups. “Basically, we just kept networking like crazy,” he says. “I’d talk to the first stores I sold to, looking for reps that were willing to go out and sell a new idea. I didn’t want a rep group that just carried our product. We wanted reps [who] were passionate about our product. We also talked to people at shows to get their ideas on how to sell our product and to find out who I could use as a distribution outlet.” Roche sums up the spirit of persistence needed for networking: “You have to keep working hard enough to create your own luck and to generate opportunities for success.”

Do you need web content?  Don Debelak, who has written 15 books published by major publishers such as McGraw Hill and Entrepreneur Press is currently writing web content.  Check out more information at:

http://onestopinventionshop.net/web-content-writing-services

 Don Debelak offers affordable patent work. Check out http://patentsbydondebelak.com/