Patents By Don Debelak

Using Competition for Market Research When you come up with a new idea, often you can fine-tune your product concept by doing market research with competitive products.  You can find out if your new idea address a need that is important to people, and also what potential customers look for in … [Read more...]

Learn Your Industry To have your best chance of success you need to learn all you can about your industry.  How products are sold, key trade shows to attend, successful inventors in the industry and key retailers, distributors and manufacturers reps are just a few f the items you need to know … [Read more...]

Licensing - Sales Reps Make a Great Partner Two heads are better than one, so if you are trying to license your idea why not get a partner – and often the best partner is a sales rep that is already in the industry.  He or she will know the market, many of the major players, and what kind of deal … [Read more...]

Presentation to Raise Initial Funds Often inventors need to raise some early investments to help pay for prototypes, patents or other items to help get the project off the ground.  You have three goals, one avoid trying to write a 40 to 50 page business plan, two, to show you are serious about … [Read more...]

Everything You Need to Know about Joint Ventures for Inventors  Joint Ventures—The Inside Scoop THE BASICS Technically, a joint venture for inventors is an agreement by two parties to work together in order to design, promote, or manufacture a new product. The parties split the work and … [Read more...]

Types of Deals for Inventors Inventor deals with marketers can be set up in a number of ways.  I’ve listed several deal structures you can suggest to marketers to find the one that suits them best. Firm Purchase Commitment The simplest inventor deal is a two to three year purchase commitment … [Read more...]

Finding an American Manufacture With all the recent tariffs that have been levied on China, this might be the time to look into American manufactures. There are several very helpful sites where you can go to find a manufacturer. The site I prefer to start with is http://thejobshopcompany.com/   … [Read more...]

Turning a Hobby into a Business Jen Scott developed an interest in being a herbalist as she entered college and learned how to utilize plants into salves around 2010. Her sister Jodi was premed and worked with Jen to understand the science behind the herbal remedies. Together they developed some … [Read more...]

Steps for Selling to Target The Road to Become a Target Vendor Mike Eaton of Hero Clean, Inc. has branded his product line with the tag line Cleaning Products Made for Men.  Starting in August 2015 Hero Clean’s product line was on the endcaps of 16 Target stores in California and soon he will … [Read more...]

Make Magazine - Making Cheap Models and Prototypes Often inventors get into a routine that revolves around look for a problem that affects many where you can create a great solution.  Then you just be sure you can make the product for 20% of the products retail value and you might have a winner.  … [Read more...]