Is Anyone Trying To Bring To Market A Project They Did On element14?

In my primary field, Dental Equipment, I was able to get three products to market over the years. It was pretty much by shear luck and a lot of help from kind middlemen. While I continue to try with some of my ideas and products I have not been successful again in many years. Currently I have a Chinese instrument company looking at one of my ideas to repurpose an existing technology.

There are many ways to fail at the process and few avenues to success. If one is too protective of the idea it is difficult to properly describe it and the benefits it will provide to a marketer. Obtaining Patents can delay ones ability to get the idea to market and add a layer of cost that will make it more difficult to find a buyer.

In one instance I developed a product that would protect Dental Clinics from costly down time and expensive repairs to a critical piece of equipment. I produced several dozen prototypes and sold them in my own service area to my clients. My attempts to get any national marketer interested failed however. The devices were not turn key to the dentist and required a technician to install them which was a problem. More important though, the national marketers did not want to loose the sales and profits from the potential failures of the equipment my device was designed to protect. In an industry as close and regulated as the dental equipment industry the paths to market are jealously guarded.

I have put most of my ideas and innovations on this web site in my blogs. I see this as a way of publishing the idea and date marking it. It is the simplest way that I know to put a little protection on them. Whether there is time for one more successful product to market or not I am not sure but it doesn't hurt to try.

John

In my primary field, Dental Equipment, I was able to get three products to market over the years. It was pretty much by shear luck and a lot of help from kind middlemen. While I continue to try with some of my ideas and products I have not been successful again in many years. Currently I have a Chinese instrument company looking at one of my ideas to repurpose an existing technology.

There are many ways to fail at the process and few avenues to success. If one is too protective of the idea it is difficult to properly describe it and the benefits it will provide to a marketer. Obtaining Patents can delay ones ability to get the idea to market and add a layer of cost that will make it more difficult to find a buyer.

In one instance I developed a product that would protect Dental Clinics from costly down time and expensive repairs to a critical piece of equipment. I produced several dozen prototypes and sold them in my own service area to my clients. My attempts to get any national marketer interested failed however. The devices were not turn key to the dentist and required a technician to install them which was a problem. More important though, the national marketers did not want to loose the sales and profits from the potential failures of the equipment my device was designed to protect. In an industry as close and regulated as the dental equipment industry the paths to market are jealously guarded.

I have put most of my ideas and innovations on this web site in my blogs. I see this as a way of publishing the idea and date marking it. It is the simplest way that I know to put a little protection on them. Whether there is time for one more successful product to market or not I am not sure but it doesn't hurt to try.

John

You are perfectly right John. After patenting and selling patents for 10 years I also followed the market and what I see is that the patenting politics changed and protection mechanism too as well as the customers / users classification. 20 years ago it was a good idea to protect your ideas with patent, today excluding the mass patenting campaign like those Apple do (not so successful I think) patenting a original and good idea is just a way to toss money away in my opinion. Except for the stuff I have done as consultant for companies (with NDA signed etc.) all my production is open source and open hardware. And yes, publishing on the new, especially (it's true) on E14 pages and on my site too (not updated recently but need absolutely soon balearicdynamics.com) is the best way to protect your idea, certificate that it's your and in the meantime contribute actively for a shared knowledge globally.

I have experienced that the creation of open stuff does not impact on the option to make it sellable; are different logics those that moves the makers that replicate your idea, not rarely adding something new and better and the users that need and search for a product. Something finished, nothing to think over it.

I made a try starting a couple of years ago with the Shift register LCD display for Arduino, the educational digital potentiometer Arduino shield, the chained shift register for Arduino and some other, the first version of the click remote project, then the Raspberry PI LCD case (it is better than the idea of Pimoroni )

I have published the projects that I considered more related to Element14 philosophy on blogs here but those that was just on sale I avoided to publish them here. I was not sure if this was considered a self-promotion by Element14 staff. Instead I agreed with electroschematics.com to publish the projects there in exchange of mentioning where they was on sale (with a discount code too).

The process I followed was almost simple:

1. Make two videos of the project/product: the project finished and working and the how-to assembly product
2. Make detailed images illustrating the product
3. Put the software (when needed) on GitHub to be available to all
4. Make and Instructable assembly guide with images and videos
5. Make a product page on my blog with the links to Tindie
6. Put the product on sale on Tindie
7. Wait hooking customers

As some projects has been reviewed on Instructable and the electroschematics site has an incredible popularity in the USA but also in Germany, Romania, Poland, Russia etc. the projects got a decent visibility. Those that was never sold (or just 1-2 pieces) I consider them not commercially interesting. The others are built at a very low price in tenth every time. There is also a parenthesis on the Drobott.com marketplace but they are so crap that I stopped to sell there.

Last year I had to stop this small market due my job in the Netherlands, the frequent moving etc. so now I am thinking (back to Spain) how to restart this market with the new projects that will soon be products. And also thinking on how to promote them better.

After one year and half I can say that what I sold paid the investment (components and PCB and a small earning fee). The primarily idea for this marketing is just to diffuse the products here and there without the need of investment. What cost me 10, customers will pay no more than 15-16 that I think it is almost reasonable for makers.

Enrico

That is a good suggestion John. Documentation and timestamp on the community blog would be a way to verify proof of concept and design. This idea would not have been possible without the community.