She’s Ingenious! founder Cally Robson’s 10 top tips to help get you from idea to market

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Cally Robson is the founder of She’s Ingenious!, a website for women developing and marketing their own products and services. Cally is a corporate media executive turned part-time designer of her own innovative crockery system and has worked as a personal coach to inventor-entrepreneurs since 2003.

Cally Robson’s 10 top tips:

Originality

Check thoroughly early on to see if anyone else has already launched or registered your idea. That means Googling the web for it, and also checking the patent databases like espacenet. Even as you progress, keep checking your idea is still original.

Keep a notebook

Get things out of your head onto paper. Especially questions. This not only keeps a record of your journey, but it will help highlight priorities you need to focus on.

Become a market guru

Research, research, research. Know your numbers on market potential, industry trends, which companies are players in your space, what trade publications say, what’s selling already and for how much. With expert knowledge you have more chance of success and greater credibility.

Intellectual property

Aim to be well informed about IP, so you can interpret the information you get from professional IP lawyers, and patent and trademark attorneys. Just because you CAN protect your idea, doesn’t mean it’s always a good business decision to do so – only you can weigh up all the factors.

Prototyping

When you know there’s a strong market and business case for your idea, make a working model before attempting a pretty prototype. Do it yourself if you can – you’ll save money and learn a lot about your product.

Know your numbers

Knowing your costs, the price your product can sell at, and the size of the market is essential to working out if your idea is likely to be profitable. Estimate your development costs, and manufacturing costs for different quantities upfront. Research the price the market expects to pay, and the cut retailers and distributors will require.

Elevator pitch

Write down one punchy sentence that sums up your idea – not how it works, but in how it will benefit customers. Practice saying it, so when asked, you can describe your idea in a way that will ignite interest.

Confidentiality

Before you have protection for your idea in place, be very selective about who you talk to and use a confidentiality, or non-disclosure agreement. To get good feedback on your idea, you rarely need to reveal the detail of how it works – instead, talking about who it’s for and why it will be useful.

Avoid sharks

Services offering to find buyers for new products and inventions rarely work. Don’t be fooled into paying for illustrations of your idea as a first step in the inventing process. Nothing can replace researching your idea and the market for it yourself.

Your life

Turning an idea into profit can be a long and costly process. It’s risky. Make sure your loved ones are fully behind you, and your finances are in good shape at the outset. Be clear about what you want out of taking your idea to market. If it’s not going to deliver, be prepared to bail out quick.

>> www.shesingenious.org

>> Read about the Inventing the 21st Century exhibition at the British Library

>> Read British Library patent expert Stephen Van Dulken’s top tips for a successful invention

>> Here’s a bright idea, visit a patent office before you go public

Tags: British Library, Business Advice, inventions, patents, small business, SMEs, Starting a Business, Starting a Business - Advice

Posted by Vicki Owen on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 6:02 pm.

Filed under News, SMEs, Starting a Business, Students, Tagged as: , British Library, Business Advice, inventions, patents, small business, SMEs, Starting a Business, Starting a Business - Advice.