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Getting a USB Peripheral Idea to Market?
WillAdams asks: "I have an idea for an almost embarrassingly simple USB device, which I believe would be fairly popular --- no hardware or device driver development skills though. Ideally I'd like to approach a company, hand the product idea off and just collect a small royalty. Unfortunately the most obvious choice doesn't accept product submissions. Any suggestions?"
How much would the final device sell for? If your quantities are in thousands of units and require additional R&D, you can produce the device in the United States, provided you supply the factories with the board design, casing, cabling and all the other components. But in that case consumers might be expected to pay $100-200 per device, which doesn't work if the device is simplistic.
You can outsource manufacturing to China and get the same device for pennies on the dollar, but Chinese won't talk to you unless you place an order for a million. Depending on the complexity of the device itself, the price might be around $1-5, so you're looking at initial order of $1 mln to $5 mln, which few companies have budgeted for the outside ideas. Unless it's pretty obvious that they can sell it in the United States for $20 a pop and get a million of them sold within reasonable amount of time.
If all you want is royalties on something you invented, consider filing a patent application with USPTO, final cost - $15K-$30K, depending on the patent lawyer. That would be a fairly quick way to establish yourself as the inventor of this paricular technology and would invite all the companies to participate in production and paying you a small royalty fee.
Yet another way to market it is to approach a startup in Silicon Valley. There're always some guys on the lookout for a new company, and they're willing to start a new company, but are looking for technical smarts to build the company on. Contact those guys, and you get access to the venture capital, management and marketing skills, plus a title of co-founder, if the device itself is expected to sell well, so it's worth creating a company behind this product idea.
Because everyone who has a good idea also has $20,000 or more for a patent and a lawyer.
If you have no hardware or driver experience how do you know it's amazingly simple? What looks simple to a layman could actually be amazingly complex. The reason I point this out is because - as the sole programmer for one of my company's most critical systems - I'm constantly being bombarded with "amazingly simple" enhancement ideas from non-programmers. They'll even go so far as to write programming time into their proposals as "1 day", never haven spoken to me and having absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I'm sure this happens to the readership here as often as it happens to me. I'm just pointing out that it sounds highly probable that you are one of these people.
My advice is to pick up a few books and learn at least a little about the implementation of your idea. Who knows, you might even learn enough to develop a prototype on your own. Armed with even a very crude example, you'd have much more luck selling it. "I'll sit back in my house, spend no money, spout off ideas, and other people will throw cash at me." is a great dream, hell I've had it myself, but don't count on that happening. You are most likely going to need to do a lot of work, spend some money, and talk to a lot of people before you see a cent.
Ideas themselves are not as valuable if you are not willing to take any risk with them. The first step you could take would be to get it patented as somebody already suggested.
Another step might be to invest the money to see it designed and manufactured. Each step you risk more time and money, the value of your idea grows because its profitability is closer to reality and there are less unknowns.
I think that the belief that an idea by itself is has monetary value without risk is somewhat of a myth. Chances are, somebody else has already come up with a similar idea and it was shot down for as too risky or not profitable enough. There are lots of people with good ideas, but few willing to do the hard work to realize them. I think the value is more in the work than the idea.
But if you are actually willing to put your time and money behind your idea, more power to you!
Actually, put your idea to paper and have it notarized. That way you formally create prior art, and if you ever figure out a way to commercialize the idea, you won't be restricted by potential later patents.
I'm sure that works in fantasyland but the real world is a bit more complicated.
Assuming that BigCorp Inc. steals your idea and it is a runaway success, do you have the money, time and persistence to follow through to winning a legal case?
Probably not.
... if all you've got is an idea.
There was a recent series on Australia's national television about inventors. If I learnt anything from the series it's that ideas are a dime a dozen but turning ideas into a marketable product is a lot of work.
Put some effort into your idea. Write down a design. Make it work. Build a prototype. Get a patent on the working invention. The point of a patent is to reward the person who turns the idea into reality. If you don't know how to build it then LEARN HOW. If you don't want to put in the effort then you don't deserve to profit from the idea. Simple as that.
In any event, I would bet dollars to donuts that your idea is not unique. If you can think of it somebody else can think of it too, and they probably already have. But you will probably find, like many of the inventors on the afore-mentioned television series, that the original idea would never have worked. Through the process of building the invention they refined the idea until it does work. That's the valuable part of the invention. That's what makes them special people. That's what you should be doing, rather than thinking about royalty payments.
PS: I have no encouragement or sympathy for any person who expects to "hand off" their idea to a company and wait for the royalty cheques. I think it's disgusting that you are madly keen to start receiving royalty cheques yet so disinterested in being involved in the creation of the invention.