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Bootstrapping a New Technology?
djk1024 writes "I've just filed for a patent on a new approach to motion capture that is simple, cheap, easy, accurate, and portable. It's RF-based, accurate to 1 mm, and simple enough that a sophisticated hobbyist could build one in a couple weekends from plans and standard electronics. So now what? I quit my job and have been working on this full-time for the past couple of years; now I'm out of money so can't continue development on my own. I'm also not an electrical or RF guy so I can't carry out my own independent development on the electronics. I'm quite frustrated at this point. I've been in the software development field for over 30 years and have gone through a large number of startups, but always just as the head techie, and always as part of a team. This doing it alone sucks. I would love some advice on how best to go forward."
The buyer may offer you a job, which seems to be what you want.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
http://www.score.org/index.html
Seriously, get some help. Asking "techies" is, as you probably are quickly finding out, the absolute wrong way to get good business advice.
Put Linux on it, fire up emacs and send a letter to Microsoft telling them to screw themselves.
Yep, that ought to do it.
If you hadn't patented it, that is. Instead, if a hobbyist tried to do that, you could sue him.
Thanks.
I always thought this was insightful, but never could test that belief: Top Ten Geek Business Myths:
Myth #1: A brilliant idea will make you rich.
Myth #2: If you build it they will come.
Myth #3: Someone will steal your idea if you don't protect it.
Myth #4: What you think matters.
Myth #5: Financial models are bogus.
Myth #6: What you know matters more than who you know.
Myth #7: A Ph.D. means something.
Myth #8: I need $5 million to start my business
Myth #9: The idea is the most important part of my business plan.
Myth #10: Having no competition is a good thing.
The actual blog has much more in-depth explanations of the myths. And, it has a special Bonus Myth!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Mod parent up.
Our company is a contract electronics design house. We see all sorts of people come to us to implement their patents - most of which are usually about things that they barely understand. In most cases those patents aren't worth the paper that they're printed on.
It never ceases to amaze me when a client comes through the door with a 'valid' patent that contains a description of something that is standard practice within the industry. Then they get all upset when we show them another product from 10 years earlier that does what their 'invention' does, but better, cheaper and more reliably.
This is the scariest thing about the kind of software patents that are getting granted these days. The 'novelty' that they contain is hardly novel within the practicing industry. Fair enough that the truly clever inventions are granted, but the vast majority are just not novel, and in many cases are so close to prior art that they should never have been granted. And that's not even going down the 'obviousness' path.
You need help for the business side or else someone is going to rip off your idea, make minor changes patent that and commercialize it right out from under you. Since you don't have any staff your the best option might be licensing to someone, but you'll need help to find the right someone. If you don't license you'll need way more people and a VC or other funding source to get it off the ground at any volume. The more revolutionary the product the more you need money to defend it.
SCORE would be a reasonable place to go. Stay well away from 'invention companies' or at least any that demand up front fees. By filing the patent you've started the clock so you are going to have to move fast. Expect to have two jobs for a while until funding comes through - one job makes money to pay the rent and the other is searching for the right way to harvest this technology.
The other option might be a partner - IF you know anyone you can trust from your other startups who can deliver the right expertise.
A quick technical question, could this provide position monitoring for indoor robots or rovers? There's not much in the market, what is there tends to be hacked together and/or expensive.
I managed a +100mil real estate portfolio and my parents made me (paid for) take a lot of courses in economics, business law and accounting, (they had a very straight forward, cogent argument: "if you ever want to see any of our money you'd better know how we got it and how you can hang onto it".) Also I'm in a situation similar to the guy who posted the story.
My education and business experience lends a few additional points to the parent. * Never take on your lawyer or your accountant as business partners. More generally, and this should even apply to your financial backers, but it's not always feasible, never give an interest in your company to another company, or, someone whose job it is to act in your interests, such as a lawyer or accountant. More generally, try not to place your trust in others when the trust you've placed in them creates a conflict of interest. Personally, I believe in "partners" and agents who have conflicting interests and watch one another as potential antagonists. * Try to keep your initial outlays low. It's very realistic to think you'll realize no more than 10% of your outlay if you're forced to sell off a failed business. * Don't trust a handshake, get it in writing, and, make sure it's an enforceable contract.
My own personally gleaned bit of advice is to always pay for professional services, hiring reputable firms whose errors & omissions insurance premiums are paid up, then, if they screw up, sue the bastards for all they're worth. Really, I'm deadly serious on this one. Business is a dog eat dog world. Good luck.
ideopath @ play
I love this question! I'm a big fan of virtual and augmented reality. One day I was noodling around with the concept of virtual gloves, when it struck me that all that was needed for a good representation of hand movement was to track the tip of the fingers and then interpolate the joints. This isn't a wholly new idea, but it got me thinking about how you'd track the tip of the finger. Conventional RF measures like flight time are not really feasible for such a short distance. But it occurred to me that if I had a transmitter on the wrist and a receiver on the finger tip, then after achieving a base phase, I could accurately track movement by movement within the phase of the wave form. And simple interferometry delivers accuracy to almost any level. And all of those conjectures just came out my my thinking about electronics in naive wave forms. I then went to experts in the field that confirmed my speculation. I then did a couple months of due diligence: Was it really a fiable solution, what's the catch. Why hasn't anyone else done this. When I finally satisfied myself that it was viable, unique. I then was able to round up a professional acquaintance who does RF design for a living work me up a simple proof-of-theory prototype. I've then spent the rest of my time doing competitive analysis and refining the patent.
I have a proof-of-theory prototype i.e. move the antennas relative to one another and get predictable readings and have already developed the math libraries in support of combining readings into Cartesian coordinates. . This is a far cry from a product however, and a substanstial amount of development needs to take place to make a working product. RF design houses that I've talked with figure about $100K for me to get to a working development kit. I'm aiming for a dev kit that would support about 20 targets and have a form factor in the neightborhood of a cigar box. I would want to price it at less than $1K.
in the title