Ian Peterman, CEO of Peterman Design Firm, walks through how to turn an invention into a product. Most ideas fail from inaction or lack of resources. He covers assessing market value, prototyping, working with design firms, provisional patents, and funding options.
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Hi, my name is Ian Peterman, CEO and founder of the Peterman Design Firm, and today we're going to talk about what to do with your invention and how to actually turn into a product. You know, everybody— and I want to start off by saying everyone is an inventor. Not everybody wants to make a product company out of their invention, but You know, we're all inventors, even kids. And, you know, whether you come up with something simple or you're trying to come up with something really complicated, you invent, you patent it, and it's groundbreaking science. Those are all inventions. And, you know, there's a lot of place in the market for those solutions. So when you solve a problem for someone, you've created an invention. even if you're just solving it for yourself. And so, you know, there's 2 ways that your invention doesn't make it, kind of just general categories here. And the first is you just don't do anything with it. And this is where most ideas just kind of die, so to speak. And it's— people have an idea, you have an idea, I've had lots of ideas, and I have definitely not acted on all of them. There'd be— I would be spending so much time right now just on, on trying to make those work, and not all of them are actually worth it. But lots of good ideas die just from not moving forward. And so, you know, that's something that I've, I've worked with clients on before. And, you know, in somewhat of a— there's a mentorship program, there's incubators, there's all kinds of places, you know, there's startup resources that you can get help in creating, you know, getting guidance and getting support. You know, I offer it, as do thousands of other people that can help guide through the process because it's overwhelming. It is. And kind of just acknowledging that it is an overwhelming amount if you haven't developed a product before, if you haven't worked in that space before. If you haven't worked with engineers and designers, let alone if you're starting a company, the business side, if you haven't talked to lawyers and business advisors and financial advisors and you haven't balanced a spreadsheet or balance sheet before, you haven't, you know, done a cost analysis, you haven't built a cost of goods document before and figuring out even, you know, what the costs are and how to price it. There's a lot that goes into it. And so, you know, it's— it can be scary. And so a lot of people just stop there. And so that's one way. And another is that you want to do it, you want to put time in, and there's just no resources. And, you know, that's something, you know, especially if you're younger or didn't grow up wealthy. and don't have a super well-paying job with lots of money saved away, it can seem like a really insurmountable task. And, you know, as a kid, I came up with quite a few inventions that I got to watch larger companies who actually had, had money to put into it develop ideas that I had. You know, they didn't steal them. It was more of coming up with them independently around the same time. But the difference is They had all the resources, and I, as a, you know, kid, teenager, my parents aren't super wealthy. I don't come from money, so I wasn't able to put thousands of dollars into inventions that I had. And so those are the two ways that they don't happen. And there's a lot of resources that we can have, and there are, in order to help people in both of those situations. And, you know, if it's Not sure how to start, if it's just a, I have no idea what to do, that's where design firms like mine come in. And there's, you know, a myriad of other, other resources, and you can be helped through the process, guided through it. Of course, done for you completely if you are one of those people who has money but just doesn't know what to do with it, then, you know, you can come to someone like me and I can walk you through the whole process. costs money, but you get a product and a company at the end that, you know, will have a product that can be sold and be able to launch. And so what you do with your idea when it is at the idea stage really is— ideas are a dime a dozen. There's billions of them. Everybody has them every single day. And so what you want to first do when you have an idea is start figuring out whether it's something that's really valuable. It might be a value— super valuable idea to you. It might be something that you would use every single day. But, you know, what about other people? What are they going to do with it? And, you know, in terms of— because I get this a lot of people that are especially on the inventing side, you know, we've been kind of told this whole time, oh, patents are the end-all be-all of things. And there's certain things you absolutely should patent and you need to protect it, but there's also been very successful companies that have simply gone off of, you know, somebody invented the product, came up with the idea, made some in their garage, and went and sold it and never patented it at that point. So it's not— There's many different approaches to it, and, you know, sometimes being first to market is actually more important than trying to drag out the process and get it patented. You know, if you really think this is an idea worth it, talk to a patent attorney. They can tell you whether it's actually worth patenting or not. And, you know, it's like Quick note here, you can also— you should also look up provisional patenting. It's a great way to be a stopgap for you to get your product out there, see if it does anything, and then proceed with the actual patenting process. And then, you know, if you don't have any resources, there are people out there who will buy your idea, who will pay for it, who will invest in it. You know, there's a lot that you can do with some good old elbow grease, just working and building yourself and making something. And, you know, you can get people behind your idea by showing its value. And that you can do by prototyping, you can do it by, you know, if it's something else that's maybe a little too complicated to prototype yourself, then just really detailed Explaining in drawings and renderings of what the idea is, and you can get a lot covered. And if you have a solid business plan and a good motive behind it, then you can probably get funding for it.
