By James Richardson

A hundred years ago if you wanted to make a prototype, you broke out your hammer, chisel, lumber, metal, forge and other brawny hardware.

Today, you use a keyboard and a mouse.

Although 3D modeling software has been around for many years, it was very expensive and used mainly by large corporations.

In the past 10 years, the cost of the 3D modeling software has plummeted. Quality computer-assisted drawing or CAD software can be found for under $200 – putting a powerful tool within reach of independent inventors.

Heretofore, inventors who had fashioned a proof-of-function prototype typically hired an industrial designer to add form and style. The parts drawings, dimensions and specifications were drawn in two dimensions using conventional drafting tools or 2D drafting programs and printed on paper.

These prints were the method of communication between the designer, engineer and the potential manufacturer. The inventor had only a sketch to look at and views and sections of his invention in two-dimensional engineering drawings.

Not anymore.

Solid modeling software “builds” parts to scale, creating virtual shapes with exact dimensions. The parts have all the draft angles and other restrictions imposed by manufacturing processes. Solid modeling software has the ability to monitor all those design decisions.

Parts can be attached to other parts and articulated – the results can be subjected to all sorts of engineering analysis. The best design has to use the most appropriate and cost-effective manufacturing method. This makes the product retail-friendly and keeps the competition at bay.

But here is the best part – inventors can view their virtual inventions in three dimensions. They can rotate, section and isolate assembly parts to see how the product is put together.

Inventors working with design firms can print out a view, mark it up, scan it and email it back to a designer to indicate a revision. The communications become seamless. The revisions are in scale. Everything is fast. Everyone saves time and money.

Another benefit: Photo realistic renderings can be used in sales and market research literature before you have committed to manufacturing the parts. You can create catalog sheets and marketing literature.

You can even use these drawings to share with your patent attorney or patent agent, who will likely find them extremely helpful when trying to figure out how your invention fits together and operates. In some cases you might even be able to use these drawings in a patent application, particularly a provisional patent application.

Keeping It Real

A computer-generated file is not a real part, so eventually you will need to move forward toward creating a physical prototype.

You can send edrawings via email to a company that produces stereolithography reproductions (SLRs).

Stereolithography is three-dimensional printing. Parts are accurate to a few thousands of an inch in all dimensions. When assembled you have an exact working prototype rendered in plastic. Sales orders from retailers or distributors have been obtained using these SLR prototypes.

The cost is a function of the size of the part. A part 2 inches by 6 inches by 1 inch high will be in the range of $250 to $300 each.

3D software controls computerized milling machines. As a result, 3D modeling is the standard method of communication in manufacturing.

Manufacturers can plug the digital information from 3D software and SLR work directly into their computer controlled milling machines. That information also typically contains material selection, surface finish and order quantities. It’s all automatic. It’s all seamless.

Using this process you can go from a 42-part assembly in 3D in the computer, to manufacturing and first production samples that are perfect. The manufacturing can be next door or the other side of the world. The language is machine to machine by computer code.

Presentation can be as important as the product itself

By B. Collins

Scott Lucas has bad news for those who hate clamshell packaging, the nearly impossible-to-open clear plastic fortress that encases many consumer goods – it’s not going away.

While many holiday shoppers may lament this fact as they slice, gnaw and wrestle to free Barbie and other Christmas playthings from their display tombs, Lucas maintains “there is a rhyme and reason for the clamshell.”

Lucas, executive director international brand consultancy Interbrand, notes that clamshells allow products to be displayed so product developers and inventors don’t need to go through the added expense of professional photography to illustrate their wares.

Moreover, “clamshells allow consumers to see what the buttons look like, how big the screen is,” Lucas says. “Clamshells provide a great seal, great theft prevention. And they preserve the shopping experience.”

Yet as inventors ready their products for market, there are pitfalls to this ubiquitous breed of packaging. For starters, cost.

“If someone wants a clamshell, they have to spend $50,000 to $100,000 for the tooling to make the clamshell,” notes JoAnn Hines, who headsPackaging Diva. “Inventors come to me all the time and say, ‘I want to order 100 units,’ and I say, ‘You can’t afford this (clamshell) packaging.’”

The way manufacturing works, the higher the quantity, the lower the per-unit price. Even runs of a few thousand units are not enough to make custom clamshell packaging pencil out.

This is one of the reasons Hines recommends inventors factor in packaging early and often during the design phase.

Packaging is “one of the first things they need to be thinking about,” Hines says. “The packaging is so integral to the selling, shipping and merchandizing of the product. So many wait and then realize they don’t have a package and rush. Then they have a problem in the way it’s packaged and packed.”

Wayne Rothbaum invented the Sinch, a way to keep your iPhone or MP3 player headphone cords tidy. He spent a lot of time with consultants crafting the look, feel and narrative of his product and its packaging.

The product, which appears to the uninitiated as some sort of clip, “floats” on a white background on the front of the packaging. The word “Sinch” heads the top, followed by “headphone assistant.” At the bottom is the tagline, “live tangle-free.”

The packaging violates some conventions, namely it’s not readily clear what the product does and why consumers should pay $15.99. The back, however, shows the Sinch in action.

For Rothbaum, the packaging was more important after the purchase.

Once opened, consumers find an easy-to-follow, accordion-style brochure showcasing how to use the product.

The Sinch essentially is a magnet that corrals headphone cords.

The packaging “is about good design and innovation meeting in a playful way,” Rothbaum says. “Magnets are fun, so for me it was about building an emotional attachment to the product.

“The packaging is an extension of the brand that offers a sense of quality,” he adds. The accordion brochure is “a nice reward for opening it up.”

Indeed, because the product was in a new category – headphone cord organizer – the packaging had to pull extra duty, notes Jonas Damon, creative director at frog, the design firm that worked with Rothbaum.

“The challenge in the packaging is that because the product is so simple, it didn’t always communicate its function by itself,” Damon notes on frog’s website. “The packaging needed to convey enough about what the product is and present it as something very special. The packaging almost becomes a second product.”

The Sinch has the look and feel of Apple packaging. Although Rothbaum concedes there’s a parallel, “that wasn’t the intention going in. We weren’t thinking about Apple when we designed this product.”

While that may be true, the frog webpage is laced with homage to the late Steve Jobs and the frog’s work with Apple. Clearly, frog shared and shares a design ethos with Apple – which when it comes to packaging can be good and bad.

Jonathan Asher is senior vice president of Perception Research Services, a global firm dedicated to improving packaging and shopper marketing efforts, which includes conducting qualitative research, on-shelf assessments, in-store, online and in-home studies.

Asher says new product developers need to consider the design language and color palette of their product category, but do so in a compelling way.

“If you copy Apple’s design, you get associated with that market,” he says. “But you want to make sure you’re communicating what your product is.

“If green is the dominant color of the product line and you’re in green packaging, you will get lost,” he adds. “You have to be sure you’re seen. We say, ‘If you’re unseen, then you’re unsold.’”

Asher cites a ginger ale example.

“If you want to stand out from the green color associated with ginger ale packaging, do you come out with a blue can?” he muses. “Yeah, you’ll stand out. But no one’s gonna know you’re ginger ale.”

In any case, Hines, the Packaging Diva, says first-time product developers should consider using stock packaging to keep things simple and within budget.

Almost all large distributors offer generic packaging, which includes bottles, jars, boxes and, yes, clamshells of various dimensions. You can customize the packaging through labeling or card inserts, Hines says.

She also cautions against seeking a high-end packaging design firm, at least for newcomers.

“A lot of people go through incredible design and R&D and all this money at the tail end for professional packaging design services,” she says. “Major retailers may not like your professional job.”

Packaging suppliers can offer valuable insight into what your packaging should look like. (Hines has a long list of packaging suppliers.) These companies have been in the business a long time and have the experience and insight to help produce the most attractive, retail-friendly packaging.

A note for the paranoid – packaging suppliers are unlikely to rip off your product.

“They don’t make money knocking off inventors’ products,” Hines says, adding that the same can’t always be said for manufacturers.

Packaging Do’s & Don’ts

• Use stock packaging, but custom labels and inserts. Stock packaging costs a fraction of custom packaging
• Vertical packaging is better than horizontal
• Use lighter, thinner materials
• Keep your retail-shelf footprint to a minimum – less is more
• Stay away from dated hyperbole such as “bonus” or “ultra.” Focus on storytelling – what the product does and its benefits
• Avoid a giant logo with no room for anything else. The name of your new product, at this point, is the least important packaging element
• Know your retail environment. Where are similar products displayed? What is the dominant packaging look and feel of your product category? Are there lips on shelves that may obscure text on the bottom of your package?

One Part Art, Two Parts Science

By Jack Lander

Whether you plan to license or manufacture and sell your invention yourself, at some point you’ll need to determine the cost of your final product.

If you plan to go the manufacturing route, you’ll need to know in advance whether you can produce at a cost that will at least cover all of your product’s direct costs.

Of course, you’d like to make a profit. But early on, most ventures don’t make a significant profit. Profit usually comes after fine tuning manufacturing and engaging the right marketing channels.

If you plan to license, prospective licensees may ask how much your invention will cost to manufacture. And therein lies a danger.

The art and science of costing is complicated by the number of manufacturing options available and the spectrum of sub-options that must economically match the quantity you’re producing.

Sure, we can pick a method that we know. But is it optimum? Will it produce at a cost that best matches the sales volume of the product? When your prospective licensee wants to know “how much,” you had better be within, let’s say, 10% of the optimum direct cost – preferably within 5%. If in doubt, don’t discuss cost.

Suppose you decide to manufacture and sell on your own. Box 1A on the flow chart asks you to forecast your second year’s sales volume.

By the second year you should be marketing through reasonably productive channels. Unless you have a fairly broad background in manufacturing, you should consult an expert to guide you on your choices for methods and tooling that will optimize your cost.

Such an expert will need to know what kind of volume you’ll be producing in order to match it with the most appropriate process. This doesn’t mean you can’t use some low-volume methods initially.

But you must know whether you’ll make a profit when the fine tuning is done. If you’re not going to at least break even by the end of the second year, you should reconsider your venture.

The expert I refer to is an industrial designer. Ideally, you’re looking for an ID who can evaluate your design and recommend changes that will reduce cost to manufacture.

He or she also will recommend the best methods and tooling to achieve the lowest manufacturing cost for your final design. IDs come in a variety of specialties. Some work only on product appearance. Some on packaging. And some on functional design. Be sure to talk with several until you find an expert in design and manufacturing or deal with a company that has each expert on staff.

Before you consult with an industrial designer you should set your retail price. If you plan to produce on your own, set your price on the high side.

Look to competing and complementary products to get a gut feel for a price that customers may grumble about, but will still accept. One test of a high price is refund requests. Assuming that your quality is good and you haven’t deceived anyone with your offer, refunds based on customer perceived value-for-price shouldn’t go higher than about 5%. If your price is too high, you can always have a sale or even lower your price permanently.

If you plan to license, set a competitive retail price based on what you think your hypothetical licensee will want to charge.

Based on your set retail price, your forecast sales volume and the recommendations from the ID, revise your final design if necessary.

Next, decide your production quantities for each component of your product. Annual sales volume is the quantity on which to base production, but you won’t be buying a year’s supply of your most costly components.

Figure on a two to three months’ supply for the expensive items, and a full year’s supply for the inexpensive items such as fasteners. The moderately priced items will fall somewhere between two months’ and a year’s supply.

Using the production quantities you’ve decided, obtain prices from vendors for each component.

Let’s say that your estimated sales volume is 6,000 in your second year and you’ve arrived at a purchase quantity of 1,000 pieces. Ask for pricing at 500, 1,000, 3,000 and 10,000. The 10,000 quantity may be unrealistic at this point, but it indicates potential to your vendor and may help to get a better price than if you ask only for the 1,000 pieces you intend to buy.

Solicit prices from at least three vendors – better yet, five – for each component. Vendors often quote higher prices than are reasonable for a variety of reasons: They’re overloaded with work and will only take your order if they can earn exceptionally high profit; they don’t have the appropriate machinery for your work; they sense that you are a novice and may feel they can take advantage of you; they don’t have a valid system of pricing their work; etc.

Your only defense is to get several quotes. Those who have the right machinery should quote within about 10% of each other. If prices vary greatly from vendor to vendor, you probably have solicited the wrong vendors.

Now compile your total direct product cost. This includes all of your purchased components and labor for assembly and packaging.

If you intend to manufacture and sell your product, don’t consider your own time as free. If you intend to license your product, estimate the assembly and packaging time and use an hourly rate that the typical worker doing these tasks would earn. Note: overhead and miscellaneous costs are not included in direct product cost.

Here’s the critical step: multiply your direct product cost by five to arrive at an approximate minimum selling price.

Compare this price with your gut-feel retail price. Is your gut-feel retail price higher than your five times direct cost? If so, your costs are tentatively acceptable and you can proceed to either produce or license.

But if five times your direct cost is greater than your gut-feel retail price, something’s got to give. You’ve got to redesign or go back over all of the boxes in the flow chart and refine your work.

Worst case: You can’t get your costs low enough to produce at a profit or to convince a potential licensee to negotiate a contract.

But there are alternatives. If you plan to go the manufacturing route, you might lower your multiplier by four rather than five. Four is dangerously close to a permanent money loser for most products that sell for under $50.

But if you are marketing from your own website, four or even a bit less may be acceptable if you don’t have to mortgage the farm to pay for your costs of entry.

If you plan to license, you can enter negotiations and if asked about cost, answer something like this: “You fellows are the experts. I’m afraid that I’d choose the wrong manufacturing methods and find my costs too high for your taste.”

Is it really as complicated as I’ve show? Is it really essential to consult a design and manufacturing expert? You may find that your prototyper can give you some very good advice. The answer ultimately depends on your financial resources and the degree to which you are willing to risk your success.

The safest answer is always ‘yes.” But also remember that perfection is the enemy of progress. Quite often “good enough” is sufficient to start your venture. The Wright brothers, after all, built their first airplane with its tail up-front – a very unstable and risky design.

Even in the Internet era, sell sheets remain key to landing licensing deals. Here are 12 top tips from master inventor and licensing pro Roger Brown:

1. Be professional. Proofread your sell sheet. Nothing looks worse than misspellings.
2. Be as brief as possible – keep you sell sheet to one page.
3. Send your submission so it arrives on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. On Fridays, people who review submissions tend to be distracted by the upcoming weekend. Monday mail gets piled on stuff left over from the weekend.
4. Use a colored envelope. Companies that accept ideas from inventors get a lot of mail. Be eye-catching. A colored envelope stands out in a pile.
5. Know the name of the person accepting submissions. Call the company. Make sure you have the proper spelling.
6. If you submit via email, save those emails as well as those the company sends you.
7. Keep a database with all the information of people you have contacted. You don’t want to call the same person twice for the same reason.
8. Make sure your contact information is on everything you send. Several people in the company may review your submission. Things can get separated.
9. Don’t be a pest. Don’t call every other day. The more you call, the more you kill your chances of a company wanting your idea.
10. Know your market. Don’t send a tool product to a toy company.
11. If you have a prototype, let the company know. Don’t send it with your first submission.
12. Dial in your expectations. Licensing royalties typically are 2% to 5%.

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10 Simple Tips

By Karen Waksman

Selling an invention to major retailers can seem like an overwhelming task, but it doesn’t have to be. You just need a little insight into how retailers operate and what makes them more inclined to buy.

1 Buyers Are Looking For You

Most inventors don’t realize how important it is for major retail buyers to buy new innovations. It is a huge part of their purchasing strategy. With competition these days, buyers can’t afford to ignore new products. Moreover, customers are finicky. They want to purchase the next best thing and retailers know this. Retailers want to know about you.

2 You Don’t Have to Be a Big Company

Most of the companies I’ve represented over the years have been startups. Buyers care more about finding the “right” product for their stores than they care about the size of the company. Don’t assume because you’re from a small business that you can’t get your products into major retailers. I know you’ve heard plenty of horror stories about the “little guy” trying and failing to sell to major retailers. Yet I assure you, I’ve witnessed many success stories as well.

3 Packaging Is Essential to Your Success

Spend time, money and effort on packaging. When you walk into a store, you are not looking at a product – you are looking at a product in its packaging. Customers are making purchasing decisions based on packaging. Packaging can make or break a buyer’s decision. If your packaging is not on point, buyers will not buy from you.

4 Go Shopping!

You can learn more about a buyer’s purchasing habits simply by visiting the section of their store. A store shelf will tell what the retail price should be for your product as well as the type of packaging you should create. It also will tell you what buyers are missing within their product base, so you can provide an excellent story as to why they should buy your product.

5 Avoid Vendor Departments

If you’ve ever contacted the front desk of a major retailer about becoming a new vendor, then you’ve probably been redirected to their vendor department. Retailers typically will direct you to a page on their website and request you fill out a bunch of forms about your product and/or company. Vendor departments take forever to review products. It also can be depressing to fill out all of those forms. My advice: Find the appropriate buyers and contact them directly about your product.

6 Find the Buyer’s Name & Contact Info

Major Retailers don’t readily offer this information. A couple of great resources to help you get started: The Chain Store Guide:www.csgis.com and/or the Salesman’s Guide:www.thesalesmansguide.com. Your local library likely has these titles on their shelves, so you can get this information for free!

7 Make Nice with Assistant Buyers

Assistant buyers become buyers fairly quickly. You have no idea how many times I’ve worked with assistant buyers and then found out that they were promoted to a buyer position. And usually within a matter of months. Be kind and courteous to assistant buyers. They will remember your kindness and can purchase accordingly when they become buyers themselves.

8 Explore Vendor Day

Vendor day is a day of the week, month or quarter (depending on the retailer) where major retail buyers spend time reviewing new products. Buyer’s typically review several new vendors in 10- to 30-minute increments. If you’re having trouble getting traction with a major retailer, try contacting the assistant buyer and ask to be a part of the company’s next vendor day.

9 It’s a Numbers Game

One of the biggest mistakes I see inventors make while trying to sell their inventions to major retailers is that they focus exclusively on their top five “dream” retail accounts that they want to sell to and ignore all of the other potential opportunities. Look past the Walmarts and Targets of the world to the hundreds of other potential retailers that may want to buy your product.

10 Don’t Give Up!

Selling an invention to major retailers can be a frustrating process, especially if you’re getting rejected over and over again. Yet every rejection also is an opportunity to receive valuable information about your product that can help you sell to the next retailer. And really, all you need is one retail buyer to take a chance on your product. Just one! Many inventors start the process of trying to sell to retailers, but walk away when things get tough. Don’t make this mistake. Try to sell your inventions to retailers until you win!

By Paul Niemann

There are three things every industry has:

1. Trade associations
2. Trade publications
3. Tradeshows or conferences

Take advantage of these when lining up distributors and launching your products.

If you advertise a new product available for distribution in a certain industry, the best place to advertise is usually in your industry’s trade publication. Think of Inventors Digest as the trade publication for inventors and notice that most all of the advertisers are companies that sell to inventors.

If you’re manufacturing your product instead of licensing it, you’ll want to call on distributors to carry your product, and the best way to meet dozens of distributors at one place and at the same time is at a tradeshow.

There might be more than one tradeshow in your product area each year. Check the Tradeshow News Network for an exhaustive directory at www.tsnn.com.

Tradeshows offer a great way to learn about the people and companies in your industry, as well as meet key decision makers.

Most of the time, I do not get a booth when I go to tradeshows. Instead, I spend my time walking the floor and schmoozing.

In many industries, the trade association is the group that publishes the trade publication and puts on the industry tradeshow. You can find various trade associations by typing “trade association directory” in your web search engine (i.e., Bing or Google).

Trade publications often accept freelance articles. Be sure to read their submission guidelines – nothing kills a potential story pitch faster than not following directions.

Finally, most every industry has a directory of its members. This can be a gold mine for you because it contains the names, titles of key executives, phone numbers, addresses and websites of every member company.

It saves you a ton of time when putting together your list of companies to contact.

And when you’re saving time, you’re saving money.