Invention Intelligence Lab

Something is in the air this week around getting into inventing for a living. Two people have brought up questions around the costs of getting an invention off the ground.

“Here’s a question any Inventor gets stuck with. What money do I need to make my start on making Inventions for a living? Have YOU some figures on an average sum of money to start the Invention/Prototype/Invention Fairs/Licensing cycle?”

Of course there are no helpful answers out there because this is a “How long is a piece of string?” kind of question. You could add in width of the string, and stretchiness too, just to show how involved the answer would have to be to anywhere near hit the mark.

The unhelpful answer is most likely between £500 and £50,000 (US$1000 and $100,000) just to get started, depending on the nature of the product. But actually, ANY answer would be wrong as soon as it’s uttered, because the development options for a new product concept would be constantly changing, along with the associated costs.

You could take it as an indicator that in its previous programmes the independent NESTA in the UK shelled out £30,000 to each of its Creative Pioneers just to get started, AND threw in a generous amount of training, workshops, and mentoring to keep it’s young stars on track.

But, in the spirit of being boldly helpful, and for the sake of argument (post your comments if you know otherwise), here’s my attempt to at least map out some potential costs. I’ve included them in UK£ sterling. For US$ dollars you could multiply by 2 and still be about wrong.

1) Initial research using online databases to check for originality in terms of patents/ design right/ trademarks - £0 if you Do-It-Yourself, which is the better way anyway.

2) Initial market research using the web and amazing free resources within the Business & IP Centre of the British Library in London - £0 if you DIY. Local libraries in the UK usually have SOME business information available, but nothing like the reach of material at the BIPC.

If you can’t reach materials, you won’t find much of any use openly available on the Internet. So you COULD pay a trusted outfit to do some research for you, but make it clear and precise what you want to know. I’d trust Graham Parker and Peter Bissell of www.abettermousetrap.co.uk because they’ve been in the business for decades and really know their stuff (I wholeheartedly recommend their book, the Business of Invention, too). Their standard assessment price is £295. Just be aware that there’s nothing like doing the research yourself for setting you up for later.

3) Add £200 for requesting a later expert search from information specialists at the British Library (you don’t have to be UK resident). Tremendous value that can save you loads on asking your IP attorney to do it for you.

4) Remember that you’d be wise to visit specialist exhibitions in the area of your idea to do market research, well before you think of taking a stand yourself. Budget a couple of hundred for that, depending on whether they are abroad from you.

5) Writing your idea out AKA a business plan - £0 (you should at least attempt to do the first outline yourself)

6) Do-It-Yourself prototyping (recommended, as far as you can possibly take it) – say £50

7) Preparation of professional CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawings, if needed – say £800 upward

8 ) Costs for the patenting process might start at a modest couple of thousand pounds, but over time and territories, the bill could add up to tens of thousands, even hundreds. This document from international patent and trademark attorneys, Frank B Dehn, is well worth a read. It’s about the most transparent and clear on the costs and process that I’ve come across.Remember though, Frank B Dehn’s document only describes the thousands needed for protecting your IP. Selling, or licensing, your product innovation has a whole different set of costs.

9) Lawyers that specialize in licensing don’t come cheap either. You could be looking at anything from £2000 upward, but from my experience, getting to a good licensing deal with everything covered takes a tremendous amount of time and expert knowledge about the particular area. Every deal is different, so every clause in a licensing agreement is bespoke. Think in terms of £10,000 upward.

10) If you’re planning to travel to key international fairs and conventions to get exposure for your invention, let’s say you could budget £500 to £5,000 upward for that.

11) And so far I’ve completely missed the not-so-small area of basic prototyping of your concept. Let’s say you have a straightforward idea, and you’ve DIY’d a prototype a lot yourself already. You might set aside £800 for getting it translated by a model maker, rather than doubling that or more for a product design expert.

Getting to a more finished prototype and producing more iterations (stages) of a complicated or technical, could run up bills of £10,000 quite easily. Tens of thousands if you’re working towards a test production prototype.

12) And we haven’t even talked about the thousands you would need for creating a logo design and brand, even if you’re not intending to manufacture and package the thing up yourself.

Getting to be quite a bill isn’t it? Time for some good news…

13) Whereas once upon a time, about a couple of years ago, it was the done thing to spend thousands on advertising in print media, nowaday’s you’d be mad to ignore the reach and low cost of creating a presence online.

You could create a blog for nothing, in minutes, and build a website for next to nothing in a day or so. AND start driving traffic to it for pence straightaway. Not to mention a snappy demo for YouTube.

These days, getting top rankings for search terms in Google doesn’t need to cost the thousands I’ve heard of people paying either.

As with so much of developing your invention or product innovation, the quality of the results are often proportionate to the DIY effort you put in, not the money you spend.

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