What to do with an idea for a new product?

[fluffy_little_something]

I'll turn into a fluffy little orca, that eats all the fish including great white sharks

[vurt]

in other words you need a fish to catch a fish?

Yes, but it works sequentially. With a small fish in hand, you can catch a bigger fish... and with that fish, you may be able to catch an even bigger fish. Eventually, you may have the opportunity to be the big fish but then you risk being caught yourself.

Actually, I'm not sure if that metaphor really works.

well, people catch fish with no fish all the time, with nets. or worms. or are worms fish now? i can never keep up with science.
i know mushrooms are animals.

[BMoore]

Crowdfunding.

But I would still have to find an engineer somehow who turns my idea into a product. I am already working on the details and operation, but someone would have to implement it all.

Worry about the funding first. There are thousands of companies that does the rest.

Can you recommend a crowdfunding platform?

Yes.

[fluffy_little_something]

Very useful reply. Are you a bot?


Anyway, say I opt for the crowd-funding path, I would have to present my idea in public, obviously. Can anyone roaming those platforms steal my idea or is it kind of protected once I publish it on such a platform?

[BertKoor]

Good ideas come cheap by the dozens. Turning them into working implementations that are ready for the market is really expensive.

It's good to share your ideas in public. Make it teasing, but leave out some critical implementation details. That should be enough protection against blatent theft.

[fluffy_little_something]

That's the problem, the idea is simple and obvious, I am surprised nobody had it before
As soon as I state the basic idea, anyone could copy it.

[vurt]

is it cup holders on synths?

[jancivil]

This notion of having an idea and finding an engineer to execute is not how the world works.
So as to the question: What to do with an idea for a new product? You have proof of concept in hand. This is primary.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Im going to pitch this idea to Infected Mushroom

A synth with one piano key

TarnceSynth

[VariKusBrainZ]

We all now the synth playing community has a growing demographic of old age muscians and its an untapped market:

The Synth Doily

[BMoore]

That's the problem, the idea is simple and obvious, I am surprised nobody had it before
As soon as I state the basic idea, anyone could copy it.

There’s probably many companies/people with the same idea, but there’s a reason it’s not a product.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Whats the most annoying thing about a synth?

The power switch is always on the back!

Weve all spent countless hours, that could be used more productivly, fumbling blindly trying to find the switch.

Lets petition a new standard

It needs a catchy moniker to capture the public's imagination:

Power Switch On Front of Synth

[VariKusBrainZ]

Weve all got synth sitting around doing nothing 99% of the time

They could be making you money, with a simple retro fit kit a new revenue stream could be yours

CryptoCurrencySynth

[Distorted Horizon]

Whats the most annoying thing about a synth?

The power switch is always on the back!

Weve all spent countless hours, that could be used more productivly, fumbling blindly trying to find the switch.

Lets petition a new standard

It needs a catchy moniker to capture the public's imagination:

Power Switch On Front of Synth

You'd be hitting that power switch accidentally all the time if it was on front. I believe you're not fingering the butt of your synths without any reason all the time?

[AnalogGuy1]

I'm an electrical/computer engineer, and have turned several hardware ideas into licensed revenue-earning streams. Every week I have a student (I'm a professor) ask a variant of the question "how can I earn money from this idea?" hoping that they can license rights to an existing, large company in return for a revenue percentage since I've done it before.

Although theoretically possible, without a prototype, it is extremely unlikely. Large companies have their own ideas for new products, which come from engineering, management, and sales. These ideas (for a large company, we're talking 100's a year) go into a hopper from which management selects the best few to be prototyped (perhaps 10's per year), which typically costs between 10k and 100k USD, depending on the complexity. Then marketing/sales works with management to determine which of these prototypes will do best in the market, perhaps one a year. This prototype goes through re-engineering for production, which costs perhaps 100k-200k depending on complexity, and then the first production run is made.

So the problem is convincing a company to consider your ideas among the 100's it produces internally, when yours comes burdened with IP (patent) considerations. If you can visit them with a hardware prototype, they'll take the idea more seriously, and then you are only competing against perhaps a dozen others instead of 100's.

The process is definitely possible, if you're willing to put in the time & effort, but is not for the faint of heart. The steps are, roughly, protecting your IP with a provisional patent (no reason to pay the big bucks for a full utility patent at this stage), hiring an engineer to get to the prototype stage, and then hiring someone with negotiating savvy to approach the large companies for a license deal.