The Other Kind of Research: Put your IDEA into the World

The last article went into discovery of your idea for a product. You found out what the problem is you want to solve and which way, towards a solution, you want to take. You applied critical thinking and tried to find flaws. At the end you decided that your idea can work and that putting more work into it might be worth it.

Now it is time to put your idea to the test with the outside world: by comparison with the already available solutions. 

How new is the solution or are others already on the same path? Did others already come up with the same idea or is everyone solving the problem in another way? How did they approach the solution? What makes existing solutions different to yours or how can you differentiate from them?

Not being the first on the market doesn’t have to be a flaw: 

• You know that customers exists that might buy your product.
• You can find out which problems the other companies have.
• What can you do better than them?

Mostly you just have to produce the same thing, but make it a little bit better. No need to come up with the most futuristic, new thing. This is actually a very hard way, because people mostly want what they know works.

So, let’s go through some areas where information can be found.

Patents

For innovative products, it is always a good idea to look for already existing patents. It may be that your idea is already protected by somebody else and this could lead to trouble later.

• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• Google Patents
• DEPATISnet of the German Patent Office (German)

Looking through dozens of patents can be very boring from time to time, but as long as patents exists this is necessary to make sure your product can go onto the market. You will have the sword of damocles dangling above your head if you are unsure if you haven’t copied someone. Obliviousness doesn’t protect from getting sued.

The importance can be a case to case basis: If you want to produce yourself and sell over the darknet you might just disregard patents. Also some countries may be indifferent if your market is local. If your product happens to be sold in North America or Europe you can easily get into a lot of trouble.

But all this shouldn’t keep you from constructing awesome stuff.

Companies

There may be small or big companies that are already working in this field. This shouldn’t discourage you, even if they have a head start: They are far into the project and already heavily invested, that makes it hard for them to pivot and change their strategy, which is very easy for you especially in the beginning. A change has to be approved in their internal bureaucracy as well, which makes them even slower to react. This is definitly a strength for you.

Don’t just look at their websites. When you find an interesting company you can contact them and try to get more information. You might even be able to help them out and offer them a service, but first just keep it passive. Keep asking.

A great chance is also to visit industrial fairs. I have been to some in Germany and the people there are always happy to tell you of their companies and their products. Just as a reminder: you are not there to steal their ideas. That is just cheap and there are many measures to prevent this. You are there to learn from them and to find out how you can help them.

...and of course to have fun!

Produkts

No matter what you are going to build, there are most certainly products similar to it already on the market. Look at a lot of them and learn from those solutions. 

• How is the Product structured?
• How is the problem solved?
• Which technical functions are combined?
• How much does it cost?
• What are the customers?
• What is the product margin (amount of produced products)?

There is no shame in taking the best ideas from other products and combining it to something new (as long as you beware of patents).

Other than the visits to the industrial fairs, as talked about above, you can go to stores and have a look at the products. Get a marketer to tell you about it. If you have questions you can call the company later and try to get answers. Maybe shoot them an email first, so that they are prepared. 

Design

Some products might be very futuristic and excite designers to produce studies and drawings. Take for example artworks about future settings. They often involve technological devices. Here you can try to find a device which fits to your idea.

It is very interesting how the designer thinks about the place of the device in the world. Who will use it and in what context?

If your product might be found in such a setting, you should do some image searches. Not only on Google, but also on DeviantArt, Pinterest and other places with lots of creative people. If you are really lucky you find it in a video or movie.

Inventors

There are many inventors with their own Youtube channels and blogs. It may be possible to find similar devices there. This might give you information about the problems the inventors discovered with it, either during construction, assembly or use. A search on YouTube or Vimeo might give you some suitable results.

If you want to see handy people, I can recommend checking out: 

• Colin Furze 
• Jamie Mantzel 
• Arduino vs Evil 
• Boston Dynamics 
• Deep Space Industries 
• Defense Distributed 
• Planetary Resources 
• Primitive Technology 
• Robot Dreams 
• SpaceX 
• The Thought Emporium 

See if you find someone that could help you out and try to contact them for more information. 

Goal of the research phase

Doing all this should put your early product idea through a trial of fire. At the end it should be clear to see if it is worth to continue, if a market and demand exists, if it is technically possible to produce and use your product. There may even be contact to a company interested in your product or the development by now.

It is important to notice that the risks of failing stop being low now, because with the next steps, the investment in the development will increase a lot. Now comes a lot of labour and work and it sure should be worth it.

So join me in the next article, when the framework is build to define the goal for the development.

To be continued

Did you read the first part already: What does an Engineer do?

Or the second part: The first STEP on the way to YOUR Product: Inventing