Product Design & Development Services for Inventors

Invention Basics

This part of our website explains the basic elements of generating profit from product ideas. Your initial development work should be focused on validating your business case, equiping you to sell your idea, and helping you to establish capital needs.

Great Ideas

Many projects that we work on start with a prototype that someone created in their garage. Before focusing on how it works and how to make it work better, we usually focus on understanding what problem the product solves.

We evaluate the needs of the end-user; these needs ultimately drive the need for the product. In determining whether the idea is viable, we focus first on determining whether you have picked a good problem to solve.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that Slingshot uses for generating significant quantities of ideas regarding a particular problem or situation. The environment of the brainstorm is one that promotes free thought, limits negative criticism until the appropriate time, and encourages participants to build on other's ideas. Often the most valuable brainstorming results are the unexpected ideas that emerge from seemingly silly concepts.

Critiquing the ideas, or Reverse Brainstorming, comes next. The environment of this activity is generally one of scrutiny. Each idea is objectively evaluated. Those that are dead ends, and cannot be built upon are set aside, and surviving ideas form the basis for solutions concepts.

There are many brainstorming techniques, and some are more effective for particular situations than others. At Slingshot, we've carefully crafted our techniques to make efficient use of time, while creating a very broad range of ideas.

Evaluating the idea

Objectively evaluating an idea is often difficult for the inventor who originated the idea. Typically, the inventor is too close to the project to make realistic estimations of the idea's worth. One thing we advise is the ten-person test.

Slingshot can create a photo-realisitc rendering of what your product might look like. Put a price-tag on this image and show it to ten people you can trust (get them to sign a confidentiality agreement). Ask them if they would buy the product for the price you have in mind. It is very important that you select people who will tell you the truth, even if the truth is 'no, I wouldn't buy it'.

If your ideas passes the common sense ten-person test, then it's time to start thinking about more formal evaluation tools. These include focus groups, surveys, and developing a thorough understanding of the market in question. Slingshot and its network can assist you with planning and executing these market evaluation strategies.

Established organizations spend thousands of dollars on focus groups to make sure that they are developing products that will be accepted by the market. But even with all this feedback, you still need to make the decision. Focus group feedback is not typically black & white and require gut understanding of a market and its needs.

Protect the Idea

It is important to protect your idea with a non-disclosure agreement before discussing the details with anyone (even us).

Slingshot's standard NDA, or one created by your lawyer can serve this purpose. Eventually, you'll want to build your intellectual property with patent protection. Slingshot will be happy to suggest some of the patent attorneys we've worked with in the past.

Another good place to look is the Association of Patent Law Firms (www.aplf.org).

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The Right Team

Launching a company around a product idea requires the right team. Many of the investors we've worked with describe the quality of the team as the primary factor they use when deciding to invest. Very few people individually possess all the talents necessary for launching a successful product company.

Everyone has unique strengths, and it is important to surround yourself with people whose strengths complement your own. In addition to product development and commercialization assistance, you will need help in financing (raising money), accounting, patent law, corporate law, securities law (if selling equity), etc.

Slingshot's extended team includes a network that crosses many disciplines to help ensure that all aspects of your product launch are covered.

Marketing

Marketing a product correctly is one of the keys to the financial success of a venture. Slingshot has a number of marketing and commercialization experts in our network.

We can help connect you with the right marketing resources for your product.

Manufacturers

Slingshot works with many manufacturers all over the globe so that we can connect our clients with the manufacturer best suited to their needs.

When working with Asian companies, we typically suggest working with a company that has an American office and has project management offices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or other major commercial centers.

Patent Attorneys

Your intellectual property position is critical to the success of your organization. In general, a patent gives you the right to protect your property from infringement. Your patent strength will help determine whether you will license or commercialize the idea.

We highly recommend that our clients meet with a patent attorney before meeting with Slingshot so that they understand their options. Slingshot works with many reputable patent law firms but is not officially aligned with any firms. Slingshot will be happy to suggest some of the patent attorneys we've worked with in the past. See our Resources page for a short list.

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Product Launch Plan

This plan lays out the steps that will be taken to develop the product and get it to market. It gives investors and partners reasons to believe you will be successful, and it helps maintain the focus of all those involved in the venture.

It is reasonable to expect others to invest time or money in a good plan, but it is rare to find someone willing to invest in an idea alone. Thus, the prospect of success for your venture is usually directly related presented.

Slingshot helps you develop and refine your plan, and we give you the tools to present professionally.

Product Launch Plan

The Product Development component of the plan outlines the steps for designing, prototyping, testing, manufacturing, and ensuring the quality of the product.

At Slingshot, our philosophy is to do the appropriate amount of development for each stage of the product launch process.

This philosophy is based on the reality that you may need to say "no" to a number of ideas in early development before you say "yes" to taking one through full development.

TYPICALLY, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT INCLUDES:

Define and understand the target user group
Define the design requirements and goals
Create and Refine Concepts for the product
Preliminary Engineering
Quoting and Cost Estimation
Optimize the design
Release the design for manufacture

Commercialization

You now have a plan for developing a great product that is designed to meet the needs of the marketplace.

But, how do you get your product into that marketplace and sold?

The key components of a commercialization plan include:
the DISTRIBUTION plan, the MARKETING plan, the SALES plan.

But, what if you don't want to launch a company around your idea?

What if you just want to sell your idea or license it to a manufacturer? These strategies also require a commercialization plan, one geared toward seeking a licensing agreement. Slingshot can help you develop the design presentation, prototypes, and marketing materials with a high level of sophistication so that you can present your case to established manufacturers as a viable and serious company rather than as a sole inventor.

Profitability Spread

If you are the head of a company that creates a product satisfying a market need, your job is to make the product for as little as possible and to sell it for as much aspossible.

The difference is called “The spread.” When sizing an opportunity, we consider the spread and the size of the market as primary factors. Slingshot typically helps by obtaining accurate estimates of the cost of producing a product. We rely on our clients (or third party testing) to determine the appropriate market price for the product.

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Appropriate Funding

As a start-up organization, you will need a certain amount of capital to fund your operation until you are cash-flow positive. You will need enough cash to fund your development plan, intellectual property plan, commercialization plan, legal expenses, prototyping, logistics, and other expenses.

Most of our clients are funded in one of these ways: self-funded, friends & family, private equity firms, or through angel investor networks.

Opportunity Size

Based on our experiences with several product-based start-ups, we have learned that opportunity size is a key reason why item-based businesses are not funded.

Speculative investors want a 10 to 1 return on their money. E.g. If you give up 1/3 of your company for $100,000, then that investor typically wants to believe that his equity will be worth $1,000,000 in 3 years. That means your company/opportunity must be worth $3,000,000. Some "item-based businesses" are just not big enough to justify speculative investment.

Convincing Investors

Based on our experiences with several product-based start-ups, we have learned that there are several common flaws that investors look for in business plans. Based on these experiences, we provide this outline of what we think is essential for any product-based business plan.

When presenting your product ideas to investors, there are certain basic elements that you need to include.

We usually present in this order:

Market Need - What problems does your product solve? What market need does your product satisfy?
Product Idea - Describe your idea. How does it satisfy need? What makes it novel? Is your idea protectable?
Opportunity Size - Present data showing market size, expected sales price, manufacturing cost. What is the profit/year opportunity?
Team - Does your team have industry experience? Has the team launched companies? Does your team balance operations and sales?
Plan - How do you plan to design and make the product? How do you plan to market, sell, and distribute the product? Will your product sell at the intended price?
Use of Funds - Clearly define the use of funds that will take you all the way to cash-flow positive.

Investing

Many of the start-up companies we work with accept funding from outside sources. If you have interest in investing in any of these opportunities, please contact us and we will connect you with the appropriate principals.