Hi guys
I have an idea in my head for a product which I could see many people buying and getting use out of.
I have done a degree in electronics and am decent at embedded programming PIC's in assembly, i am currently learning C for embedded systems.
I know how to make the basic product myself, for it to work in a very basic manner, but think that my knowledge and experience isnt good enough to make the product to a professional standard, where it can look and work professionally. I also have an idea to integrate the product to interact with an online service which people can subscribe to, but again, I dont have enough knowledge on how to do all this myself.
I also dont know how to design the casing/mechanical aspects of the product, i want it to look slick and be smooth and intuitive in nature like the way apple iphones are for example.
My questions are:
1) What would be the best way of developing my product, so that it is professional enough to appear on shop shelves? Do I try and learn all the different aspects of electronics/mechanical engineering/software/website design, and try and design it myself?
2)Do i pay someone to design it all for me, but how much roughly would that cost and could they steal my idea?
3) could i simply just sell the idea itself to a company eg sony, samsung etc... and agree with them that they will pay me 10% for every unit they sell (royalties)
4) should i patent the product before trying to sell it, and if i do that, dont i need a working prototype to be able to patent it, which then comes back to how to i make a working prototype.
I think i can make a basic working version that does the basic things... but the added more complicated functionality that i know would make the product 10x better i dont think i can do myself.
Has anybody ever thought of a idea and made money off it? Please could somebody give me some advice of what direction to take because I dont want to be wasting my time by spending ages trying to develop this myself. The people on dragons den who come with products and gadgets... how do they develop them by themselves..the idea is easy, but actually producing a prototype, how can you do it with limited knowledge?
Thank you
I have an idea in my head for a product which I could see many people buying and getting use out of.
I have done a degree in electronics and am decent at embedded programming PIC's in assembly, i am currently learning C for embedded systems.
I know how to make the basic product myself, for it to work in a very basic manner, but think that my knowledge and experience isnt good enough to make the product to a professional standard, where it can look and work professionally. I also have an idea to integrate the product to interact with an online service which people can subscribe to, but again, I dont have enough knowledge on how to do all this myself.
I also dont know how to design the casing/mechanical aspects of the product, i want it to look slick and be smooth and intuitive in nature like the way apple iphones are for example.
My questions are:
1) What would be the best way of developing my product, so that it is professional enough to appear on shop shelves? Do I try and learn all the different aspects of electronics/mechanical engineering/software/website design, and try and design it myself?
2)Do i pay someone to design it all for me, but how much roughly would that cost and could they steal my idea?
3) could i simply just sell the idea itself to a company eg sony, samsung etc... and agree with them that they will pay me 10% for every unit they sell (royalties)
4) should i patent the product before trying to sell it, and if i do that, dont i need a working prototype to be able to patent it, which then comes back to how to i make a working prototype.
I think i can make a basic working version that does the basic things... but the added more complicated functionality that i know would make the product 10x better i dont think i can do myself.
Has anybody ever thought of a idea and made money off it? Please could somebody give me some advice of what direction to take because I dont want to be wasting my time by spending ages trying to develop this myself. The people on dragons den who come with products and gadgets... how do they develop them by themselves..the idea is easy, but actually producing a prototype, how can you do it with limited knowledge?
Thank you
