Business idea

No worries. if it's anything related to consumer electronics or some other consumer goods, or to certain types of services or software I can give you some feedbsck/pointers as we do a lot of that. if it's end use is airport specific some of our products are in every single major airport and many country ones in australia.

 

You might want to look into regulatory (functional, performance, safety, environmental) aspects of the product as well before finalizing the design as consumer markets are usually well regulated. It is not unusual to come up with a beautiful design which is non-compliant with a safety or environmental regulation and eliminates a market or worse becomes a liability.

Currently advising a startup on CE compliance. Feel free to discuss any regulatory compliance issues.

 

I've got a shed of proto-types - all of which are fantastic ideas, but had a "road block" to production ... might revisit them as the ideas are still very relevant and exciting, but perhaps in different form.

What I found out from talking to those in the "products" industry (as opposed to service industry), and a friend who is an Australian based sourcing agent for arranging goods to be manufactured in China, unless something is totally revolutionary ground breaking and you want to go to the expense of protecting your product worldwide (and are cashed up and prepared to take ripoffs to court), there is no point in having a patent ... IP is worthwhile more to cover your business identity (and integrity), such as you logo and name, than the item in particular.

As an example - my sourcing agent friend was touring a factory in China as research for a customer - the factory was (on that day) making backpacks with a well known brand logo all over it. Apparently the request has been for the factory to copy a highly sought after backpack, the client had given the factory a sample of the backpack and asked them to make it ...thinking it would be out of a non-descript fabric ... not realising the Chinese would produce an identical backpack, logo and all.

It is simply to easy for someone to copy your idea - and a slight modification (10%) means the patent is worthless anyhow. You are better to continue to innovate and stay ahead of the pack (think iPhone versus Samsung)

What I did find is essential - above anything else - is the ability to sell snow to the Eskimos - coal to Newcastle - pasta to the Italians ... and sell it with a constant passion to everyone you come across.

I also quickly found that a single product doesn't cut it ... one has to have the concept with a "line" that follows - continually updating, adding, offering - to keep the product "fresh" and relevant ... having a range of "add on's" is also high on my list, where the original product is flexible and, with this add on for merely $99, , can be adapted to suit the use of it's particular location or customer.

Without giving anything away re my proto-types ... two products I sell currently (not very high tech and won't make me millions) ...

One is a cheese paste - like a quince paste - but made out of wine instead of fruit. Really, the recipe is simply a *******ised wine jelly recipe I pinched off the internet. Three varieties of wine - no point is having more varieties as people won't "buy more", they'll just "buy different" ... but I needed more than simply 3 products - so started making wine and citrus marmalades. They were really yum, but didn't sell a lot because marmalades are available anywhere ...faded out that line. Added in a wine mustard ... not as big a seller as the pastes, but has a steady turnover and caters to a different sector of the market. Realised that six products is still really not enough, so experimented a bit and added in a mulled wine version of the cheese paste. This is our top seller and we now have nine products in the line, which seems to sit quite nicely ... the product is now sold in two states as numerous outlets ... for something that was merely a stopgap between garlic harvests. I'm wanting to the extend the line, but haven't had much luck with wine toffees ... will keep trying.

The other item is the garlic itself. Even tho the garlic bulbs are a huge seller with consumers (cause it's blimin' great garlic) - and the majority of it is sold online - my big sellers with the local hatted restaurants are the side products that most commercial growers would throw out - the undersized garlic, freshly cooked and serve as whole baby garlic - the garlic scapes (unopened flower heads) - the garlic shoots that pop up in my garlic scraps pile ... I've now added, at the request of the restaurants, society garlic flowers.

Now, I understand these are not high tech product - but the concept is the same ... great marketing ... passionate ... range ... talk to everyone ... listen to feedback for new ideas

Anyone can grow garlic or make wine jelly ... but it's that next step of getting the product out there, and creating demand, that is most important

 

Thanks @Lizzie!

 

I guess what I'm saying is that anyone can make/grow/produce the products that I make ... there is no secret to how they are made ... but I do make sure I have my logo registered with IP Australia and my business names with ASIC.

The secret to my success is getting the products out there on the tastebuds of consumers - creating the demand through passion - and selling the story (with direct consumer sales the story is very important)

 

Thanks @Lizzie very interesting info

With my idea i don't want to do anything! I want to secure it with a patent but then sell the license to a bigger company to do all the work. I don't want to sell it myself as i won't get many sales, id rather have it on the shelf next to similar products in a big store and i just get a cut.
if it is half decent id imagine the bigger companies may just copy it without a patent. ...but after reading it sounds like a good chance of that being done anyway!

 

No dramas - without knowing your product, or what you wanted to do with it, the advice was only meant to be general anyhow.

Not much new out there anyhow - more, tweaks on existing products with a twist (ie, Branson) - unless it is truly innovative a la Tesla.

 

What about import business? Has any of you done importing?

 

Yes, currently doing it for predominantly retail/consumer items but in the past did a lot of import into Singapore and a bit into australia and a lot of export from here to Singapore/Malaysia and from singapore to Japan. this was all supplying businesses though not retail. at one stage I think we wouldve been doing up to 300 containers a year or so.

it's an entirely different thing from exploring the commercialisation of an idea you have, I suggest focusing on what you really want to do instead of a scattergun approach though.

starting a business here importing products will be a more involved process than your original idea, if you're passionate about your product idea I'd suggest exploring that first then if it doesn't work or appear feasible move on to something else. that's just how I'd play it,

one of my roles is in evaluating opportunities my partner/s find or want to explore and deciding what to say yes or no to or what to explore first. taking a structured/strategic approach will not only lead to a better chance of success too but a more efficient result. for example, if you try too many things at once you might find it takes you say 2 years to find out the idea is not going to work and to dump it vs 6 months. the exercise of exploring it isnt a waste of time but the extra 18 months spent certainly would be

 

Get some books on how the process works.
You might not even need to go as far as trying to register a patent, prototyping etc...
Sometimes you're better off approaching the main players in the game with your idea, let them do what they do and you get a percentage.

 

Thanks sanj. perhaps, i'm getting a little bit ahead of myself but the thought of doing another business on the side excites me!

 

Larry x 2, from personal experience, there are a few rules you should think about:-

1. How is a competitor, current or future, going to copy your idea and try and screw you; and

2. How is your idea going to blow up in your face?; and

3. See Rule # 1 and 2.

If you manage these rules ruthlessly, your idea might have some legs.

See Lizzie's post above, which just owns the idea of "innovation" and "adaptation", to achieve an ideal and ongoing outcome.

In my own experience, our venture just knew more, innovated more, sold more, was faster to market, and punched harder than much larger organisations, and subsequently any competitors were vanquished.

In an industry where, if you see a competitor drowning, you shove a hose down their throat (just to make sure...).

Apparently Rule # 4 was that it's not the size of the dog in the fight...

And, apparently Rule # 5 was the first rule of Fight Club...

 

The idea is the easy part, the work really lies in taking it from concept to a marketable product.

Let's say @larrylarry came up with an idea for an app. Even a trivial one is likely to need three or four months work to be in a usable state, and there'd probably be a few tweaks to the concept along the way.

Plus there's a good chance that someone else is doing exactly the same thing already. The winners tend to be the best at implementation.

For example, Google was a better search engine than Altavista or Yahoo; Facebook was a better social network than MySpace; and Twitter beat out Pownce.

 

Larry x 2, Graeme just hit the nail on the head.

Everybody (who questionably might be aged above 40...ish...) knows that Beta was a better format than VHS, and we all know how that worked out.

As in the comedic world, it's all in the delivery.

 

I would never say Beta was better than VHS.
But Bluray is definitely better than HD DVD.