Many consumer product inventions involve plastic manufacturing.  Inventors are often shocked moving towards manufacturing when they realize the costs involved in actually manufacturing their goods.  This is one of the main reasons that inventors are looking to license so early, however there is a way to manufacture without investing a few hundred thousand dollars.

Unfortunately, the shock generally occurs when an inventor brings an invention prototype to one manufacturer.  Even if you go to all the plastic injection molding facilities within your area, you are often only seeing one part of a much larger equation.  The reality of molding is that there are different kinds that incur different types of costs.  Basically, a low production mold will cost up to 1/10 of a high production mold, but the costs per unit increase dramatically as well.  However, the major difference is in the way an inventor deals out the cash.  A high volume production mold is a lot of upfront money, and without prior sales this is a big risk.  A low volume mold will cost a lot less, but you won’t be making as much money per sale because of the unit costs.

What is the answer????

The answer is start small, make sales and look for investment for higher volume tooling.  Inventors are always looking for investment, often before a prototype is even built.  This type of investment is so risky that it is almost never done.  However, an investment to make more money on a promising (sales, retail expansion) although not easy, is a lot less rare.