If you have been following along, you have made a lot of progress on your idea. If not do a quick catch up, you will learn a lot and we will be on the same page:
This is where we often get clients so for some self promotion a list of our product development services and information on how we can help you. Okay now that we are done with that, I will continue as if I am running the show as an inventor / entrepreneur.
Product Engineering Spec (preliminary)- You have started to define the product as the customer sees it, but now you have to go through and find the engineering requirements for the product. If you have some electronics functions, you need an E.E. and so forth, Start a document outlining these areas and what expertise they might require.
Preliminary Feasibility- Find people to ask about your technical requirements. Find friends of friends and ask them general questions about the engineering requirements (social networking can help here). Is it a big deal, or easy? Has anyone done something like this in the past? You don’t have to divulge your idea to get some good feedback.
Make a “Ducktape Prototype”- Make something that illustrates the form or function. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just has to do something. Don’t go overboard on this, (I once spent a lot of money tweaking and building more of my ducktape prototype and honestly it was a waste of time & money). It will probably not qualify as a reduction to practice (utility patent requirement), but it will help rally your team (we’ll get to that).
Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, are you an E.E.? If you know a little about board design / prototyping perhaps you can get away with doing the first prototype, but it may take hours away from what you are good at like market research. If you know nothing about circuit board design you have two options, pay someone or get an E.E. on your team. Getting good team members is a large topic and will probably be another separate blog post.
Examine requirements- I have been talking about circuit boards, and E.E.s but there are often many different areas of expertise that are required to design, develop and launch a product. Areas include: industrial design, mechanical engineering / CAD, material science / manufacturing and so on based on the area of your invention.  Do some preliminary research and put it in your product specifications document.
These steps are quick to write about, but often take a long time to execute. Some of these topics / subtopics will be expanded on in future blog posts, but you should have an idea of what to do now. And if you get stuck, we can help you develop your product.
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