Research is very difficult.  It can take days to sift through the internet just to make sure that there isn’t another product just like your idea online.  Once you are fairly sure that right now (something could always pop-up tomorrow) there is nothing like it, you widen the net.  Eventually you will find some similar products, but they are different, inadequate and off point.  Having competition is not bad, but they need to be carefully analyzed.  Is the competition a success?  Probably not (because you didn’t find them off the bat), so the important question is WHY?

I found something interesting on Inventorspot, a website that shows new products.  Behold SleepPhones in Fleece

As someone who did a project in the past involving the sleep assistance (audio visual and other) I thought this was interesting. Some of us do listen to music while falling asleep and some of us worry about being strangled by the wire of a set of headphones.

This inventor could have spent days searching for headphones in headbands and probably found several athletic applications. I wonder if the inventor widened the net? Widdening the net can be very hard, how can I take incremental steps backward from my invention towards the issue and find other competition?  A quick keyword brainstorm delivers: sleep audio (mind machines, sleeping cds) sleep speakers and ahh on my second thought I found something interesting / threatening at least worth looking into. This brainstorm was not technology focused (although you should do one of those too) instead it was problem, customer and market focused.

We found: Sleep Therapy Pillow

LESSONS:

1. I am not saying the headband will fail because of the pillow. I am saying that finding competition can be easier if you start taking the customers perspective. Both products solve the issue of being strangled while sleeping, so from a customers perspective they are direct competition.

2. Competition like the pillow whether direct or indirect need to be thoroughly analyzed.  How long has the pillow been on sale, how many have they sold, what is their growth like, where are they being sold?  Think of all of the competitive products that are inadequate (not saying pillow or headphones are) as market trials of a prototype, the only issue is that you are not privey to the specific data (although with a few phone calls you might get some of them).

3. Lean from your analysis.  If the pillows aren’t being sold there maybe several reasons.  One reason that you should not ignore is the problem isn’t very prevalent and severe.  It might be that the marketing effort was weak, so how would you do it better?  Was the price too high, how does your price point compare (pillow $50, headband $60)?

4. When I was inventing, I practically lived on the internet.  Searching for new competition, market data, technical breakthroughs can essentially eat up a year.  It is important to take steps back from the data (search results) and do the analysis.