Pitchmen, a new show on the Discovery Channel puts inventors, entrepreneurs and seasoned Pitchmen professionals together to bring new products to market.

The recent episodes I have seen (episodes are not online) had products that were on Tools, Fitness, Cosmetics and Home & Garden. A few recent products are the  Tool Bandit, Grabit, Spin Gym, and  Heel Stick.

The typical show format is an introduction to four new concepts in a very short pitch, two of which will become the focus of the show.  The team will then push the product towards market.  Every product is different, is in a different stage and therefore needs different things including advertising / trade show/ investment & partnership presentation.  Billy and Sully often do sidewalk or environmental test markets.

What Else you get behind the Scenes

ABCs of Pitching

While doing demo hand movements can attract attention – good but shouldn’t cover up the demonstration – Bad

Story of the invention big. 50% of selling is the product, the other 50% is getting customers to buy the person / story. Going against big competition: Oxy Clean, Tide – stain pen.

Idea evaluations

Product concerns

Price Setting

Attractive Appearance

Easy to Use

Branding / Naming / Trademarks

On Wednesday December 3rd Flashpoint Development will be featured on the CBS Boston (WBZ-TV) news at 6pm and 11 pm.  The story will focus on several of our projects nearing market and the process that we utilize.  As many know, our non-confidential projects are often used as real in-class examples for Tucker’s graduate school classes at Northeastern’s School of Technological Entrepreneurship and I am sure they are going to dive into the use of these projects in the story.  Hopefully you all can watch, but if now we will attain a clip and feature it on our homepage when possible.  I’ll let you know the behind the scenes of the taping on Wednesday.  We are looking forward to meeting Mish Michaels.

This past SNL episode featured an inventor pitching her product, Clear-Rite an adult retainer that is unnoticeable.

The inventor had developed a prototype, a package and was practicing her infomercial. Of course, like many invention pieces on TV this is meant for entertainment which means that they are going to make fun of this inventor despite her progress. She did super-glue her prototype in her mouth and was practicing her infomercial in front of a mirror, but does that make her crazy like SNL depicted? I don’t think so and the continued mockery of invention by TV is somewhat disturbing for a professional inventor. I have to admit I laughed.

This past Friday Jay Leno featured six inventions from the Yankee Invention Expo and the InventBay Expo. In this segment, Pitch to America, The inventor introduces the idea, does a quick demo and the audience crowd guesses sold or not sold. As I have been told in the past, this is an entertainment piece and is not very friendly towards inventors often framing them as crazy.  However, I do believe that there is a lot to learn about each of the products that sold, the pitches of products that didn’t sell and getting on the show.

First I was psyched to see the Stay Dry Face Shield on the show.  I saw this at the Yankee Invention Expo and thought it might be a great product.  I have been staying away from medical devices (for myself) because of the complications that never seem to end but this one did catch my eye.  Of course the inventor didn’t have a great marketing story and without that it is hard to buy into.  Questions I had like, how many people have face plastic surgery a year? were sidestepped instead of a statistic (that should be growing).  Anyway I am happy to see that they sold and have even more respect for the Yankee Invention Expo for making the selling connection.  Only one other product sold, the Pop Blocks and honestly I didn’t exactly get it.

Of the ones that didn’t sell, (four) three had problem issues and the security purse had a major solution issue.  Regardless the majority were struggling to rationalize their idea, instead of picking a problem that is an issue.  Anyway it was an interesting TV segment, and even those that didn’t sell I am sure are enjoying the publicity.

Prototype This, is a great new show on the Discovery Channel.  It continued to answer my dreams of a truely great prototyping / product development show.  Many of their tactics for quick prototyping are those that we employ throughout the entire development process.  They use existing technology, so no long term research and development is necessary (they only have a few weeks).  More importantly they outsource through an established network!  In the second episode featuring boxing robots they utilized the help of many area experts to get their prototype done.

• Golden Glove winner, Professional Boxer
• Motion Capture Company
• Robot Building Expert
• Welders

While the team may have been able to do this project with their internal team, they saved a ton of time using experts and got a better end product because of it.  The team knew how to weld, but needed extra hands.  The team could have learned to box, but that can take years of experience.  These days, especially in this business outsourcing has come to mean going overseas.  Although we do go to Asia for some of our advanced prototyping and manufacturing, the majority of our outsourcing is very similar to Prototype This.  I can’t wait for next weeks show!