I am looking forward to IANE meeting next week…  Daniela Stark is the inventor and developer of the Kidknows Outdoor Thermometer, which empowers kids to choose the right outdoor clothing even if they are not old enough to recognize numbers.  Daniela was an award winning industrial designer for Product Genesis and Arthur D. Little, Inc.  She has been an independent consultant for medical and consumer product companies.

Homepage Sell Sheet

Perhaps even more interesting is that the Kidnow was posted on a Blog in August and received 25 comments of market demand encouragement.

Of all the strategies that I have used to get feedback, I have found the Inventor’s Clinic of IANE to be the most painless and most helpful.  Although I have yet to present, I attended my second last night and left wondering why this type of meeting doesn’t happen all the time across the world.  Maybe it does, under different names and not highly advertised to keep the crowd honest and small.  I’ll give you a quick run down of the meeting structure and regulations, so perhaps you can create your own inventor’s clinic where you live and then talk about why these meetings are great for the inventors.

The meeting is held at Bob’s house, the president of IANE (private residence so not disclosure) and feature coffee and water, although next month I will bring brownies.  The group is members of IANE (only $40/ yr) only, between 10-15 people show up.  Around four people show up to present their idea.  Each presenter has a non disclosure (3 yr length) the audience signs that  also assigns all ideas from the meeting to the inventor free of charge.  The confidentiality agreement includes a few vague words about the invention, so if anyone in the audience is working on something similar, they can excuse themselves.  The meetings are recorded by a digital audio recorder and this time by a camcorder.  Bob runs through the typical pitch format, problem, market, competition, solution, questions for the audience like would you buy, at what price etc.  The recording starts, the confidentiality agreement and social contract (help the presenter, so when you present you get help) are explained.  The inventor is introduced, the door is closed so someone who comes in late and hasn’t signed the agreement can’t hear the presentation has to wait in the kitchen.  And then the fun begins.

The response, questions, concerns all coming from fellow inventors that specialize in different fields like engineering, manufacturing and marketing and relying on the most universal attribute among the crowd, consumers drives the fun.  Of course, I can’t talk about the inventions, questions, answers or even the results but it seems as though the presenters leave the meeting with an idea of what to do next, whether it be to abort, pursue this avenue, talk to these people or just get going and do it.

As a product developer, I thrive on getting products moving forward in a productive direction.  Whether a client, a fellow inventor or just someone on the street, helping ideas get to the next stage delivers a lot of satisfaction.  The inventors clinic seems to be able to do that in a cheap, easy, honest, and effective means.  I’ll be attending these for a long time.

As you dive into your research to discover the market, competition and technology around your invention, the materials you have uncovered start to pile up. If you are like me and you like hard copies to take notes on, highlight and organize, then you will start to develop giant piles, binders and folders loosely organized around the different topics. Many inventors, because of their creativity get a little crazy with all this material. However, I’d like to share a few strategic points and tricks (although not unique or ground breaking) that can help.

1. Brainstorm Keywords
2. Google Search, go through quite a few pages
3. Stay disciplined, use a form that tracks citations and summaries of findings

Now the tricks,

Google Search, check out this link that will explain lots of tricks to isolate the important (or unimportant) keywords. They will cut down on the number of irrelevant results.

Research Template: Come up with a research template to keep track of the important products / websites (if you don’t like hard copies).  All this data will be very helpful when you do a full scale competitive product analysis.   An example template…

Google Keywords Used - You don’t want to keep searching the same ones

Product Name: Price - Find the price (most likely a range from different vendors)

Summary What is it in 1 sentence

Vendors - Know who they are because you might want to sell there someday.  Also helps gauge the strength of the competitor (E.G. Amazon or Bob’s Online Warehouse).

Links - You have to keep track of the citations (nothing more frustrating than trying to re-find a hidden product on the web)

More in-depth Summary of Product - What is their product pitch

Technical Specs - How does it work, can you learn anything from how they did it?

Online Reviews - Where is the product struggling, what is it good at?  Is yours better in the important areas???

Bryan Daigle’s (founder and president of Idea Tango) recent blog  about surveys got me thinking. While I completely agree that a quick and dirty survey, especially early in the idea process is essential, some experts prefer in-depth interviews with customers. In-depth interviews can be very helpful in finding latent (hidden) needs, details on use of new product and demonstrations on how the problem is currently being solved.  However a survey can show interesting statistical analysis from a large, random and unknown population sample.  So, today I thought I’d do a comparative analysis of surveys vs. interviews.

Surveys

Surveys need to be focused on the analysis from the beginning.  This does not mean tailoring the survey for manipulation of responses, but it does mean that you want to know what your analysis will show (good or bad) from the beginning.  How do you plan your survey?  If you randomly pick people off the street and get them to respond to the survey, what do the results mean? Does your random survey mean that those results can be extrapolated into the whole population of your state, the US and the world?  Probably not.  However, when you focus your survey on your target market (like Diagle’s example of using hardware store customers) then you can start to apply those statistics to the larger target market.

Why Surveys are good

Surveys help build the market size case. As we talked about earlier, you can apply survey results to a the larger markets saturation percentage.  You can also do lots of statistical analysis based on a survey like regression analysis, three factor interaction and radar charts.    Surveys often measure instinctual response, which is good because the purchase decision is often quick.  Most importantly is the large sample size that can be attained by the easy scaling of a finite document.

Why Surveys are tough

You only get answers to the questions you ask.  Seems simple, but the design of a survey can be very strenuous.  Question structuring, survey architecture and styling are all difficult variables that affect the survey.   More than the survey, the surveyor can have a big affect on the question responses.  On my first survey, when I wore a suit I got great responses but a polo didn’t produce the same results (business people survey target).  Also, because the sample size is important you are always doing it.  I aim for 75 responses, but always keep going.

Why In-Depth Interviews are good

If you can sit down with a customer or have an extended phone call, you can get the person on the other end thinking about your product from their perspective.  Often early questions get readdressed later in the conversation after the topic is kicked around in the sub conscience.  Interviews can uncover needs unknown to yourself that relate to the problem.  Perhaps most importantly, in-depth interviews can help you through the development process.  Curious about where to put a button, ask a customer and have them think about it.

Why In depth interviews are tough

Your responders need to take 30 minutes plus out of their day to talk to you.  It can be tough to sell someone that taking that time is worth it for them.  Aim for people that often meet with people from outside the establishment.  The major downfall is the sample size can be very small and even as you grow your sample size, the respondents don’t match up.  So you have lots of details on conflicting views.  Honestly, this is a part of inventing and you need to sift through the data, pick out what is important (you may not like it) and go with it.

Tips and Tricks

USE STRANGERS

Surveys…

Multiple choice with other write in option on all questions

Put it online, or at least use the online tools:

Zoomerang.com – Online Survey Tool, (costs $ but does some fancy statistical analysis)

Surveymonkey.com – Free, but only simple analysis provided

Provide a treat / prize (lemonade on a hot day)

Keep it short, responders will be more willing if it really only takes 2 minutes

Bryan’s trick- Say its for your friend inventions, respondents will be more honest

In depth Interviews…

Introduce them to your product before meeting them

Send a list of questions in advance

Let the conversation drift into what they think, you will get more than just pounding away on your questions.

Conclusion

Do both, each has its strengths.  The good thing is that they both compliment each other.

Survey Sample Questions

I just puilled these questions from a survey I did.

First Qualify the audience to your target market: Age, Gender, Children in household, etc

Do they feel the need: have you ever had a problem with X, what did you do, who was affected adversely, does this bother you?

How much would you pay for a product with these 5 features, where would you buy it and how many would you buy?

We are always here to help with new product development marketing, so feel free to contact us.

This is a continuation of our previous post, “So I’ve Got A Great Idea, Now What? Part 1″ If you haven’t read it, please do as this post follows those previous steps. Don’t forget to USE YOUR NOTEBOOK.

If you have completed the last step you should have some similar patents. Read through the claims they are the most important part. Although the drawings help identify what the product is, the drawings are not defensible in a utility patent. As you move forward in the development, these patents will help a professional do a patent search, usually for around $500-$1000.

You know who the competition is, now find out everything about them.  Internet research can teach you about the company, their product offerings and what industries / applications they are focusing on.  You also need to know how their product works.  Buy the competitive products and evaluate them for your need.  Take them apart, examine how they were made, what technology to they use, a lot of questions can be answered by this process.  This can be expensive, especially if your product competes in the few hundred dollars price range.  If you wanted a cheap adventure, get a library card and start reading all the books.  Product development, even if you are bootstrapping requires investment. On one project I bought ten competitive products and spent $500 out of my own pocket. Hopefully when you get investment, like I did, those costs get reimbursed.  Plus “standing on the shoulders of giant’s” is a lot cheaper and easier than “reinventing the wheel”.

Now dive into the market. Uncover demand for your product. Having close (but not as good) competition helps, but you need to know the statistics. How many people need your product (total market), how large is the need for your product (market pain), how is your market growing? These three factors indicate the market potential, and directly correlate to the potential success of your invention.

Now that you know what the competition is, what the market wants and what patents are out there, you can start to define your product. Brainstorm the top 10 of 15 features that your product needs FROM THE CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE.  Let it all pour out.  An example is on our PaperPro Part 2 post. Don’t over think the product goals initially, just put them all down on paper. Then go through and prioritize them. Then isolate the critical components, these are often the top 5. Use these as your T5+2, (we have a post about how to use the T5+2).

Sketch out a few concepts that incorporate your top critical product components. Don’t spent too much time on this because it will change dramatically, but get your ideas down on your notebook.  Now things are about to get very interesting.