Famous inventor and entrepreneur Bob DeMatteis always says the same thing to every new entrepreneur and inventor: “If you want to be successful, then you must have a successful marketing strategy.”
Of the four people whom you must have to launch an invention – a patent attorney, a marketing expert, a manufacturing expert and yourself – the most important person is the marketing expert, since often inventors aren’t good salesmen or marketers. For whatever reason, the side of the brain that helps people think of inventions, seems to conflict with the side needed to market inventions. And to make money, you need to sell your product.
Having a marketing expert on your team as early as possible is absolutely necessary, because your success as an inventor depends on whether you can sell your invention. For that to happen, you have to successfully market your invention. How well your product will sell is not dependent on patents, because patents don’t mean your product will sell.
You might be a brilliant inventor, but a marketing professional on your team will help you evaluate the market needs, inform you about your customers, and determine exactly where and how to market to customers in order to earn a profit.
Since marketing types are expensive to hire, consider bringing them in as a partner. That’s what we did with ideatango, and boy has it paid off. Just be sure to do your due diligence when looking at anyone. I suggest using a trial period where either party can back out if it’s not working out. However you do it, make sure you have someone with the right marketing mindset when getting your product or business off the ground.
- Bryan Daigle
President & Founder of ideatango.com – the #1 site for inventors & invention ideas For more good info & advice, check out the official IdeaTango Blog
Completely agree with the marketing & manufacturing expertise requirement to be successful. You need to be able to make it and sell it. Not sure about the patent attorney, I’d say more of an Intellectual Property attorney. Many successful inventions are held as a trade secret, protected with a trademark or have additional IP protection. I have seen many inventions fail to get to market because of a patent attorney looking to get paid for patents that hold no value versus looking into the other IP strategies.
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