Do you have a big idea? Or do you have a small idea? And even more importantly, do you understand how to distinguish between the two? A student of mine recently presented two ideas of his to me and asked me for my opinion. How should he proceed with each, he asked? The first product idea he showed me was very straightforward and simple. I immediately knew it would be able to be manufactured easily and at a competitive price point. Its benefits were obvious — his one-line benefit statement practically jumped off the page. The companies he planned to show the idea to already had shelf space. To summarize: everything about the idea indicated that it was ideal candidate for a licensing contract. It was an idea that was going to be easy to license.
The second idea he presented to me was for the medical industry. It was very technical. Although it shared some similarities to the first idea — namely, that it solved an identifiable problem — I knew immediately that it was going to be much more difficult to license. There were going to be so many hurdles he would need to jump, like getting approval from the FDA. It would take years to test the idea in a clinical setting. There were a number of other competitive companies in the industry. And probably the most difficult element of the journey would be convincing medical professionals that they should use the idea, as well as educating them about how to. This was an idea with a great deal of risk. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a good and possibly very important idea. But unfortunately, companies rarely take on ideas that have a great deal of risk. Instead, you’ll have to shoulder that risk yourself — and present the idea to them when you’ve developed it to the extent that it isn’t risky anymore!
My student was passionate about the second idea and considered it a “big” idea. And he could be right. But as an inventor and entrepreneur, you have to critically assess the risk associated with each idea you invent. How much time, money, and effort are you willing to invest? What can you responsibly commit? You have to decide for yourself what’s right for you.
Stephen Key is a successful award-winning inventor who has licensed over 20 products in the past 30 years. He is a board member of Accudial Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and has a new book "One Simple Idea: Turn your dreams into a licensing goldmine while letting others do the work" due to release March 18, 2011 from McGraw-Hill. Along with business partner Andrew Krauss, Stephen runs inventRight, a company dedicated to education. Teaching inventors and entrepreneurs the skills needed to successfully license their ideas. You can listen to the weekly radio show on inventing.
Preorder One Simple Idea now and get access to our special lecture series along with our database of over 1300 companies looking for ideas.
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