How many times have you come across a great idea that someone else had? You are watching TV and suddenly you see an advertisement for a product that makes you say: “Wow! I should have thought of that!”. So why didn’t you?
Here is an example. At work everyone has cameras on their computer. We have cameras because we do a lot of videoconferencing and it is occasionally required that we see who we are talking to. But everyone is suspicious of their camera’s being turned on remotely so, and as you look around the room you can see a variety of solutions to this fear. Some people use tape over the camera, others used “post it” notes to cover it and still others fold a piece of paper across the top every time the open their laptop. A common problem that everyone in my rather large organization had.
Not long ago I was at a conference and I noticed that one of the vendors was giving out a device that you could place over the camera lens. It had an adhesive back and a little insert that you could slide over the camera when you wanted to block it and slide out when you wanted to use it. Brilliant! I have one on all my computers now and as a result I look at the name of the company multiple times a day!
The item was trademarked, the name copyrighted, and someone is making money off it right now!
What actions did the person who had that great idea take that resulted in that product being on my computer now? In other words, how do you convert a great idea into a product in someone’s hand? We found out! We spent some money we could have saved had we understood the process better and learned a lot about areas that we had never had any experience with before. This blog is going to chronicle the journey of us getting our product from an idea to market. I hope you enjoy it!