Choosing an Approach: Licensing vs. Product Development

[beardrl]

Hi all - this forum has been great so far. I'm about half way through 4HWW and may be getting ahead of myself...but...the book has inspired me to think of a number of different products, one of which is killer. I just came up with it today and honestly am shaking with excitement around it (or possibly, from my morning coffee). I'd rather not share the specifics here, a bit concerned with idea protection as I'm new to the forum - but basically it's something like this (the Jam Jacket for the iPhone):



My question is: How do I determine if it's better to develop the product myself with say someone from elance - or take a licensing approach?

Time to market is going to be critical on this product, I have no doubt that I'm not the only one who's thought of it and it's simply a matter of time before someone gets it into the market.

Any advice/recommendations/resources are MUCH appreciated.

Randy

[JFrenzel]

Randy,


Those are some loaded questions. I imagine you have mircotested the product already?

Well, it depends, licensing can take a lot of time and energy. Both can, but do your research. Alibaba.com is great for manaf. and elance is could for websites and such. Please let us know more specifics as to what you need assistance with.

Cheers

Jose

[forgiven]

I learnt that licensing/patent really wastes a lot of energy and time (and money) unless specific needs are present... depending on exactly what this is, you may be better off just getting it out there to market.

knowing that there are always knock-offs, you will need to find a point of differentiation... of course this is based on the fact I have no clue what the product is or how many people would go for it...

this may be a great opportunity to investigate and research the market prior to spending too much dough$ on.

I will look for more info posted.

[kamakiri]

The only way to make money off licensing is to become famous and license your stuff. It pretty much doesn't work unless you have other licensed stuff with a proven track record. Chicken and the egg dilemma here. Without a track record, you aren't going to find anyone who will license your stuff, and if you do the deal will be such crap that you won't make any money any way.


Best to forge on your own for the first steps.

[beardrl]

Thanks for all the feedback.

In response - my questions were not intentionally "loaded," no assumptions were made when I asked them - about the answer, or the audience. But perhaps I was not as clear as I intended to be. I'm really looking for a set of criteria to use when determining whether it's better to develop and sell your product - or license it. What are the determining factors? When is one better than the other? Is there a difference in time to market? That sort of thing.

Having said that, it seems that most of you feel that licensing is too much effort/too difficult to achieve/etc. I must say I'm a little surprised based on the amount that licensing as an option is promoted on the 4HWW site - but perhaps I'm just reading into that.

I appreciate the tip on Alibaba.com, I'll check that out - I did notice that elance is really geared toward technology/web/business services. Regardless of the direction I go, I'll need to do some product design (well, outsource it anyway).

In terms of more information about my idea - I honestly don't think it's relevant to the questions I was hoping to answer - I gave a pretty solid example of the type of product I'm thinking about in my first post - the design/manufacturing/marketing/etc. would all be very similar for my product. That's really all I'm willing to share at this time - but I do appreciate your interest.

Any additional feedback is greatly appreciated - and if anyone knows of a rock-star product designer at a reasonable rate, I'm all ears!

[kamakiri]

Originally Posted by beardrl

In terms of more information about my idea - I honestly don't think it's relevant to the questions I was hoping to answer - I gave a pretty solid example of the type of product I'm thinking about in my first post - the design/manufacturing/marketing/etc.

The fact of the matter here is that product really doesn't matter. Just read this quote:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

You can translate that directly into the 4HWW. I can assure you that nothing is more common than first time readers/posters with a 'great product' who haven't taken the first steps to actually selling that product. I wish Tim would emphasize that more. IT IS NOT THE PRODUCT! It is the process.

The process of marketing, web design, ordering, selling... Birds made out of dog crap sell well in Las Vegas (the city that has everything) because they are marketed well.

If you don't want to provide more info here because you are afraid someone might steal your idea, you are sadly misguided. The rest of us aren't here trolling for ideas. Those actively moving toward the 4HWW lifestyle already have too many ideas.

[beardrl]

I find this interesting considering my question is about THE PROCESS and what most people want to know about is THE PRODUCT.

Determining whether to license my product or manufacture it myself is just ONE of the many steps I'm taking in bringing it to market - yet responders seem to assume (and you know what they say about ass u me(ing)) that it's the only thing I'm doing - it's not, I'm just not asking for advice on the other stuff (yet).

And if I want to keep the details of my product to myself that's my business. I agree, most of the people that post here seem to be doing their own thing and they're frankly not who I'd be worried about - look at the stats on the number of people who are online that are logged in vs. not logged in - am I being paranoid? Probably a little - and I'm okay with that.

It's obvious to me that I'm really not going to get what I had hoped for in terms of feedback - and that's totally ok. This board is just one outlet.