> All this talk about Code Protection etc made me think...  Many people
> here on the Piclist are designing all sorts of weird and wonderfull
> products all the time.  Many of which could become very profitable
> products if manufactured and marketed proffesionally on a global market.
> Unfortunately success stories are far less frequent than one would like,
> purely because most engineers and designers simply don't have the marketing
> skills  and drive required to make money out of their ideas.
>

It's a mere mattter of marketing. This statement is similar to it's a mere
matter of code to translate a $2.00 micro into a $200.00 product.

Part of the problem is the low value that an engineer puts into market efforts.
The engineer sees a product with a $1 worth of materials being sold for
$5 and sees ripoff.  In fact only a small number of products ever make enough
money pay for development.

Good marketing people are like good engineers they can work magic. Marketing
takes a lot of work. Marketing takes a lot of effort and is view as someone
else taking advantage of the original work.

There are many companies that buy designs, produce and market them. These
deals exist.  Most of the commodity products are sold that way. Modems are
a good example. The design is sold to companies that contract out
the packaging. The modem "fax" or "com" software that comes with them is
packaged under licence. The whole lot is then sold either directly or in
bulk.

CD players have similar business arrangements.

It eventually comes back to marketing for the engineer. Only the
market objective will change from consumer to producer.

In your example of a variometer (your product idea). The first question
asked will be what is the potential market. The best firm to
produce a new idea is someone already familliar with the market. They
will also be the hardest sell.


Walter Banks
http://www.bytecraft.com




licenceand then market them