Starting a Project
Free to each new client:
- Assuming you already have the idea or invention try and find it on the internet, magazines, or just asking people if they've ever seen it. The worst thing you can do is spend time and money on something that is already on the market.....unless you have a better version.
- Be very careful about discussing the details with anyone (even family) or accepting suggestions from them, if your idea turns out to be a success you don't want anyone coming back and saying they own a piece of it. Before discussion get an NDA (non-disclosure) even from us.
- We will explain how our step by step development process works and how it keeps your costs to a minimum. We will ask you for your NDA or you may use our simple mutual NDA so that we are free to talk details.
- We will carefully evaluate your idea, possibly do a quick patent search, and let you know if we are interested in accepting it as an SRD project.
- If you accept we will lay out a plan of attack, a timeline and a cost estimate. The cost will depend on the required speed, services, resources, etc. but you will know exactly what to expect before we start. The invoices will be monthly or bi-monthly or whatever we agree on.
Billing will start when SRD starts the project and you give your OK: as low as $100/week for us to start the development process. We move fast and don't waste your time or money
- You will furnish a detailed specification sheet for your project or product. We need this to determine the best way to move forward quickly. You will need to determine a name for the product and we usually suggest you buy a domain immediately so that name is owned by you when you start a website. SRD can help with all of the domain, hosting, website building, and starting business social media accounts.
- We will start the engineering and documentation required to produce the Provisional Patent application that will start your idea's protection. When ready we will file the patent in your name so it will be owned completely by you. The Provisional Patent filing with the USPTO cost is $75 or $140 depending on a few factors. The information contained in the provisional patent will later be used in the Non Provisional Patent (the full patent) that will likely be handled by your attorney (or we can suggest attorneys that we have used)
- Next we typically move to the "proof of concept" stage that is to build a quick and crude version of your product to get a feel for it before spending too much of your time and money. If we are all satisfied we will typically build a detailed CAD model so that it can be discussed and analyzed.
- Usually we will have set up a schedule of "go no go" meetings along the way, this is important. In every meeting you will make the decision to keep going or not depending on how we feel about the project's progress and chance of success. If we keep going we will follow the product guide that is a section on this website. This guide is a complete step by step road map of how to take a product from concept to market and is free to anyone that that would like to use it as a "do it yourself" way to develop your product.
- MARKETING !!!!!!! During this entire process and after step 7 above everyone involved with this project should be working on marketing. This is where most projects fail because you can have a great product but if no one knows about it or if you do not have an efficient marketing plan it is doomed. Start early with getting the word out, ever notice that before a movie comes out they are advertising like crazy, the reason is they want people sitting on go when it arrives. These days social media is a good conduit but first learn and understand it as the business version is not as easy as the personal version. SRD can help with all of this.
Continue to STEP 2