Just because we love something with all of our hearts, doesn’t mean we’ll automatically do it justice when it comes time to talk about it. The same goes for pitching your invention. You may have faith that companies will respond to simply a description of the invention or your passion for the project, but that’s unfortunately not the case. If you want to get people interested, you need to give them a good reason why (actually, several of them). And to do that, you can’t just leave it up to chance- you need a structured pitch.

1) Set the Stage

The first step to crafting the perfect pitch for your product or invention is to create the perfect opener. The goal of your presentation opener is to hook your audience in, to peak their interest and entice them to be at the edge of their seat. The best way to accomplish this is to focus on the problem that your invention is proposing to solve. If you immediately hit on a problem that your audience constantly finds themselves faced with, you will immediately have their attention.

You could approach this practice in a few different ways. You could begin your presentation simply by proposing a question like, “Do you often find yourself [insert problem here]? Well, what if I told you there’s an easy solution?” Another approach would be to set the stage for your audience. Paint them a vivid picture of what it’s like to be in the thick of their problem. Matt Alwine, Managing Senior Director of Licensing at Davison, advised on this approach saying, “Put your audience mentally in the environment where the product would be used. For example, you are walking to your vehicle after a late meeting at work and cannot remember where you parked. This will ‘set the stage’ for the problem you’re attempting to solve.” Painting this picture reminds your audience what it feels like to experience this problem. The imagery will engage them and get them prepped to hear your proposed solution.

2) Know Your Audience

When prepping your presentation, it’s important to research the specific person or company to whom you’ll be presenting. Your pitch should only briefly discuss what your invention actually does, and focus on specifically how it will benefit the company or person at hand. This requires you to do a lot of research on the company to whom you’re presenting. What’s their current product line? How does your invention fit within their current market? Prove to them that they’re lacking in an area to which your invention can help accommodate.

3) Know the Competition

Equally as important, you must prove to your audience that you have a thorough knowledge of your competition. Do your research to see if there’s a similar product or invention currently on the market. If there isn’t anything similar, prove this by giving them information about the closest thing to your invention and what yours does instead. If there are similar products, show them how yours is better. Will it cost less to make? Does it fix a problem that similar products commonly have? Does it have an additional function? If the answer to more than one of these questions is yes, include each in your presentation.

4) Prepare Some Cold Hard Facts

The most important aspect of pitching your product is making sure that your presentation comes across as incredibly well-researched. To start, you should know what materials you’ll need for your product and the quantity of those materials.  Have a list of similar products and their prices. If your product is about better functionality, your sales price will likely be slightly higher than the rest. If yours is about beating out the competition with a more cost-effective model, then yours will be slightly lower. Do your research and come prepared with this information.

It’s also helpful to have (very) rough numbers on how much profit you anticipate making on the product.

5) Know Your Time Frame

Finally, make sure you know the allotted time frame for your pitch, and use every second wisely. The last thing you want to do is prepare a thirty-minute presentation, only to arrive and realize you’ll have to condense it into a ten-minute time frame. Cater the presentation tools and information you use to fit the window of time you’re allotted. If the window is short, make sure to include your most important selling points. Remember: Don’t focus on what your invention does, focus on what it can do for the company.

Though you should cater each presentation to fit the business or person to whom you’re presenting, you should also prepare an elevator pitch to always be ready. The world is a very serendipitous place, you never know who you’re going to meet and when. Make sure you have an abridged version of your presentation prepared to pitch at any given moment. For this, focus on your knowledge of the competition, the market overall, your product itself, and the potential profit margin. It wouldn’t hurt to get some business cards, too.

How do you feel after learning how to pitch your idea? Do you have a better idea on your next steps? Check out what kind of inventor you are by clicking our quiz below!

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A three-hour car ride home from a lacrosse tournament doesn’t sound all that bad. However, a three-hour car ride home from a lacrosse tournament with a pile of stinky, sweaty gear in the back of the car may make you think twice about going on that road trip.

This is exactly what happened to the mother of three sports-loving children, Krista Wood, while on her way back from her son’s tournament one evening. With their son fast asleep in the back of the car, husband and wife duo Krista and Chris were left stuck with the unpleasant stench nearly 150 miles away from their final destination.

Coming up with a solution for stinky sports equipment seemed hopeless for Wood. A lot of sports gear is not washable and it’s certainly too expensive to replace every time it gets soaked in sweat. After having tried nearly every spray on the market to rid her son’s lacrosse equipment of the stench, Wood was left feeling defeated with no solution in sight.

But she was determined to conquer the odor. After doing some research on what causes bad odor, she and her husband got to work developing a prototype in their garage. After nearly a year of fine-tuning their product, the Woods family invented the first pair of Glovestix, a now popular sports accessory meant to stop bad odor in its tracks.

Using two perforated plastic tubes lined with silver to kill odor-causing bacteria, the husband and wife team discovered the solution they were so desperately in search of. Today, the inventors have expanded on their original idea to include an entire line of odor-killing “stix” intended for items such as boots, skates, helmets, gloves, and even ballet slippers.

After appearing on NBC’s Today and QVC, the Woods family quickly sold out of GloveStix when they received 5,000 orders …2,000 orders over their initial goal! The duo is still inventing, currently working on different iterations of their original Glovestix.

*Davison had no involvement with the design of the featured product

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As parents to five daughters, Jennifer and Gifford Briggs were no strangers to long hair clogging their shower drains. Not only does this pose a drainage issue, but it’s also at the bottom of every household’s to-do list.

Nobody wants to get down on their hands and knees to clean a drain full of soap scum, hair, and dirt. Having a large family, the Briggs grew tired of how slow their drain was. Not only was it slow, but sooty rings were forming in the tub because of the slowly receding water.

A slow drain, coupled with the amount of time it took in between showers (while waiting for the tub to drain) sent the husband and wife on a mission to develop a solution for a problem that plagues many households.

Sure, you could purchase expensive liquids to pour down your drain, but those damage pipes and can wreak havoc on a septic system. A hair trap may seem like the perfect solution, yet you’re still left cleaning out the hair trap – which isn’t much better than having to clean the drain in the first place.

Although there was a wide array of solutions on the market, none met the needs of a family constantly up against this problem; thus, the Drain Wig was born. A long metal string attached to a decorative topper was the perfect solution the Briggs were searching for.

Homeowners simply drop the string down the drain while the topper keeps it from falling down entirely. The unique hooked-chain design catches all of the hair as it goes down the drain, allowing for easy removal when it’s time to clean. The simple, yet effective hair trap is 100% disposable which means you won’t need to touch any of the mess or break out the rubber gloves.

Do you have an idea for a new invention or product? Confidentially submit your idea today!

*Davison had no involvement with the design of the featured product

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If you celebrate Christmas, you certainly remember the excitement that came when it was time to put up the Christmas tree. Boxes upon boxes of ornaments scatter the living room as if a decorative bomb went off, leaving behind a colorful mess in its wake while you eagerly ran back and forth putting up as many ornaments as your tree could hold.

For Ryan Kenny, Christmas was always a special holiday that he held near and dear to his heart. Growing up, Kenny would meticulously comb over the Christmas tree, repositioning the ornaments until he felt it looked just right.

That same energy stuck with Kenny all the way through to adulthood. One day while decorating the tree with his family, Kenny couldn’t help but notice the unsightly pole that supported the artificial Douglass Fur. “Never should a tree that represents such a special holiday have such a hideous green fuzzy pole holding it upright,” Kenny thought to himself.

After realizing the glaring problem, Kenny took to the internet in search of a solution that would hide this imperfection. To his surprise, there was nothing on the market that currently addressed the problem at hand. Kenny decided to take action.

With a background in graphic design, he began developing a few prototypes that might do the trick. Keeping in mind that his product would have to fit more than one model of tree, Kenny finally decided on a design that worked – thus, the Christmas Tree Hugger was born.

After scouring the market for the right materials, Kenny decided on neoprene, a particularly elastic material that could stretch and hold shape. This material, coupled with a few Velcro closures did the trick. Taking a traditional tree bark design, Kenny printed a nearly perfect tree trunk right on to the material.

With a reversible wrap, one side being bark and the other side being a candy cane pattern, the Christmas Tree Hugger proved to be the perfect holiday accessory.

*Davison had no involvement with the design of the featured product

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Have you ever had an idea that you wanted to bring to fruition? Although there are many steps in the inventing process, there is one step in particular that brings your idea from just an idea to an actual product sample. That step is a building a prototype.

In case you are unclear of what a prototype actually is, we will make it clear for you! A prototype is a design tool that is much like a model that is used to help create a new product.

There are many varieties of prototypes; some are reminiscent of rough drafts while others are more like the final version of the product. Prototypes are usually used for testing before a manufacturing run is ordered.

It all begins with your idea; from there, you’ll most likely sketch your product on a piece of paper, so that you have a rough sketch of your idea. This sketch is one form of a prototype. But, maybe you want to take this sketch one step further by adding more detail and tweaking your original design.

Prototypes also are crucial for companies and many of them run through several different prototypes when developing a new product. As they continue to create prototypes, they begin to understand how people will use their product and how it can be improved.

The development of a prototype begins with the development of the concept of a product. Many creative minds work together on the design features and usually will produce several cardboard and paper models in order to illustrate and conceptualize how the product will look and feel. Once the development team agrees on a design, they are able to create a single working prototype, which is evaluated to determine how effective it is.

If you are thinking about turning your idea into an actual product, you will have to consider many different steps that factor into the invention process, especially creating prototypes and evaluating their importance.

Prototypes are a crucial part of your product development and that is why, at Davison, we do everything from product-related-data-and-patent research to designing, developing, and building working prototypes and product samples.

In essence, a prototype allows an inventor to see their idea come to life from a sketch on a piece of paper to a real-life working product. This design tool allows inventors to conceptualize their product.

Copyright Davison 2013

Sources:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/construction/planning/what-is-a-prototype.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-prototype.htm

Images:

http://www.123rf.com/clipart-vector/prototype.html

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Industry giants like Nike and New Balance have translated the advancements of 3D printed technology into the world of apparel, specifically, for professional athletes.

These 3D printed shoes use the up-and-coming invention to create lightweight shoes that, in essence, mold to the athlete’s feet, thus increasing their speed and performance.

So how are 3D printed shoes different than regular shoes? Let’s take a look at both Nike and New Balance 3D shoes and how they claim to enhance the athlete’s performance.

Nike 3D printed athletic cleat- Weighing in at just 5.5 ounces, the Nike Vapor Laser Talon was specifically invented and designed for gripping the football field turf, in order to help American football players excel in the highly important, 40-yard dash. In addition, the design of this shoe enables an athlete to maintain the initial drive stance, along with giving the athlete more speed and power during the first 10 yards, which are the most important to achieving a solid time.

The idea of a decreased 40-yard dash time is carried out by the Selective Laser Sintering technology.  This technology employs a high-powered laser to selectively fuse thermoplastic particles, usually a plastic or metal powder, into the desired solid. This technique that Nike uses allows them to create a cleat plate in a much shorter amount of time, while at the same time, increasing the overall weight, which offers many benefits to the athlete’s performance.

New Balance- All-American track runner, Jack Bolas became the first athlete to run a race in 3D printed equipment.

Bolas said, “I always wondered what it would be like to have custom shoes. They gave me a much more natural feel, with a perfect balance between the flex of the sole and still the responsiveness of a stiffer plate.”

After a long research-and-development process that was focused on ensuring that the shoes met Bolas’ individual needs, New Balance was able to create tailored spike plates. The process began when Bolas wore shoes that were wired with sensors to help designers at New Balance get an idea of how his foot interacted with the shoe. In addition, Bolas ran on tracks that were equipped with force plates that measured his impact with each stride. High-speed cameras also were used to add a detailed look at the interaction between his shoes and the track. Once this information was collected, just like Nike did, New Balance used the technology of Selective Laser Sintering to create the shoes.

For both brands, a custom spike plate entailed an expensive injection molding process. However, the invention of 3D printers offered them a solution to this expensive and time-consuming process and has now increased the speed of production, while decreasing the cost.

Both of these companies have invented a product that is intended to increase the speed and performance of professional athletes, through the use of 3D printed technology. Both Nike and New Balance have set the tone in the world of 3D printing by creating products that have a light-weight design and the ability to grip their intended surface with ease.

Copyright Davison 2013

Sources:

http://www.gizmag.com/nike-3d-printed-cleat/26403/

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/nikes-vapor-laser-talon-brings-3-d-printing-athletic-shoes-1C8645125

http://gizmodo.com/5990352/new-balance-adopts-3d-printing-to-create-hyper+customized-track-shoes

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2013/03/new-balance-3d-printed-shoes/

Pictures:

http://hypebeast.com/2013/2/nike-debuts-3d-printed-vapor-laser-talon-cleat

http://www.designboom.com/design/nike-vapor-laser-talon-boot/

http://gizmodo.com/5990352/new-balance-adopts-3d-printing-to-create-hyper+customized-track-shoes

http://printingdress.com/tag/3d-fashion/

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If you don’t patent your product, you never have to make the ingredients public – a simple way to keep your secret recipe under lock and key. But, that doesn’t mean competitors won’t make a run at your throne.

DR. PEPPER

Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too? That won’t be happening for aspiring soda-making rivals anytime soon, because another soft drink with a famously secret formula is Dr. Pepper, which is made from 23 natural and artificial flavors. Only three people are said to be privy to the recipe, which was invented in 1885 by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas, and is kept locked in a vault in company headquarters in nearby Plano.

The company has gone on the record to deny one common guess at an ingredient: There is no prune juice in Dr Pepper. – Yahoo

Dr. Nos

• Dr. Topper – Clover Valley
• Dr. Riffic – Eckerd Drug
• Dr. Thunder — Dollar General

WD-40

The world’s best known household lubricant got its secret agentesque name in 1953 from its inventor, Norm Larsen, and it stands for “Water Displacer—40th attempt.” An article in The Wall Street Journal reported that the formula is in a bank vault and has only been taken out twice—when changing banks and on the product’s 50th birthday, when CEO Garry Ridge rode on a horse into Times Square while wearing a suit of armor and carrying the formula. He said the company mixes the concentrate in three locations, then distributes it to aerosol manufacturing partners worldwide.

The company reveals what’s not in the secret formula on its FAQ page: WD-40 Multi-Use Product does not contain silicone, kerosene, water, graphite, or chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). – Yahoo

Slick Competitors

• Hosa Cable D5S6 Deoxit Contact Cleaner Spray
• Boeshield T-9 Lubricant
• 3-IN-ONE 10041 Professional Silicone Spray Lubricant

KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)

KFC’s “Secret Recipe of 11 Herbs and Spices” for its original fried chicken recipe is nearly as famous as the former Kentucky Fried Chicken ad slogan “finger lickin’ good.” A section of the company’s website is now devoted to spreading the lore about the spice blend. It states that Colonel Harland Sanders kept his recipe in his mind and used to carry the mixture in his car, but today it’s kept under lock and key in a Louisville, Ky., safe. One company blends part of the spice recipe, and another company mixes the rest, so that neither party has the entire recipe. The Colonel commented how low-security of an operation he and his wife, Claudia, ran when he was starting out. “After I hit the road selling franchises for my chicken, that left Claudia behind to fill the orders for the seasoned flour mix. She’d fill the day’s orders in little paper sacks with cellophane linings and package them for shipment. Then, she had to put them on a midnight train.”

Many reverse-engineered recipes for KFC-style fried chicken include speculation that the flavor-enhancing additive MSG is part of the secret mix. Others claim the distinctive KFC chicken experience owes a lot to the pressure-frying technique, which is patented. — Yahoo

KFC’s Wingmen

• Church’s Chicken
• Popeye’s Chicken
• Kennedy Fried Chicken

It takes something special to stand out from the crowd. That’s why Davison has spent over 20 years perfecting the Davison Inventing Method – a better way to help clients develop their ideas.

The post Secrets To Their Successes appeared first on Davison.

We got the good news at the last Licensing meeting and party that one of the first products we designed for a new corporate client, one of the largest manufacturers of organizational items, was going to market. Less than two months later, the Shoe Tubes is selling in Sky Mall! Speaking on behalf of everyone involved with the project, the design manager offered this comment: “Sahweet!”

The project originated on our corporate design team, which was asked to come up with shoe storage concepts. Three designers brainstormed and came up with 15-20 concepts. Davison’s VP of Licensing met with the president of the corporation and a major retail buyer at the International Housewares Show to discuss the concept sketches. The buyer wanted to see 10-11 taken to the next level, so the team built and created models and images.

“The Shoe Tubes is a great example of adding a new twist to an old product that makes it unique and attractive to buyers and consumers,” said the VP. “The corporation saw it and they loved it.”

The product stores and organizes shoes so they are always easy to find. The soft-sided unit, which is made of washable, waterproof fabric in a variety of colors, has three tubes to neatly hold three pairs of shoes under a bed or in another out-of-the-way space. It is collapsible, so it can be stored and shipped flat, making the product very attractive to retailers.

Congratulations to all who worked on this awesome new product!

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