The route to Innovation and the development of an innovative idea can be likened to the journey taken by famous explorers. They were all striving for new discoveries in new lands and were full of trepidation about the journey.
Gils van Wulfen wrote an interesting article on this subject and quoted the following taken from an advertisement in a London newspaper in 1913:

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success”

The journey was an Antarctic Exploration led by Sir Ernest Shackleton to the South Pole.

Who would volunteer for such an event? Who would volunteer to take an innovative idea from concept to market? Both can be long arduous journeys with no guarantees of success BUT can be very rewarding if you are successful.

For assured success there are certain areas of innovation and new product development that need special consideration:

Intellectual Property

Time should be spent on considering whether a new product or innovation has the scope for protection, whether that be in the form of a patent, a trade mark or registered design etc. Protection can give you security and a head start in the market. Did you know that the top “dead” earner in 2012 was Elizabeth Taylor earning $210m from Copyright Royalties

Market Research

It is important to be re-assured that there is a market for your product before you start spending too much time and money on your idea. Analyse current markets around your idea. Consider carrying out a market survey to ascertain interest and potential market price. It’s important to ensure that your selling price covers production and all other associated costs and that you can also still make a profit. If you can’t then why proceed?

Financing your Project

It takes money as well as time to develop and take a new product to market and people should not be under any illusion that there are free handouts to help. If you can’t part fund your own idea then why should anybody else invest in your idea? You need some funds to start. If your idea is good enough there are a number of schemes to help from grant funding to loan funds to Business Angels to Venture Capital. Collaboration with another company is always a plausible option as you will be sharing the journey and hopefully sharing the profits.

Product Development

There are all kinds of organisations who can help you with your new product development and that in itself is a long journey, currently the average time for the development of a new product or process is 18 months. Never launch your product too early, test the product and the market as
much as you can before finally promoting it. In a world of high litigation you don’t want to be involved in an expensive product recall.

Marketing

Nobody is going to knock on your door and ask you if they can buy your product, you need to spend time and money telling people about your idea. This could be face to face, by e-mail, on the internet or by using social media. And when you’ve done that then you need to go round again because people are bombarded by promotion every day from all avenues and people’s memories are very short.

So Innovation is a long journey but the end result can be very rewarding!