Developing new products requires many parts. Some are necessary for creating the product itself and others are needed to follow it through to licensing and on to store shelves. Look at it in seven parts, and ask yourself, which of the following seven parts are most important in new product development?

• Inventing
• Patenting
• Engineering
• Prototyping
• Packaging
• New Product Videos
• Business Relationships

Last week the U.S. Open was held near in Oakmont, Pa., near our offices north of Pittsburgh. Naturally, with a high-level event like that in our backyard, we wanted to take advantage of it by inviting a half dozen of the corporations we work with, or hope to work with, in for a visit. As a business person, I recognize the importance of building honest relationships with businesses, but as an inventor, I think I often focus most on designing and building new products. However, last week a light went on in my head and I made a concerted effort to capitalize on the opportunities presented to us as a result of the interest generated in the golf championship.

It was a fantastic experience. We met their families; they met ours. We picked people up at airports, made them dinner and gave them space to stay in our homes. It was an extremely gratifying week. Not often are we afforded the opportunity to let our guard down and be our true selves instead of maintaining the business side of ourselves with the people we do business. Although these relationships were in the making for many years, it is events like this, combined with the hard work performed with each other, that has formed a critical agreement of trust between our organizations. They need new products, and their commitment to manufacturing and sales is compatible to our commitment to design, development, engineering and packaging.

In this world of ideas, inventing, patenting, prototyping, engineering, packaging and promotional videos, it is imperative that anyone involved with developing new products puts as much, if not more, energy into forming real relationships. When each company believes in and relies on the other, then the magic happens. Of course, it takes all seven points and more, but the point is that nothing happens without that relationship.

Fear, it’s our friend, right? Not always. Most times, fear appears as a defense mechanism, designed to protect our best interests and to tell us to shelter ourselves from bodily harm or mental anguish. However, too much fear can quickly lead us down a frightening path of mounting anxiety, guiding us to eventual paranoia. For inventors and new product developers this has become an unfortunate stereotype, regrettably based upon true stories. All inventors and new product people believe their ideas are worth millions and they believe everyone else will want to cash in if they discover these ideas. Whether this is true or not depends on the idea, but for some it’s a true fear.

History demonstrates cases where inventors were bilked out of millions by the corporations. Look no further than the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper system — which regulates the delay and degree of wiping for automobile windshields. Dr. Robert Kearns patented the innovation, which is still in use today, in 1967. Knowing in his heart he had a fantastic idea that would become a necessity for car owners, Dr. Kearns approached Detroit’s finest automobile makers with the device. None wanted anything to do with Dr. Kearns. To understand why they turned him down, you need to understand the mentality of most major corporations. Dr. Kearns was soliciting the absolute experts in the field of automobile design. Imagine, the arrogance of an outsider stepping through the pearly gates of the automotive kings and telling them how to make a better windshield wiper system. Or, at least that’s probably how the car manufacturers viewed it. “If it’s so great, Dr. Kearns, than our engineers already created it,” they might have told the inventor. So, Dr. Kearns left Detroit with his tail between his legs. But it was only a matter of time before he noticed that almost every single major manufacture was now selling cars with an intermittent windshield wiper system. Dr. Kearns felt that his idea was stolen, while the automakers contended that his creation was something their teams were already working on. Eventually, after what would become one of the most famous individual versus corporation patent cases, the Supreme Court ruled that these companies violated Dr. Kearns patent.

In these times, corporations force inventors who seek licensing on their own to sign one-sided agreements before they’ll allow them to submit a new product or invention idea. Some of these legally-binding documents go so far as to remove inventors completely from their creations once they submit their invention. So, it’s safe to say that when dealing with corporations alone, use caution. Your fear often urges you to use that caution in places like this. On the other side, it’s this same type of paranoia that leads corporations to turn independent inventors away. No one wants to end up in a lawsuit, especially one as long, painful and expensive as Dr. Kearns’s.

However, don’t let your fear develop you into delusion or paranoia. It can hurt you. Refusing to show your idea to anyone out of fear can hurt you. If you’re serious about inventing and new product development, you’ll eventually have to show your new product idea to someone. That’s when signing confidentiality documents, like the Davison Idea Security Agreement, make the difference. When working with a developer on your idea, you need to know that they won’t steal your idea and that they’ll treat you and your idea with the respect each deserves.

Finally, don’t allow your fear to hold you back from improving your creation. Change is good. Finding better ways to manufacture your idea, design it and put it into use will often mean the difference between a new product reaching the creation phase or being left stranded to die on the vine.

Ideas are powerful and we can become consumed by their power. So, keep your head on straight. With the proper balance of fear and risk-taking an inventor or new product person will find a path to walk.

In the world of “inventing help,” there a lot of folks that talk the game or only know one part of the game. Some people are in the business of just selling design, others prototypes, while others focus solely on patents. Through the years, I watched the “inventing help” industry leave inventors looking for a needle in a hay stack. If an inventor doesn’t work with someone who knows what do and the whole process from ideation to product-on-the-shelf, then they’re flying blind. How many companies do it from “soup to nuts?” Not many. In fact, we’re the only ones we know of that does.

Not long ago I met with a series of “experts” in the field of new product development and inventing. At the time I was spending the week in a series of meetings with groups of these people. All were fantastically intelligent individuals with their own successes in their own rights. But before we began, I held an informal poll of the group, a practice I made a habit through years of these types of meetings. I started right off, asking anyone in the group with a product on the shelf to raise their hand. Long ago, the results would have surprised me. Unfortunately, I’ve become used to rarely seeing a hand rise. If one person raised their hand, I’d make sure to follow it up, and ask if there was anyone with 10 products on the shelf. To date, I’ve yet to see anyone raise their hand for that one, beyond myself and designers at my company who’ve worked on our own and other inventor’s projects.

The people I talked to were experts in inventing and designing new products, as I said. But why do so few of them have products on the shelf? Because they have experience in only a small aspect of inventing. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of companies vying for inventors’ interests to purchase their services, but they only deal with one aspect of the inventing process. Unless you’re responsible for everything from A to Z, you don’t have clear communication and clear execution in inventing. Companies like Davison, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any like it, are in the business of new product development. That’s what we do. We aren’t in the “inventing help” game; rather we actually help inventors because we do everything from the brainstorm to the design to the engineering to the art to the packaging to the licensing and all the in betweens.

Inventors need help. They need help from someone who knows the real inventing process and what it takes to put a product on the shelf. Whether they use our services or not (and, of course, I want inventors to work with us), we want inventors to recognize the drawbacks associated with those individuals and organizations that only sell a small aspect of inventing as though it were the full deal.