Tip Off Pays Off...

I wrote previously about finding similar ideas to mine, and this weekend I yet again came across an interpretation of my own idea, thanks to a tip off from a friend...



Now at first I thought "Shit!" as this was similar in execution, but then I realised it had many serious flaws...



First, I hadn't heard of it. This lack of awareness was a serious problem for them (and a bonus to me!). I have been hunting on the Internet for approximately 18 months for exactly these type of things, and only found it now. You would need to know what you were looking for to find it, and they have (as yet) not found a way to breakthrough their awareness. I believe that my awareness will be built at Point of Purchase of a related product as an ancillary service



Second of all, the route to consumer is completely different (and I believe flawed) compared to mine. The chosen route for this competitor means that they have a more direct relationship with the consumer, but that is a problem for three reasons - one is that there is insufficient awareness (see point one above); secondly, I believe that the direct relationship with the consumer is the wrong relationship to establish, as the consumer will struggle to connect with the product in a relatively sterile environment, whereas I believe that by involving another party (which involves, unfortunately offering the other party margin!) the consumer will be fully connected and more likely to use the product. And possibly the third (and biggest) reason is that their costs to serve will probably be higher than mine - this may seem counter intuitive, as one would expect a direct relationship to be more profitable, but in this instance their cash collection rates will be higher as they are outsourcing their cash collection through a third party and only maintaining a maximum of 60%), who in turn will charge significantly more than the margin my retailers expect to make.



The third main flaw for this competitor is their pricing is between 250% and 800% more expensive than mine (depending upon how I can resolve the cost of goods issue).



Fourthly is that for some bizarre reason, they have restricted themselves to a specific category in a very wide market opportunity. Now this represents several million opportunities in totality but is only 1% of the total market, so it is very very limited whereas I believe mine is much much wider.



So in summary a good idea, broadly in line with mine, and the big differences are that I've come at mine from a commercial point of view whereas I think they have come about it from a technology / addressing a specific need without seeing the broad appeal of their idea and then thinking it through from there.


P.S. One thought that enters my head is perhaps to approach them to perhaps see about using their systems to support my idea in the short term...

"We will either find a way, or make one!" - Hannibal

I awoke this morning to a text from my business buddy - "Someone else has the patent for my idea!". I was straight on the phone to find out the details & see how he was...

His patent search had revealed that in February of this year a patent had been granted for his own idea to an individual in the US. The world started to cave in, and we were back on the rollercoaster.... arghhh!!! We'd both put in so much time and now this goes & happens...

But there are two ways to look at this - either its over so we pack up now or we dig in and make another way. And I am for the former.

At the least now we know where we are - there's no need to go through the hassle of applying for a patent, and we could enquire about licensing the idea for outside of the US and get cracking on it. Or perhaps we could even buy it from the guy - may be he doesn't know what he's got on his hands...

I'm also feeling confident as at least somebody else has had the idea and subsequently gone through the hassle & cost because they believe in the idea so much.

So, we'll see how his thoughts & feelings have progressed when we ctach up during the week... hopefully he's as gung-ho as me.