Kevin Mako Featured in Forbes: How to Get Your Invention to Market

Kevin was recently invited to make his fourth appearance on the world-renowned business magazine, Forbes. Not an easy feat considering the prestige of this platform. In his newest article, he’s giving you insider tips on how to get your invention design to market. Before we dive in here’s a brief recap of the last three of Kevin’s Forbes contributions so far.

• Employee Appreciation Strategies (Without Causing Team Resentment)
• How to Build an Effective Personal Brand
• The Five Key Stages of Prototyping

Getting Your Invention Design to Market

While the creative process is definitely rewarding, what many of you are looking forward to the most is getting your invention design to market and actually selling the product. When it comes to selling your product, all paths converge to one critical part of the product development process.

“Simply put, almost every successful physical consumer product you see in the market today that was invented by a startup or home inventor became successful by getting the product manufactured, states Kevin. He outlines the three steps to help you understand how to get to market:

1. Develop your product
2. Get to production
3. Sell units to at least a few hundred real customers

You don’t need a big production run either. Aim to get feedback and great reviews at the beginning. Start by getting real units into users’ hands even before you hit the market. And getting those first few units manufactured is even easier than ever before. 

We say this knowingly that many of you are asking how am I going to fund this project. The good news. The initial funding is not considered to be the most important element of a successful startup.

Underfunded inventors draw attention from investors through various channels, such as crowdfunding, by showing their product’s potential value will still draw investors from various channels including crowdfunding. And how does one show potential value?

A great way to start is with a 3D CAD and ideally a prototype. Once you start raising some capital, you can start thinking about mass manufacturing! You can learn more about getting your invention design to market in the full article.