How to market one's design to a company

Hi! I was wondering how one should go about marketing one’s design to companies? I really have no idea what to do. If someone could point me to another site that explains this, I would really appreciate it! But if anyone wants to share their experiences here, that would be great!


SPECIFICS:
I designed an MP3 dock alarm clock for class. I know it’s naive to think that a company would actually manufacture my design, I know that. I just really would like to know how to go about it for future ideas/designs

I also live in a country where there are virtually no manufacturers for electronics. How should I (HYPOTHETICALLY) go about selling my design to companies overseas?


WHAT I HAVE SO FAR: (All only student-quality. It was a rush project, nothing major. I’m not that confident to show YOU GUYS! Please don’t ask me to! :laughing:)

Model
Perspective drawing
Orthographics (just the exterior)
Rationale
Photographs

NO patent
NO computer 3D model


Thanks!

Without a patent, you are putting everything in risk by showing it.

With a patent, they will just find a way around it.

sorry I don’t have an answer for you.

I knew a guy once…an illustrator/graphic designer to be exact. He developed this concept for a cartoon, and was very confident it could become the next hit movie. So he actually went and contacted a major production company about wanting to pitch this idea to them. Their response was something along the lines of. “Sure! You can show us your idea, but there is no guarantee that we won’t be developing something very similar to your idea”

Designs that are in production by major companies are already knocked off or directly influence other products so often that I can’t imagine that one designer with the best of intentions could put up much of a fight against having their beloved idea snatched from their grasp by a big shot electronics company.

There probably is no easy answer to your question. I’ve learned that sometimes big ideas are meant to stay big ideas.

Safer to be able to say it is YOUR big idea and own it and be proud, than to have to swear to your friends and colleagues that Sony’s latest MP3 player was a total ripoff of your big idea but not be able to do a damn thing about it.

Good luck!

Thanks for the replies molested_cow & jknodell :slight_smile:

Wow. So basically you have to either find a job in an electronics company OR be an established star designer for your designs to be manufactured, huh? Wow, that sucks.

So I guess there’s no guideline for this (marketing your idea)? Oh man, well the design was just gonna stay in my portfolio anyway.

Anyone here had a positive experience?

:confused:

Fair to say that there is no easy way. I agree the first thing to do is to patent the idea. In fact, simply applying for the patent will offer protection. THat said, the idea is worth usually more depending on what you put into it. I like to use a multiple of 10x to illustrate that.

Here’s an example. I design and render the idea. It is worth X.

I design render protect develop a marketing strategy, test prove and get the idea ready to start a business/company. The idea is worth 10X. I

I start the company, get it into manufacture, iron out the bugs and develop the first year production run. The idea is now worth 10 times 10 X. 100x

Assuming of course it’s a great product or service.

This is simply a general outline to demonstrate hypothetically how to add value to an idea in the effort to bring it to market.

Mark