Sometimes after envisioning an innovative concept, innovators become overly fearful that someone else will steal the concept out from under them by patenting it first. So, they rush to file a patent application describing the concept without first validating that the concept truly solves a problem or that anyone would buy a product that implements that concept instead of an existing solution.
The all-too-human emotions of fear, pride, and greed can drive innovators and their startups into risky and reckless investments in the innovation. Examples abound:
- Not asking target customers what their actual problems are.
- Not determining whether the innovation truly solves those problems.
- Not learning whether the innovation provides sufficient value for target customers to be willing to buy it at the envisioned price.
- Filing patent applications throughout the industrialized world without any actual data suggesting corresponding market demand and the ability to police and profit from the resulting patents.
Startups that seriously attempt to validate their innovation with their target customers almost inevitably discover that the product requires substantial changes before it will fully meet those target customers’ needs (and thereby generate meaningful sales and profits). Hitting the ball out of the park with an innovation on the first attempt and without substantial market feedback is extremely rare. Instead, it almost always takes a LOT of iterative researching, refining, and testing to arrive at a strong fit between the innovation’s features and the market’s true needs.
For whatever reasons, some startups refuse to earnestly research their target market, strenuously avoid questioning potential customers, and ultimately waste resources chasing a dream. It’s easy to dream, but it takes a surprising amount of hard work to validate an innovative concept with potential customers who, if they love it, will vote for it with their cold hard cash – yet won’t spend a penny if they don’t.
When it comes to patenting an innovative concept, unfortunately, far too many startup’s patents are worthless because products/processes that implement the patented concept either have little to no market or offer customers insufficient value (compared to the next best alternative). What good is your patent if no one wants, or is likely to ever want, the product/process it covers?
To be clear, the number one reason that startups fail is not because they have a poor technical idea, but instead because they burn up their capital developing and protecting innovations that don’t have proven markets.
The takeaway? If you want your startup to avoid that fate, prove your market as best and quickly as you can before building your innovative product or seeking to patent it.