Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Your issue is common. You have a great idea and the way to make it an instant success is to have a big company take it on. Big companies won't listen to you because if they do, and it happens to be an idea they are already working on and if they bring it to market after hearing your idea, you will think they stole the idea. And the litigious society we live in just loves to get a fat fish on the line and play to the average (read that as peer) community's desire to "stick it to the man" in favor of the "little people."

One of the best ways to get their attention is to establish yourself and take away their market share. This takes time and money, however. Especially in the case of "breakfast foods for children." Plus, once you get it out there, it's not easy to protect yourself from the big companies copying your idea and driving you out of business with larger economies of scale.

You can get around the "money" problem by putting together a great business plan and selling it to Angels or VC's. But your biggest challenge is to find a way to patent or copywrite your idea or have some hard-to-derive trade secrets. Possibly it's your packaging. Or the machine that makes the packaging or packages the product. This intellectual property is the "value" in your idea. Without it, you really have no value because anyone else in the world can think of the same idea and make it happen also. Talk to a good intellectual property attorney to see if you can get some IP protection for your idea.

Short of this, you can always try to network your way in. Look to networks like "Linked In" for ways to approach the right execs at the "big guys" and see if you can get an informal meeting or phone call. Work your way down to the littler big guys - they might be more accommodating because their pockets aren't as deep and they are looking for a way to compete at a higher level. Even here, you run the risk of your idea not being very valuable unless you have some intellectual property in it.

Not a rosy picture, I know. But, it's reality. I hope this helps.

Wayde

You're getting the right advice here ... probably from folks who have been there and done that.

Once you have appropriate legal protection for your idea, you'll need to develop a business plan and go into some kind of test market situation to prove that real humans will actually spend real money on your idea -- that it has commercial value.

Of course, that means you'll need to market the product yourself (or with an experienced marketer). Most people miss the import of that. The world does not beat a path to your door just because you have a better mouse-trap. It might if you market it properly, but not without that kind of awareness.

There are a number of folks on this forum who can guide you through the process, but (a) they would need to be compensated, and (b) they probably wouldn't touch it unless you have appropriate legal protection or some other barrier to knock-off.

While I certainly don't want to discourage you, I think we'd be doing you a disservice if we recommended proceeding, spending your money on marketing, or going public with a "knock-off-able" idea that could jeopardize the ultimate success of your brainchild.

Good luck. Let me know if I can be of further help. I've been through this drill many times (i.e., helped people with a great idea test the market potential).

Not knowing the details, I'll give one idea: Create a device that you "load" the breakfast into, so it's brand-neutral. If this isn't patent-able, then you'll need to test it locally, and attempt a "big splash" by showing it on American Inventor or selling it on QVC and attempt to outrun the knock-offs.