For most inventors, coming up with ideas is easy. Critiquing them, then culling out most to find a few gold nuggets is more difficult.
Let’s do a quick benefits analysis of our list of ideas from the previous blog post:
1. Special car cover that protects cars from damage from hail stones
2. A device for fluffing tails of poodles in dog shows
3. A cork replacement that maintains optimum pressure and humidity for wines
4. A device that allows a gasoline engine to run off ordinary tap water
5. A solar powered air conditioner unit
Looking at 1 above, it is easy to see benefits to a car cover that safeguards cars from hailstorm damage. If the cover could be easily and quickly deployed at a reasonable cost, auto dealerships would buy them for all of their new cards, as would many car owners. The potential market size could be significant.
Regarding 2, most poodle owners would not buy such a product, as fluffing poodle tails would not be important to them. This would leave a small cadre of owners of show dog poodles. Unless there was considerable benefit or time saving from using the product, many of them wouldn’t buy. Very limited benefit and few buyers for this product means it should be eliminated from further consideration.
3 would be of interest to wine connoisseurs and and buyers of more expensive wines, but it would appeal to a niche audience. There would clearly be a benefit, but the overall cost of the product versus the size of the market would be a key determinant to deciding to develop the product.
4, A product that would permit autos to run off of tap water could have huge benefits to the marketplace. Assuming the device worked and was available at a reasonable cost, this product would revolutionize the automobile industry. The benefits would be huge, but there are a lot of ifs for this product.
5, A cost-effective solar powered air conditioner would sell to a large market if the device either reduced or eliminated the need for electricity. There could be many commercial applications as well as consumer ones for window units.
In the next blog post – C – Culling Your Ideas, we will consider the remaining four ideas in more detail.
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