Don’t try and lie your way through a company’s submission process. It will catch up to you and will destroy any chance of a working relationship with them. What is the point I am making? Easy, this is how a number of Inventors approach their product presentation to a company. They will say it does everything but fly to the moon if it will get them across the goal line. What they don’t realize is at some point you WILL have to be able to back it up. Or be exposed for lying.
Below are some things I have seen Inventors state that when pressed turned out to not be true. How do you think the company feels when they find this out and do you think they would be willing to take a chance on you? Should they? You are better off just giving accurate facts and adding this is where you are trying/working to get the product to in order to increase its marketability. Or you just don’t have the capability to get it to the next level and hope with their help they see the value the product can have with a little more effort.
You can’t tell a company or customer – your product is waterproof when it is really water resistant or not even close.
You can’t tell a company – you can run your product on a battery for 8 hours when the average is really around 4 hours and that is in controlled conditions.
You can’t tell a company – everyone loves it and will buy one. No matter how perfect you make something not everyone is going to love it or need it. And in most cases you are talking about family and friends.
You can’t tell a company – we did an extensive survey and the favorability is through the roof. When all you did was survey your friends and family. And half of those are not even in your target market.
You can’t tell a company – I have a factory finished product when you are still working the bugs out of it and don’t really know if it will perform as you expect it to.
You can’t tell a company – you have an issued patent, when you don’t. Especially when they state that part of their policy is to only look at patented ideas and you just wanted to get your foot in the door and hope they will make an exception in your case.
You can’t tell a company – you have taken your product to trade shows and everyone loved it, but it still doesn’t work. And you got plenty of interest but no purchase orders. (Would you buy that scenario if you were the company?)
You can’t tell a company – you do quality work, can meet purchase order numbers and have a product you want them to distribute and then turn around and say it is not market ready just yet, you just wanted to gauge their interest.
You can’t tell a company – your design is ready to make and put on the market when you are still redesigning the shape, size, weight and components of the product. Wait until it is ready to present or at least don’t portray it as a finished product because it is not.
If you want a company to spend thousands of dollars on your idea/product you need to approach them honestly so they know where they are starting from and where hurdles may be they have to address. Companies are in business to make money. If you bring an idea/product to them that they see can be profitable with some effort of their part most will take up that challenge. If you lie to them from the start they are not going to be willing to take a change on you.