Practical Guide to Inventors and Innovators

By Bill Allardyce

This book will save you money and time. It shows Inventors what to do and how manufacture and market your Invention and show you how to save money, by doing it yourself. It covers how to apply for exclusive us of the Concept and also shape and configuration, together with information on the best way to make money from your Good Idea, how to protect it, with the minimum financial outlay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Nov 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982292362

Bill Allardyce

Bill Allardyce was fiddling with a piece of high tensile (springy) wire when had a ahah!! moment and though he could make joined together chopsticks from stainless steel. Later he found that if they were stainless steel the Aussie Chopstick would cost $5.00 to manufacture. This would make them commercially unviable, at $5.00 to manufacture they would need to sell for $15.00, a price that no one would pay. Bill had a plastic manufacturer offer to make them from plastic, this would make them 20cents to manufacture which would set the retail price to be $1.00 per chopstick. This change in production bought the Aussie Chopstick back into being commercially viable. Bill was surprised to hear that he now had to have an Injection moulding die manufactured which cost $20,000.00, then packaging plastic bags, special size, 100,000 minimum run. Header cards 60,000 cards. Labour to put two Aussie Chopsticks in a bag and staple the Header Card on top, all costs totalled another 10,000.00. This made a total investment of 30,000.00 before the first Aussie Chopsticks were sold. Tupperware bought 350,000 Aussie Chopsticks, Amway Corporation (Australia) bought 250,000 Aussie Chopsticks, Woolworths, Coles, Kmart collectively sold 500,000 Twin Packs of Aussie Chopsticks making a total of 1.6 million Aussie Chopsticks sold in Australia alone. Imagine the size of the world market for Aussie Chopsticks. Bills hobbies are helping other people, his interests Captain Anglesea Fire Brigade Victoria Australia, Vice President Anglesea School Committee, Vic President Anglesea Football Club, Vice President Inventors Association Melbourne Australia, Vice President Geelong Chamber of Commerce and many other interests too numerous to mention here.

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Copyright © 2021 William Allardyce.

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of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use

of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical

problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The

intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help

you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use

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right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9235-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9236-2 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/20/2021

THIS BOOK WILL SAVE

YOU MONEY

Practical guide to inventing is a store-house of valuable information on every aspect of inventing-from the ‘I’ve got a great idea!’ stage through to successfully marketing and selling your product.

In this book, you will find sound advice and useful, practical suggestions in relation to:

• manufacturing your invention the right way

• the common pitfalls of inventing

• successful marketing strategies

• how to assess your invention before you outlay a fortune (your hard earned money)

• the hazardous pathways of patenting

• sure-fire tips to achieve success

At last, all the knowledge you need to successfully launch your invention is compiled in a comprehensive and easy-to-read book.

Bill Allardyce has extensive experience in all aspects of inventing – over a period of 30 years, he has brought his invention, ‘Aussie Chopsticks’, from just a fledgling idea through all stages of prototyping, manufacturing, presentation and marketing, to its current outstanding international sales success! In this time, he has discovered many of the traps, difficulties and challenges of new product development, but his persistence and determination have paid off. Bill has a broadly-based technical and practical background, including 20 years in prototype testing, plant, equipment and parts supervision and maintenance at International Harvester, and qualifications in communications, computing, accounting, marketing and sales. This expertise and knowledge does qualify him to give advice fulltime on all areas of inventing, both in his own very successful business and with various Government and independent bodies. He has lectured on related subjects at a number of secondary and tertiary colleges in Victoria.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

My endless gratitude goes to my wonderful wife, Carol, my daughter, Susan, my son, Michael and others, whose belief in me and my abilities has been unfailing.

To all of the fantastic people with whom 1 have exchanged ideas and knowledge you all know who you are, if 1 were to mention names here, it would fill another book!

My sincere thanks to you all.

My very special thanks go to Joy Stoneman. If it was not for Joy’s untiring efforts, dedication, tenacity and plain hard work, this book would never have come to fruition.

In 1984 Bill was laid up for several months with a serious back injury.

That period of convalescence was the catalyst for the development of the famous Aussie Chopsticks and the emergence of the inventor, the entrepreneur, the lecturer and the adviser that is the mark of Bill Allardyce today.

There is a certain quality to Bill; honesty, integrity, a beaming smile and an enthusiasm for life and the pursuit of new products and new opportunities and encouragement to the Inventors Association in Australia and its members.

Bill has a depth of knowledge and experience gained in developing and marketing products of his own and those of the many people who contact him every year. Even the simplest rules, which are always obvious after the event, are detailed in this book to make the lot of the inventor, both a little easier and a little safer.

This book should be read by marketers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and above all, inventors.

I give special thanks to my good friend Roger LaSalle who I found was a constant source of encouragement.

ROGER LA SALLE DIRECTOR

Victorian Innovation Centre, Victoria Australia.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Broad Overview

Chapter 2 Important Tip

Chapter 3 Innovative Australians and their successes

Chapter 4 Protecting your idea

Chapter 5 Invention evaluation

Chapter 6 Proto typing

Chapter 7 Design

Chapter 8 Business options and manufacturing

Chapter 9 Packaging for your invention

Chapter 10 Pricing

Chapter 11 Market research

Chapter 12 Marketing and sales

Chapter 13 Keeping control of your finances

Chapter 14 Patenting

FOREWORD

I decided to write this book because it seemed like the best way to share the knowledge and experience, I have gained by working with others who are treading the same path; I do not consider myself, by any means, an expert.

The more I study, the more I realize there is to learn about inventing.

This book is designed to be a practical workbook to which you can refer, from time to time, to assist you along the way with commercializing, manufacturing and marketing your new invention. It is meant to be a transfer of knowledge; had it been available to me years ago, in a practical, easy-to-read book, I would have saved myself a great deal of wasted time and wasted money. I hope this book will benefit you, the reader, in a way which will prevent you from making the errors and mistakes which I have made.

Many of my ideas and much of my information has come from my friends - the people I have sat, discussed and brain-stormed with over many years and many hours!-their encouragement and free sharing of knowledge have been an enormous contribution and I thank them all for their time, effort and exchange of ideas.

I hope that this book will be an inspiration to all creative people, to strive to create new ideas which will make life easier or more pleasant, make markets more competitive, increase Australia’s exports and above all, benefit creative people throughout the world.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this book, Practical Guide to Inventing, is to make information readily available to inventors in an easy-to-understand presentation.

Information is available through patent offices and other organizations. As you accumulate sufficient information it will help you to make correct decisions. This book has been compiled in order to bring together a series of practical steps and the information needed to successfully place an invention in the market place.

You may or may not be aware that, according to industry standards, there is a 92% failure rate in new product development and sales. This is partly due to a lack of careful planning. You, as an inventor, need to discover initially, whether your product is marketable. Many dollars have been spent on unsuccessful products which, had they been shared with experienced people initially, would not have passed this planning stage and would have prevented the inventor wasting a great deal of time and money.

We all know that, in the world of inventions and new product development, there are gold nuggets and diamonds, it is sorting out the winners from the other products, which is by far the most difficult task. Many people who have contacted me over the past two years have heavily mortgaged their homes, and have arrived at a stage with their products where they don’t know what to do next; in most circumstances, they have spent money on a product which no-one wants to buy. It is not enough to be a good product, it needs to fill a need for the consumer and people need to want to buy it.

It is my intention that, by sharing my experiences with inventors, I may eliminate problems from occurring. Inventions are often born, when people find that there is a need to be filled in a particular job they are doing. To solve their problem, they often create a new product to make their job easier. Once the product is created, and because it does the job they want, they expect that everyone will find it useful and buy it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Individuals purchase items which they need or find useful, and in many circumstances, a product which is very useful to you, may have no interest to other people.

In 1984, when fiddling with a piece of bent wire, I had the idea of joining chopsticks together. Realizing how easy it was for me to manipulate the bent wire, I thought that if I could use chopsticks in a similar way, it would prevent me from spilling Chinese food all over the table and the floor! My first step was to make a model. This took several weeks of effort before I was finally satisfied with the design. The model consisted of two conventional chopsticks, a piece of bent plastic and some car body filler.

My next move was to attempt to claim the rights to the concept by lodging a design registration application. I contacted a local patent attorney in Geelong, who informed me that because the tweezer concept was already available on the market, my Aussie Chopsticks could not be patented. I therefore had to take out a design registration to protect the idea. I have registered four designs to date, with the intention that anyone who attempted to copy my product would infringe on one or several of these design registrations.

The next step was the largest.

The model I had made needed to be re-designed for mass manufacture. This took several more weeks and cost a considerable amount of money. This is often the case with new products.

I approached several manufacturers to inquire about pricing the injection molding die and establishing the minimum production quantity.

The final cost for a four-cavity die was $25,500 plus a minimum first run of 20,000 Aussie Chopsticks for $4,000. The total cost of the production of dies and first production run of Aussie Chopsticks was $29,500. The $25,500 Cost for the four cavity Injection molding die and the cost of the first production run totaled $29,500 in advance, outlay before any Aussie Chopsticks were actually made. (because you do not have a proven (business) track record it is the usual practice - companies ask costs up front until you have proven to be financially viable). This was a huge financial commitment for me and it took me over 6 months to research, whether to make this large financial investment would guarantee a financial return.

During this time, I discovered that if I did not spend my own money to get my product launched, no