Ryan…it VERY much depends on the individual invention and the individual person. Each case will give a different answer yet people still try over and over to put the same “blanket” answer over the two choices. Don’t forget two there are also a million combination options and never just one or the other…well almost never.
I have sought licensing deals and had some of my ideas manufactured. Some ideas are so obvious a licensing deal is easy to obtain. Other times it is not and you will just have to manufacture and prove yourself or the sales numbers will be too slow in the beginning for a company to want to start your idea up and give you royalties, so…you will have to do the whole thing yourself.
Sometimes manufacturing and distributing will be quite easy and maybe even cheap so why not go for it and this way you can make many times the profit of just licensing….other times it is just impossible for you to handle the manufacturing and cost and even sometimes you could never afford the machinery…so you must seek a licensing deal.
Take Handi-Straps. It’s not so hard to have sewn up so I am more involved. Some of my other inventions are way too complex or difficult for me to take on so I am seeking to license. Some inventions in the past I have sought licensing deals.
It just depends what is on your plate. I have seen women with no knowledge of this field go have their ideas made, a few thousand or so from the other side of the world (China)…get on the phone and call catalogs and smaller retailers and they are doing it all!
There is also the very common way of manufacturing some at first and getting a sales history and then licensing it as the idea you make “real” and commercially proven.
Ryan…is this for a college class or something? I’ll help you a little more. A number of colleges have already studied Handi-Straps. Most for medical purposes and once for entrepreneur purposes.
Ron Komorowski
Inventor of Handi-Straps
www.handi-straps.com
