Your inventor is a critical part of your team. It is important to develop a strong working relationship with your inventor from Day 1. This relationship is part of the foundation for success for the rest of the semester.

Your inventor is a critical resource for the following:

  • Introducing you to the industry and technology
  • Helping you understand the nature of the innovation i.e. how the solution is novel or unique
  • Potentially serving as an initial customer archetype on which to build and iterate
  • suggesting resources to help you understand the invention in context, the industry, and underlying science
  • Understanding the limitations of the technology and the frontier of possibility for future iterations
Most inventors are true domain experts with incredibly deep expertise in a particular subject matter. They have often spent many years studying a particular topic and were most likely spurred to invent in response to a problem within their domain that they have direct experience with. Some may have ideas (hypothesis) regarding how a particular technology might be commercially applicable. This is a great starting point, but isn’t a substitute for doing your own diligence, casting broad net and working through the validation process.

In the initial interview with your inventor, you want to focus on getting to know them, their background, and their motivations. You want to understand what they do everyday and how they came upon the problem that led to the invention. Most inventors are extremely passionate about their invention and will default to talking about the tech with a limited synopsis of how this is different from conventional technology. You want to focus on the person, the role, the job to be done and the context.

Consider the following questions/prompts:

Personal Context
  1. Tell me about your role within the organization and how this fits in to the organization’s overall mission.
  2. How did you get into this role? What are the typical qualifications for a role like this?
  3. What motivated you to get into this field/join this company?
  4. Probe the function of the role/business unit within the broader organization. How is success measured or failure defined?
  5. What do you consider your primary function? What does a typical day look like for you? (Look for misallocation between priorities and time spent)
  6. Probe adjacent roles and any dependencies

Insight for the innovation
  1. Tell me the story of how you came up with this idea
  2. Probe the initial problem:
    1. What are the signals and parameters of the initial problem
    2. What are the consequences of the problem
    3. What alternative solutions did you investigate or have you used?
    4. Why are these solution insufficient?
    5. What about this problem motivated you to build a solution that does not exist yet?
  3. When you think about solving the problem identified, how is ‘performance' typically measured?
  4. What is unique about this solution? How do you define the special sauce? How does this compare to the way the the next 3-4 closest substitutes or conventional solutions solve the problem (you should know the pros and cons of substitute/conventional landscape walking in).
  5. What other types of products or systems would need to be used with your technology to fully solve your original problem? How would these be integrated? If you were buying these how would you expect them to be packaged and sold?
  6. In what other industries or applications would you expect to see similar problems?

Technology Readiness Level
  1. Has this product been implemented in the field? Under what circumstances? What data do we have from field tests?
  2. Do you have a working prototype? Do you have a mobile (demonstrable) prototype? Does the prototype showcase the core innovation?
  3. Has the technology been tested/implemented for its original intended purpose
    1. Why or why not?
    2. Explore barriers or next steps.
  4. Is the product safe? If safety is a concern what steps would typically be taken in a similar context to mitigate? Are there any obvious reasons why this technology might struggle to pass these tests.
  5. What are the technical limitations of the product as currently deigned?
  6. Under what circumstances does it (should it) excel; In what criteria would you expect it to underperform?
  7. What level of intellectual property protection has been secured, if any? (pending or issued?) What 'claims’ were made? How do they relate to the secret sauce?
  8. What are the ‘next steps’ from a technical perspective?

Other Important Issues
  1. What are your personal goals as it relates to commercializing this invention?
  2. If you have prototype, how was it produced? What are the limiting factors in this process?
  3. What do you expect to be the key drivers of cost of reproducing the invention? Is this a low cost or high cost product?
  4. Where do you see this having potential commercial applicability?

Of greater importance than the specifics of the questions above is to secure 'buy in' from your inventor. To get buy in, you need to understand their goals and and demonstrate the value that you can bring as a team. Do your homework before this meeting. Make sure to read the patent (Google Patent Search Tool), if applicable, and start your industry research before this meeting Focus on earning trust. Make sure to establish how you are going to wok together going forward and make sure you understand your inventors communication and scheduling preferences, as well as time constraints and other priorities.

  • Read Patent/Do some industry research
  • Earn trust
  • Work around their schedule/