i will kick in $1000 and 100 hours to realize the production of one halfbakery idea which i can be "sold" on. seriously. a friend of mine is a product designer. i might be able to colocate one box (were it necessary). can anyone else spare anything? materials, server space, research, programming, advice, advertising, etc?
the toughest question is, what shall we make? (i tried looking at the "best" list, but it's mostly jokes.) i have to rely on you longtimers to try to think of the best real-world product you have heard of that we can produce and sell in a reasonable number of months.
cream cheese rings are out.-- gnormal, Nov 22 2002 For a matchbox camera http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/June2002/3488.htmNo prices listed but I have a feeling cost would have to be addressed. [RayfordSteele, Oct 17 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Animaated News Globe http://www.halfbake...ated_20News_20Globe [hippo, Oct 17 2004] Could be interesting... http://www.entrepre...4621,297374,00.htmlAn entrepreneur's magazine website [RayfordSteele, Oct 17 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Personally, I vote for a halfbaked calendar or book. I proposed something like this in an annotation a few days ago.
Maybe one of Farmer's clock ideas.-- RayfordSteele, Nov 22 2002 i have a book agent who i have actually spoken to lately about a calendar project. chronicle would be a good publisher to approach with this. however, i dont want to rob the bakery of others ideas, and its own content. rather to completely bake one idea, and credit the halfbakery with its existence.
right waugs, we'll necessarily do two.-- gnormal, Nov 22 2002 What about items that have already been baked? Wouldn't that make this baked?-- barnzenen, Nov 22 2002 gnormal, what we'd have to do would be to talk to jutta and to the creator of each submission on the calendar, and maybe throw some of the profits around according to a pre-discussed profit-sharing formula of some sort, taking into consideration creation, investment, site creation, etc.
The tricky part will be deciding on who or what gets included and how, and how not to spoil the bakery with the potential for hard feelings resulting from being excluded.
Another facet to think about: there are many bakers who have created good ideas and then left, there are bakers who have passed away completely. Their ideas would probably have to be excluded.
Somehow what to include will have to be chosen based upon a criteria outside of the voting system; it has just enough potential vulnerability to things such as multiple accounts so as to be a very bad thing.
Also, once you start throwing money around, the potential for a halfbakery political disaster goes up dramatically. You'll have to consider the effects here.
Perhaps the best thing to do would be to group up with only 2 or 3 others and go for it from there. The more hands in the jar, the more complicated it's going to get.
Also, it's my guess that the ideas that are posted in the calendar / book / whatever are going to be heavily voted on, which might upset things here.
A good lawyer with knowledge of collaborative projects would be helpful. And don't forget the international factor. Since the site is internationally- visited, but US-hosted, would US law apply? I'll talk with my sister over the holidays. She's a lawyer with both international and internet law experience.
Finally, be prepared for the largest newbie influx you'd ever seen after publication.-- RayfordSteele, Nov 22 2002 I'm writing to my sister (internet law, international business lawyer, tax lawyer, etc) as I write this, and will see her over the holidays. Anything you guys want me to ask her?
I take it we're not yet decided to do a calendar / book quite yet then.
According to jutta and a couple of sites I've read, the idea creators still have copyrightability, up to a year after public unveiling, in US law.
[EDIT] sorry, that's not right. I had read beauxeault's comments and was confusing my patent and copyright laws. See his comments on the book idea.
The keyboard sounds much too tricky to build from an engineering perspective, so I'd rule that one out. Plastics are incredibly expensive to manufacture. (hundreds of thousands of dollars for tools, typically).
[EDIT] Another thing I thought of if we do a published work. We might want to obscure our usernames in the published piece, in the name of protecting the balance of things here. It simply wouldn't do to have a few active 'famous' usernames running around in otherwise a public, group effort. Maybe we shouldn't include username references at all. Hmmm....-- RayfordSteele, Nov 22 2002 thank for your list rayford. that's what im looking for. any one have more suggestions along those lines? any favorites?
re calendar- as i said that is not my intention, not this idea (though i like it). i have no intention whatsoever of using any of this content. i just thought that we make pretty good judges of potential products, and god knows there's a pile here to choose from- therefore, if we think about a product literally, we only have to bake the other half. why not?
if that calendar idea is well liked, someone post it (and i will join in!).
cream cheese rings: too easy.-- gnormal, Nov 22 2002 My choice: Animated News Globe (see link) - or if I'm allowed to suggest one of my own ideas: Retro Cell Phone.-- hippo, Nov 23 2002 Steve, I'm flattered-- thumbwax, Nov 23 2002 Actually, that was Steve that did the list. I've just been commenting on stuff.
Just so I have this straight, are we talking about selling these things, or just doing prototypes / one-offs? And what sales volume are we shooting for?
The Crime Scene Rug sounds pretty simple, too, though I doubt there will be very many buyers, except for maybe on Halloween.
Personally, I suggest that we take this discussion offsite somewheres. Maybe IBD or a newsgroup or email or something.
My automotive experience tells me that anything involving plastics will cost a small fortune for tooling, and therefore likely be prohibitive except for large-volume marketing. Machined components are okay, as job shops are a dime a dozen. But plastics are a different story altogether. Although I suppose disposable, short-run tools are only a couple thousand.
[gnormal], keep in mind that the engineering / business / cost of development issues for just about anything will be much more enormous than having a product that essentially consists of information on paper which just spits out of a printing press, instead of having a production contract with some house somewheres.
To have anyone practically involved, essentially an international organization would have to be created, with terribly limited communication. I'm not sure how much practical worth it is trying to develop the thing with fellow bakers. Save for the UK and New York, we're largely spread too thin.
My other suspicion is that while we'll be heavy on engineering geeks and technical stuff, we may be a little marketing weak.
The shower curtain is a cute idea, and seems relatively manufacturable. We'll need some way to colorize the curtain or keep the applique on. Although there's probably a manufacturer we can find and just submit the pattern to.
The ghost phone sounds nearly doable, if there is enough investment to cover the capital. Otherwise we'll have to find us some readily available parts. You could find out who makes phone housings, take their seconds off their hands to play with / develop. Then we find a job shop who can print PCB's cheaply, as well as someone with the EE skills to design it.
Another route would be to find a novelty manufacturer of some kind. Maybe walk into a Spencer's Gifts or some similar such place, and start writing down manufacturer labels.-- RayfordSteele, Nov 23 2002 I would, (if I may point to an idea of my own), like to nominate Color Magnadoodle. I believe that it would be very marketable. If a publication is decided upon I have a family member who may be able to help get a discount on printing and bindery. Another item to be looked at would be whether a percentage of the profits would go towards baking the next idea.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 23 2002 We should definatly organize a team of halfbakery representitives to try and sell the idea of Halfbakery to major corporations and speculative investors. It wouldn't cost much and as soon as the royalties start rolling in, the thinkers behind the winning ideas would compensated. The money could also be used to improve the web site and web site advertizing. legal aspects?-- plasticornflake, Feb 13 2003 I think this could be done through a pre-ordering business model. This basically involves figuring out how much it would cost to mass-produce a product, then getting enough pre-orders to cover that cost. There are a few online businesses have popped up recently that already do this (for example moq7.com) which makes this much easier to achieve.-- xaviergisz, Oct 07 2009 If the team is gonna bake something, make sure it is something that isn't close to anything that's out there. There is a lot of unneeded stuff, I would have thought bakers would not add to the use-less weight.-- wjt, Oct 07 2009 As is always the case with such schemes, I will be happy to provide trenchant criticism and misspelled business advice, gratuis.-- bungston, Oct 07 2009 random, halfbakery