r/inventors

**I spent months building my first product before validating it. It failed. I’m trying not to make that mistake twice. Tear apart my next business.**
My first product taught me an expensive lesson:
Building something isn’t the same thing as building something people will pay for.
So this time I’m doing things differently.
I’m building a company called **Stride Guide** aimed initially at independent footwear retailers.
The hardware is a pressure-sensing platform that captures how a customer’s feet interact with the ground during a fitting. But I’ve become increasingly convinced that the hardware itself isn’t the business.
The business is what happens **after the fitting**.
The concept we’re working toward looks something like this:
Customer gets fitted → pressure/gait data is captured → associate gets data-supported footwear recommendations → fitting history is stored → purchase/recommendation outcomes are tracked → customer receives appropriately timed SMS reminders when they’re likely approaching replacement → customer comes back to the retailer.
Over time, the system should get better at understanding which recommendations actually produce successful outcomes.
For the retailer, the goal is to create a measurable loop:
**Fit → Recommend → Purchase → Learn → Re-engage → Repurchase**
We’re also exploring associate training tools so a new employee doesn’t need 10 years of footwear experience to provide a consistently good fitting experience.
Our current business model hypothesis is unusual:
**$0 hardware cost.**
The retailer gets the equipment without buying a several-thousand-dollar scanner.
We’re currently testing whether roughly **$200–$250/month per location** makes sense for the software, analytics, customer profiles, recommendation engine, SMS retention tools, updates and support.
I’ve started interviewing footwear-industry veterans, independent retailers, marketers and SaaS founders rather than asking people whether they “like the idea.”
And now I’d like Reddit to attack it.
Specifically, if you’ve built B2B SaaS, retail technology, hardware-enabled SaaS, or sold technology to SMBs:
**What am I underestimating?**
I’m especially interested in hearing about:
Customer acquisition cost
Hardware/support economics
Churn
Employee adoption
SaaS onboarding
Whether $200–$250/month creates enough room for a hardware-enabled business
What would actually create defensibility here
The point at which you’d know this was a real business versus an interesting product
I’m not looking for “sounds cool.”
I’d rather hear why this fails.
We’re beginning free pilots with independent retailers, so this is the point where criticism is substantially cheaper than learning the same lesson six months from now.

I've got a solid, roughly engineered concept for a device that will work (basically exploiting a marketing opportunity for a combination of components that have been working for a long time). As a reference point, I'll use a contrived example. Let's say you have a home security system for dogs. Everytime someone opens your door (existing sensors) send a signal to an app (existing tech / communication protocols) that set off a high pitched whistle only your dog can here (existing device).

There are patents on every part of this system. There are even "patents" ("" because I'm not sure what is real, dead, beatable, etc) on near exact versions of the *entire* system. However... no one is selling dog alarm (or the actual product I've come up with).

ChatGPT is telling me that we can cleverly file a patent based on our unique combination of these things, but obviously I don't trust it. So my questions are

• how do I meaningfully QUALIFY existing patents / prior art? Is it black and white "it exists, so they win"? I'd assume not, but I'm nos sure which part of an existing patent are squishy. For instance, could I say "oh this is 9 years old and filed in Delaware therefore it's somehow less valid" or "there are 5 similar patents so no one is enforcing these against one another" or ... I don't know.
• Assuming the patents are NOT squishy, is this an "ask for forgiveness, not permission" situation?
• other things i don't know?

Cheap way to continuously keep snow off a 20,000+ sq ft metal poultry-house roof?
I’m trying to come up with a cheap, simple system to prevent snow from accumulating on very large poultry-house roofs.
Each house is roughly 500 ft long × 40 ft wide, with a pitched metal/tin roof, so we’re talking about 20,000+ sq ft per building. Because of the size, normal solutions like heat cable everywhere or manually raking the roof aren’t really practical.
The goal isn’t necessarily to remove 8 inches of snow after it accumulates. The system could run continuously while it’s snowing, so it only has to deal with fresh accumulation.
Some ideas I’ve considered:
Heating the attic enough to keep the tin slightly above freezing. The houses already have large gas heating systems, and potentially a couple additional gas heaters could be installed in the attic.
A blower/air knife that mechanically travels up and down the roof continuously and blows fresh snow toward the eave.
A cable, pipe, brush, or lightweight bar that travels up and down the roof and continuously pushes/disturbs the snow so it slides off.
Warm water along the ridge, although freezing/refreezing and water consumption are obvious problems.
Some kind of vibration system that prevents snow from sticking to the metal.
The biggest requirements are cheap, reliable, simple to install, and scalable to an enormous roof area. It doesn’t have to leave the roof perfectly dry—it just needs to prevent enough accumulation that snow load doesn’t become dangerous.
If you had to design something like this as cheaply as possible, what approach would you try? I’m especially interested in mechanical or agricultural solutions that could be built rather than expensive commercial snow-melting systems.

Background: I have been in the process of patenting my invention over the last year and a half. Meanwhile, my mom fell, and I quit my job to become her full-time caregiver. I just got a notice from the patent attorney that I will have to pay more money to respond to a restriction requirement, and now I'm starting to get scared because what if more and more money is going to be required as this goes on, and what if I get to where I can't pay any more? I feel sick in the pit of my stomach, like this is kind of like extortion in order to protect a person's intellectual property.

TLDR: I guess I'm just looking for reassurance that patenting is a wise choice, and maybe I'm not the only one who has gone through this sick feeling and fear.

Please respond.

I'need a little free time job to save up for a new thinkpad. I can help for developing and designing new projects.I don't need to get paid that much. You can pay me depending on if I helped 😌. Thanks

I know I should have probably posted this on an engineering subreddit but since what I'm working on is a product I was thinking maybe someone here could help me.

I'm working on a pitcher like product and I need it to do one thing but I don't have the engineering knowledge on how to do it.

Basically what it is:

The pitcher that I'm designing needs to have a button on the handle that activates a blade (or two blade) mechanism which is strong enough to cut through a plastic bag.

I'd really appreciate if someone could help me with this. Leave a comment or DM me, either one works.

Hi everyone. I have a product idea that I know will 100% sell in the fishing world. It’s simple and doesn’t exist yet. There are products similar but they aren’t the same. I have a prototype that works a treat and a lot of people have said they want me to make one for them but I want to make it with my logo on it and start selling it to a professional on the shop shelf level. I have a name, I have the concept but I don’t know how to create it to a level that will sell commercially and I don’t know how to reach out to companies/manufacturers/people with experience in the industry, without leaving myself vulnerable to the idea being stolen or replicated. If there is anyone out there who has been there and done it already, please help me out as I’d love to be in your position in a few years doing the same for others. Thank you for your time

Thank you all for your help so far!

I have a small automotive badge product line for the Hyundai Veloster that I’m looking to exit rather than discontinue. The product has several years of sales history and is differentiated from generic badge options by an engineered, vehicle-specific fit and attention to detail.

I’ve recently had success licensing another automotive product, which has made me more interested in focusing on design and product development while partnering with others for manufacturing, sales, and distribution.

For this badge line, I’m exploring either an outright sale of the design/IP or a licensing arrangement with someone better positioned to commercialize it at scale.

Full disclosure: I don’t see this as a flagship product on its own. It’s a niche automotive accessory with proven sales and a differentiated fit. I think its strongest value is likely as an addition to an existing aftermarket catalog or product portfolio, particularly for someone who already serves this customer base.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has sold or licensed a small physical product line like this. Where did you find the buyer or licensing partner? Are there marketplaces, brokers, communities, or other channels for transactions at this scale?

I’m also open to hearing from anyone who thinks this product might fit their existing business or portfolio.

Plasma Tyre — Invention Help

I am developing an invention concept called the Plasma Tyre. My goal is to explore whether plasma, electromagnetic forces, or another physical principle could be used to create a new type of tyre or wheel system.

I am still at the concept and learning stage, so I am looking for engineers, inventors, physicists, or experienced makers who can help me understand:

How the concept could work physically

What existing technologies are similar

What materials and components might be needed

The major technical problems and safety issues

How I could build a small, safe prototype

Whether the idea is physically realistic

I don't want someone to simply build it for me. I want to learn and develop the invention with guidance from experienced people.

If you have experience with plasma physics, electromagnetism, tyres/wheels, mechanical engineering, or experimental prototypes, I would really appreciate your advice.

I'm creating an AI that designs your personal inventions from scratch. Would you like it? 🚀

Hi everyone! I'm a 15-year-old with a passion for the maker world, cosplay, and 3D printing.

I often have a unique idea for an object or gadget that doesn't exist in any store, but when I go to Google or YouTube, I can't find any tutorials explaining how to build it or what materials to use.

To solve this problem, I'm developing a website (it'll be called *FabrikAI*) that does exactly this: you write your personal idea (e.g., "a glove that throws confetti with a button" or "a flexible tablet stand with an internal cable management system for the bed"), upload a hand-drawn drawing, or ask for a shared project (not your own), and the AI instantly calculates:

1. different design/engineering variations.
2. A [CHEAP] guide using recycled or low-cost materials.
3. An [ADVANCED] guide with mechanical tolerances, electronic components, and programming scripts (e.g., Python or Arduino).
4. Automatic links to 3D catalogs (Thingiverse/Printables) if the object requires printable parts.

The application will be ready in about a month (early September) and will support five languages.

Since I'm currently programming it, I wanted to ask: would you need a tool like this for your projects? Would you use it?

Any suggestions or criticisms for improving it are welcome in the comments! If you're interested, leave me a comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I power up the servers in September. Thanks everyone!

Hello everyone,
Can someone please help I desperately need an advice. I have an invention that I made with company material and machine, will they be able to claim the rights to my invention even if it does not conflict with their business. And would someone please point me in the right direction on who to see or approach I really don’t know where to begin. Thank you in advance for any help and suggestions.