To protect your ideas and inventions, to gain Copyright or before considering Patents you must generally record or express them ideas in some tangible medium: to take them out of your mind's eye and make them a reality so that somebody else can look at them as well!

This is the process of creating a prototype - of making a start, a rough impression... a test creation. If you don't do this, then your idea is just that: an idea. And, unfortunately, not many people will readily stake their reputation or revenue merely on somebody's idea alone. This, of course, is the point of prototypes and prototyping.

A prototype is a solid thing. You can hold it in your hand. You can examine how it looks, feels and works. You can delve into its secrets and above all else you can say 'this is what I have created and it is good.'

To move your product, invention or innovative idea (or service for that matter) forwards you must therefore create a prototype of it. A prototype is like the first draft of a book. It is not a finished product ready for sale.

As with all things, it is possible to approach the creation of a prototype in many different ways...

• One method is to take your idea to somebody who can develop it for you. There is the usual risk of theft with this approach, but steps can be taken to avoid such unpleasantness. For example, non-disclosure and ownership agreements can be signed...
  

• Or you may elect to follow the classic DIY method... the famous and much derided 'garden shed' approach!

• Alternatively the prototype can be designed and planned in advance, allowing specific key parts of it to be farmed out to different skilled subcontractors...

• A similar option is to 'buy in' external help as and when required. Your 'helpers' will be subcontractors who will be bound by contract with you. The risk of theft is thus reduced. Also, with this or the above approach, you do not have to disclose all of your idea at any one time or to any one person. In this way no one organisation or individual knows what the whole is, when finally the single part they're working on is combined with its other components...
  

Many inventors and creative people do elect to work in secret, either alone or with one or two trusted associates, to create their special prototype. This appears an attractive alternative and certainly minimizes the risk of commercial theft. Groundbreaking and truly innovative products have emerged from tiny garden sheds, attics, basements, kitchen tables and back bedrooms. Some go on to become iconic items - heralded as triumphs of genius of 'the inventor'.

Whatever route is taken, once developed, the precious prototype is protected against theft via Copyright or more usually a purposeful Patent...

For a book, course, or other publishable work, the job of producing a prototype is quick and easy by comparison. Once the first draft is produced it is automatically protected by copyright and then given to a subcontractor to proof-read, edit or augment. The prototyping process is simplified, benefits from the input of professionals along the way and offers more than a little (free) protection against larceny.

So the essential process of prototyping is not always straightforward and will be different for every product.

Developing a book, for example, requires different processes and equipment to developing an engine, electronic gizmo or a new board game...

What every prototype has in common is change: every product is subject to change during prototyping.

The original concept or idea will become adapted as you discover how to make it work, how the customer will use it and how to manufacture it in the best (cheapest) way. This is normal and usually a good thing. It can therefore take several attempts to get a prototype right.

Through producing a prototype or first draft, the main characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of your product or idea will become apparent. These characteristics will also appear in a much more concrete way than when outlined on paper.

Improving upon strengths and finding solutions to weaknesses is an essential part of perfecting a good idea. The general public will not tolerate anything that spoils their enjoyment or impedes the usefulness of your product.

Always remember that people will buy your product for what it will do for them (or what it represents to them), more than they will buy the product itself. People, in fact, buy solutions not products.

For example, when purchasing a chain saw the customer is concerned more with how it cuts than anything else. The customer is buying the cut and not the saw. If your unique brand of chain saw, with its design innovations and exciting styling oozing out of every nut and bolt, fails to cut well every time, the customer will not be impressed.

This is what the prototyping stage is for - evolving a great idea into an even greater, and above all else, functional product.

Once you have a good working prototype it will be that much easier to get it manufactured and to sell it yourself. Or, to take it to somebody with cash to invest: with a view to getting it mass-produced and available to a much larger market.