I don't want to talk about the details of my invention. I did talk to a patent attorney that's done a couple dozen startups through their firm though. He said I could probably get $20k-$50k in seed money for it. It's not a "better mousetrap", it's more a "new thing" that's never existed before (but also never really 'needed to' before).
Do I NEED a co-founder, or can I 'slow-walk' launching a business based solely on a new gizmo? I'm not very good at social media/marketing, which is where I think my gizmo would thrive the most (but that's purely a guess). I feel like if I could find the perfect person, it really could explode, but I have literally not even the faintest clue where/how to start that. Am I an employer all-of-a-sudden even though I have no revenue to pay salaries?
Somebody heard that I had invented this thing and they asked me, "So, I hear you're an inventor?" And I kind of stammered and said "well.... it was an accident. I didn't mean to, I promise." This was mostly to be funny/silly, not that I don't believe in the idea. But I know this sort of 'startup/founder(s)/seed-money' thing is HN's bread-and-butter, so I at least thought I'd ask.
Having someone else also means you’re accountable to them, which puts a bit more urgency on getting things done, in addition to being a sounding-board for your ideas.
If it's a choice between being too slow, losing the market timing and the provisional patent protections or finding a co-founder, then find a cofounder. Is it more work to find the cofounder vs develop it yourself? You can try posting a linkedIn job ad for a cofounder, someone found me that way, and yes it was upfront about the salary situation but there are people out there who might be in the right circumstances to take you up on what you can bring to the table.
"If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go together."
You have 4 kids, there is no way you have that kind of time.
Regarding the patent: I know this is going to sound harsh, but what is likely is that it's going to be harder to find someone who finds your invention cool than to defend against anyone who might want to steal it.
Patents defend technical inventions useful in the industry, a social media gizmo not so much. Filing a patent will take a lot of time, and you won't have the money to litigate anyone who steals it anyways.
In your position, I would just throw the idea out there, make a kickstarter campaign or something. Try and get anyone interested. If there is interest, then it's easier to find a cofounder who might want to be in with you on this.
There is a good chance that the kickstarter result is a giant "meh" from the world. And you can go back raising your children and chase that GS15 (Idk what that is).
Also if you do this just to scratch your own itch, build the stuff just for yourself (LLMs and 3D printers make everything quite simple these days), and post a youtube video about it.
Anyways my take is:
- you need a cofounder to launch something
- but you need to validate the idea before finding a cofounder.
also don't be greedy with your cofounder, split 50 50 or close to that, it may be your idea, but you can't do it without the other person.
Maybe there's some context or nuance that didn't get conveyed that I'm missing.
I would imagine you can't get treble damages from willful infringement on a provisional patent, given that they're not published... so if you publicize your item on kickstarter while the patent is provisional and/or pending, less potential damages from infringers ... but I dunno how many people get treble damages anyway.
But what complicates this even more is that I don't really want to sit on the tech at all. I want it to become ubiquitous and (eventually) a standard (like how Yubico/Yubikey led to FIDO/FIDO2 later).
But others in the thread also bring up a totally valid point: I need to prove this has teeth with real people somehow.
I think I may have to bight the bullet and fork over some savings to get the proper patent done. I need to get busy with R&D to finalize the design.