Step 4:  Building a Prototype

However spectacular your idea, it won't attract the attention it deserves without a working model. Even if your patent sketches look fabulous and you can answer the most difficult product design questions, any company worth doing business with will approach your idea with a healthy degree of skepticism. Simply put, companies have heard it all. They deal with hundreds of "great" new inventions every year, many of which turn out to be bogus and bad investments.

Many times, even if you do have a product, they won’t believe your product will work or are skeptical that the invention works as well as you claim.  Most patented inventions are so new and different that many people have to get a "real" physical feel for them to appreciate its advantages. Most people put more stock in what they can see and touch. That is why an invention prototype is worth a thousand sketches. Prototypes give you a tangible product to show other people - something they can hold in their hands and get excited about.