I designed a hardware product but haven't brought it to market because even if it is successful, Chinese manufacturers will reverse engineer it and then have a cheaper clone on the market within weeks, long before I can recoup even the cost of manufacturing, let alone make a profit. And since I can't afford to pursue legal action, it seems pointless to manufacture the product, and everybody loses. I wonder how much innovation is stifled this way.
There's a joke that if you're considering making something but think it would cost too much or take too long, just send the design out to some Chinese companies for a quote, but don't order any. Then wait a week or so for it to show up on Alibaba, buy a bunch and resell them under your own brand.
I remember a while back there was a kickstarter for a phone case that folds out into a selfie stick, it got successfully funded.
Within weeks of the kickstarter finishing, before the kickstarter had even delivered or even started manufacturing the cases, they were for sale on Aliexpress.
It seems so easy for someone in China to do this. Look for successful product kickstarters and you already have market validation. Something like a selfie stick case would be so easy to set up a production run for.
An engineer friend noticed this with civil engineering applications as well.
Chinese companies troll RFPs for bridge and other designs. In this case, my friend saw a unique bridge/overpass that he was associated with in some obscure province that was completed before the original. He knew it was their design because it did not include changes that were made after the contract award.
It's just one of many options, but do you put your heart and soul into something then not let it see the light of day after you find out you can't profit?
fpvracing has already worked for free: spent effort to design a product, without any revenue, and apparently now having given up hope of getting any revenue.
I made two suggestions: one of which might provide a path to revenue, and another which, whilst providing no revenue, would also cost nothing, and require virtually no additional effort beyond that already expended.
The one advantage you have is that your competitors aren't aware of you yet, so use that time to prepare. I'd say either pursue minimum-cost overseas manufacturing right away, before you have competition, or position your brand to be higher quality than Chinese imports.
What's the hardware product? It's not like the counterfeit version will take over your product that fast and you'll always be able to keep a local market.
I was wondering if that would be an issue. It might be worthwhile to present it to the factory as something else. E.g. a quadcopter part presented as handheld fan for hot weather.
