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Small home or cottage business ideas - what have you got?
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DTJ:

--- Quote from: station240 on October 30, 2018, 05:38:50 pm ---


At the end of the day, you really need only to:
A) pick something you understand, not just technically but how and why
B) if there is no competition, find out if it's because others are fools, or simply as there isn't enough money in it.
C) if no one else understands how something works, or how to build/repair it, that's probably a good thing. Downside is you have no one to ask advice from.
D) reverse engineering other people's stuff to figure out how it works, should be an electronics 101 subject.

--- End quote ---

All very interesting points Station240.

Reverse engineering is also a lot of fun.
Red Squirrel:
The thing to watch out too is patents.  If you decide to make something that is not the first of it's kind, it might infringe on a patent then you get sued for millions and end up losing everything you have.  My fear would be losing my house/property.  They'll probably garnish your wages too if you have a job.  Basically you'd be paying for life.

I kinda want to design my own home automation system (I hate the fact that existing stuff is cloud based and proprietary) that is super modular with plug in cards etc and I was thinking I could release it to public, but there's probably too many patents related to that so not worth the risk.
AndyC_772:
This is a good reason to work through a Ltd company, but not a reason to run screaming from any possible business opportunity.

There are some well established business practices that you'd do well to consider. For example, you might set up two companies:

- one is a holding company, which owns your intellectual property, and licences it out for a fee
- the other is a trading company, which makes and sells products. The designs for the products are licensed from the holding company.

Get it right, and the trading company's profits from selling widgets are balanced by its expenditure on license fees paid back to the holding company. Crucially, it has no assets of its own, so if it's sued for patent infringement, it can be wound up without incurring massive losses.

The holding company isn't making or selling any product, so it can't be guilty of patent infringement. Its assets are relatively safe in that respect. You own the shares in the holding company, and can take dividends from it.

The paperwork is a pain, and does have a cost associated with it, but it's a lot safer than being a sole trader.
xaxaxa:
That's why when you are small it might make sense to do the whole thing from china
cdev:
Guess what renting a good IP lawyer's time will set you back here in the US, around $1200/hour.

 
--- Quote from: Red Squirrel on October 31, 2018, 04:09:07 pm ---The thing to watch out too is patents.  If you decide to make something that is not the first of it's kind, it might infringe on a patent then you get sued for millions and end up losing everything you have.  My fear would be losing my house/property.  They'll probably garnish your wages too if you have a job.  Basically you'd be paying for life.

I kinda want to design my own home automation system (I hate the fact that existing stuff is cloud based and proprietary) that is super modular with plug in cards etc and I was thinking I could release it to public, but there's probably too many patents related to that so not worth the risk.

--- End quote ---

Often they don't even know answers to questions (Although sometimes there is no answer to a question, yet, this applies to almost everything out of the ordinary, not just that.) and they want you to pay them for research time.
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