It always starts with a Dream. You've always had this great idea for a new product that everyone will want to buy...
You start to shift the dream from fantasy to reality by spending some considerable time doing searches on the internet for related and existing products along with checking existing intellectual property online at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (U.S.P.T.O).
As you suspected, you haven't found any similar products that solve the problem your product does in its unexpected yet simple way. You receive a green light at the intersection of Unique and Novel, so you proceed through the intersection.
Your Action plan will necessitate the things you need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, then yearly basis to bring your product to life...If you keep doing these consistently and are regimented about your business, you will start to see:
Results - Results can come in unlimited forms during the life of all your hard work, but it may be: a filed patent, finalized packaging design, an interested licensee, a buyer taking a chance to carry your product on their shelf, the umpteenth product iteration that is a fully refined product and no longer a prototype...
Licensing your product to a licensee can result in Earnings in the form of ongoing royalty checks based on sales of your product. Conversely, if you plan to market your product yourself, earnings will be the profits you make from manufacturing and marketing your product.
This is obviously a very high level and extremely glossed over version of what it takes to bring a new product to market. You will need to dedicate a lot of time and effort in the above areas in order to be very successful. And I can help you through all those areas. But, daring to do something always starts with a dream.
And dreams that are not acted out are only dreams...Dreams that are acted out are living your life to it's fullest potential!!
* "Nightmares pass through the holes and out of the window. The good dreams are trapped in the web, and then slide down the feathers to the sleeping person."
Terri J. Andrews, "Living by the Dream", World & I, Nov. 1998, p. 204