Leeds startup helps inventors to become entrepreneurs

A startup company based in Leeds has launched an innovative platform to help aspiring inventors become entrepreneurs.

Oliver Yates and Owen Williams co-managed a small product development and design agency before launching Invent Me: a start-up that gives inventors the chance to share and develop their ideas.

Different

Using the platform, inventors can upload their ideas and have them validated and developed by experts and potential customers, eventually enabling them to be placed on the market.

Yates said that it is “completely different” to any other route to marketing new products and ideas.

He stated that people who have an idea for a new product have two options. They can self-fund development until their idea is ready for investment, which will cost thousands of pounds, or they can submit their idea to a company and hope that it stands out from other submissions.

Community

Yates added that the community-driven process “allows the best ideas to be identified and developed to the point that commercial partners want to receive them, without any time or risk to the inventor.”

Yates and Williams are supporting their startup business by using personal savings, pursuing agency work, and receiving help from family and friends.

The company is also receiving support from Entrepreneurial Spark, and it is now on the business accelerator’s list.