05 by Polson Enterprises, all rights reserved. Forward

Think of the hardest thing you have ever had to do in your life and then triple it. That is how much
effort you may have to put forward to try to reach the market with a new marine drive, and still fail.
It is NOT an easy task. If you are up to seriously evaluating your design, spending thousands of hours
and perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars, in an attempt to reach the marketplace, read on.

This paper provides a brief discussion of the difficulties in reaching the market, specifically with
drives resembling outboards and stern drives targeting the mainstream market (40 to 300 HP) and
the almost insurmountable obstacles along the way. Part of the inventor's time will be spent learning
about the marine drive market, its history and culture, and the companies involved. Dozens of
companies, associations, organizations, terms and industry jargon are mentioned in this paper and
purposefully not elaborated upon to encourage further independent study.

Most importantly, DO NOT, pick up the phone and call us or email us or any other companies listed
in this paper until you have thoroughly read it, and invested at least a few hundred hours of your own
time in refining your design, gaining an understanding of the market, the level of uniqueness of your
design, and especially understanding the position of companies already in the industry. This report
lists many companies by name that might be potential licensees or joint venture partners for highly
refined, field tested drive designs IF they were contacted at the perfect time with the "perfect design"
and given the "perfect presentation" by the "perfect team/inventor". If they begin to be contacted by a
bunch of "nutcase inventors" who have not progressed past a napkin sketch and start complaining
back to us about being mentioned here, we will take this paper down from our site and you will
destroy a great tool for future marine drive inventors.

We (Polson Enterprises) do provide a wide range of resources assisting clients in developing new
marine drives, but as mentioned above, please do not contact us about your design until you have
spent considerable time studying this paper, our other papers referenced by it, and thinking about
your design.

We welcome comments on this paper from all readers.
Please send them to: polsong@virtualpet.com

Good Luck

Gary Polson
Polson Enterprises Introduction

Before investing large amounts of time and money developing a new marine drive, Independent
Inventors should understand the difficulties that lie ahead. Among them are:

1. Potential paths to market for a marine drive that might result in money in an Independent
Inventor's pocket are almost impossible to travel.
2. To be successful in this business, an Independent Inventor must invest hundreds of hours in
understanding the industry in-side-out.
3. A project of this magnitude needs to be "balanced" in the "Six Areas of Balance". Instead of just
working on the initial design/technical development of the drive, Independent Inventors must
also attend to funding, marketing, intellectual property development, personal development, and
developing professional contacts. Many inventions fail to reach the marketplace because
Independent Inventors neglect one or more or these areas.
4. A new marine drive will probably need to be developed to a fully functional prototype running in
a boat to attract a major potential licensee. Hundreds of thousands of dollars may be required to
reach that stage of development.
5. If an Independent Inventor does obtain an audience with a potential licensee, they will need a
very thorough, high quality presentation. Many Independent Inventors have no concept of the
attention to detail needed to produce a high quality presentation.

Several individuals and small companies have successfully launched shaft type surface drives
(Arneson, Dulger Direct Drive, Power Vent, Pulse Drive, Q-SPD, Simplicity, and many more), but
these successes are NOT similarly found from individuals and small companies trying to market new
drives somewhat similar to outboards and stern drives. Design, tooling and manufacturing of die cast
aluminum housing, gears, shifting, and emission regulations present in outboards and stern drives
provides a high barrier to entry for Independent Inventors, along with a limited number of very large
corporations fighting for market share in a mature industry.

The early years of outboard engines saw hundreds of individuals and small companies enter the
industry with different approaches, but the bar has been raised. Larger, higher horsepower, more
complex drives with aluminum housings are much more difficult to produce. Outboard engines
themselves have become extremely complex and use a wide range of technologies to achieve top
performance while still meeting emission regulations. The only new companies to enter the
mainstream marine drive market in recent years are in Asia (with the exception of the small Briggs &
Stratton drive).

The purpose of this paper is to discourage Independent Inventors from proceeding to patent or
develop a marine drive before they understand the difficulties and risks that lie ahead, and to improve
the probability of success for those who decide to proceed.

The paper has six major sections:

Nine Paths to the Marketplace for Independent Inventors
Identifying Potential Licensees and Partners
Six Areas of Balance
Presentations
Avoiding Scams
Conclusion Nine Paths to the Marketplace for Independent Inventors

Regardless of the product, Independent Inventors have nine basic paths to the marketplace.

1. Fund the Design, Manufacturing, Marketing, Sales and Service of the Product Yourself (your
personal money, bank loans, loans from family and friends, SBA, credit cards, etc.)
2. Finance Development With Government Grants
3. Finance Invention With Angel Investors, Venture Capitalist and Venture Capital Funds
4. License the Invention
5. Team with a Joint Venture Partner / Strategic Partner
6. Form a Company, Sell Stock Locally or on a Stock Exchange (Stockholders fund the project)
7. Give Idea to a Relative or Friend (you make no money from it)
8. Give Idea to a Specific Company (you make no money from it)
9. Give Idea to the World (you make no money from it)

The accompanying Recreational Marine Drive Commercialization Path Chart shows these nine
paths as they relate specifically to marine drives resembling outboards and stern drives.

Most Independent Inventors want to license their drive, a few try to find a partner, some may
eventually try other options after they exhaust licensing and partnering approaches.

Since most Independent Inventors want to license their drive, the next section focuses on identifying
potential licensees. Some of the companies mentioned might also be Joint Venture / Strategic Partner
candidates. Other potential paths to market are briefly discussed on the accompanying Recreational
Marine Drive Commercialization Path Chart.

Recreational Marine Drive Commercialization Path Chart

A large (11 X 16 inch) .pdf color version of the chart below is online. It can be reached from:
http://www.virtualpet.com/rtools.htm

Independent Inventors might find it helpful to print a color copy at a nearby Kinkos and put it on the
wall. Identifying Potential Licensees & Partners

This section enumerates possible types of companies and specific companies that might be potential
licensees. Although the list of categories may appear lengthy, the actual specific targets for a given
drive are very few.


Categories of Potential Licensees

Current U.S. Manufacturers of Outboards and Stern Drives
Foreign Manufacturers of Outboards and Stern Drives
Major Drive Rebuilders
Engine Manufactures With Ties to the Marine Industry
Recreational Marine Gearbox / Transmission Manufacturers
Marine High Performance Manufacturers and Racing Shops
Marine "Will Fit" or Replacement Part Manufacturers
Marine Jet and Marine Surface Drive Manufacturers
Marine Turbine Manufacturers and Rebuilders
Commercial Drive Manufacturers and Bow Thruster Manufacturers
Industry Segments That May Need a Marine Drive
Manufacturers of Large Industrial Mixers
Companies With No Related Experience or Presence in the Marine Industry

A brief analysis of each Potential Licensee category follows along with a discussion of how
interested they might be in new marine drive concepts from Independent Inventors and why. U.S. Manufacturers of Outboards and Stern Drives

Brunswick/Mercury Marine/Mercruiser is currently the only U.S. manufacturer of both outboards
and stern drives. A few much smaller U.S. manufacturers exist, mostly supplying:

1. Stern drive repower market (Konrad Marine, Sterndrive Engineering/SEI, SternPowr/
American Propulsion Systems)
2. Hydraulic powered drives (usually for small commercial vessels like Sykes Hydromaster and
Thrustmaster)
3. Shallow water drives (Bog Hog Mud Motor, Go-Devil, Scavenger Backwater Motors,
Stump-Jumper)
4. Very small outboards (Briggs & Stratton)
5. Small electric trolling motors (Johnson Outdoors/Minn Kota and Brunswick/MotorGuide)
6. High performance / racing