Kunal Kandekar wrote:
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"Unfortunately Murphy's law intrudes: If you have a great Idea, somebody's had it before and better"

That is true but not generally an obstacle. While other people generally have great ideas first, few people can really make them pay off. So get an idea then see if you are likely to get it to market either before the competition or to another market they never thought of going after.

Kunal Kandekar wrote:
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"To find a niche, of course, I need to work in the industry..."

We used to advise spending 4 years in cutting-edge high tech at the beginning of your engineerng career, then move into less sophisticated markets where you can cash in your acquired high tech knowledge. After that engineers tend to move into team managerial positions where they make lots more money while losing their technology edge.

The last step is where you can make a choice to go it alone. You've "paid your dues" and now you can apply the technology and business skills you've experienced into a way to make som serious money.

So that sounds like it takes a long time... well that doesn't apply anymore. The internet world allows you to easily reach your customers and vise versa ad PC software allows you to operate a company with in absolute MINIMUM of employees. This is a wonderful time for entrepreneurs that have the right skills!

Kunal Kandekar wrote:
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"but if I know that if I OWN my own R&D , my inventions belong to me"

Be careful of maing the mistake to stick to R&D. It not really profitable and the cash flows are not steady. You are much better off doing R&D to develop a PRODUCT. Making and selling a product can generate a continuous cash flow even while you are at the beach. My advise is to forget selling to consumers... sell to businesses. Consumers will sue you for silly reasons, corporations won't waste the time.

R&D is fun of course. You can do that once you have a product making your cash flows. A topic on production techniques for the INDIVIDUAL engineer would be very useful but since its not about the 8052, it would probably be considered a Z8 reference. Too bad. :)

duh