7. The Proprietary Aspect
Trademarks and Patents Explained The second essential pillar for attracting investors, alongside "huge demand," is the proprietary nature of your business. This goes beyond merely differentiating your brow service. The crucial factor is your ability to protect that differentiation. Convincing investors to support a high valuation is much more challenging without a protective edge.
Paths to Proprietary Advantages in Your Brow Business
A few key avenues exist for establishing proprietary protection: trademarks (or patents), domain names, and technical solutions. However, these options are difficult to achieve or require significant initial investments.
Trademarks Versus Patents: Understanding the Differences
A trademark is your business's unique identifier, like a name tag. It could be a symbol, phrase, or word that signifies to customers, "This is uniquely mine!" For example, Nike's name and "swoosh" logo are trademarks indicating the origin of their products, protecting the brand from imitation.
In contrast, a patent is an exclusive right to produce, use, or sell an invention for a certain period, typically up to 20 years. If you invent a novel brow microblading technique, a patent ensures that no one else can legally offer the same technique for the patient's life.
Practical Implications: The Challenge of Patents
The chances of securing a groundbreaking patent are very low in the brow business. Innovations like a unique Permanent Makeup (PMU) machine are incredibly rare and difficult to achieve, akin to making a significant medical breakthrough.
The brow industry already has many patented formulas, techniques, and solutions, often originating from other industries. Creating something genuinely new, even with chemistry or related sciences expertise, is extraordinarily challenging.