Starting an experiement in innovation

I am an inventor. I do have proof - several patents to my name, some of which I have done alone. When a patent is granted, the patent office makes a very throrough check of previous inventions, to see if anyone has made a similar invention before. If they say no, then you were the first to think about it - and you are a bona fide inventor when the patent is granted. Of course, I have a lot of help, since I work for a large company with an excellent patent department. But that does not mean that they come up with the idea.
But that does not mean I am an innovator. A granted patent is quite valuable, since you can sue people when you hold it, and potentially get damages. But that does not mean it creates new value. Rather the reverse, in some ways. You can not get money if you sue someone who does not make money (unless your goal is to make them stop doing whatever they are doing - and even so, there are limitations on what you can get out of a lawsuit). When you sue someone they have to pay out of funds they had already created - by selling a product and creating value.
That is what innovation is about: Creating value. Most often by bringing a product to the market and either getting more value out of selling it (at a higher price or same price with higher margin). The sales uses the same channels and mechanisms as other competitors. This is how productivity improvements improve business. It is the favorite way managers work.
But if you are an innovator, you figure out how to sell your product (or service) an a new way. It does not have to be a very big change. But the business model is a little different - at least as long as you do not change the product. So having inventor credentials in hand, I figured out I would become an innovator as well.
I am doing it in the company I work for, but I thought I would use the Internet to do it too. So I am developing a product that will let me test the innovation ideas I have. The problem is that I actually have to develop two products which are slightly different, because I want to have one reference that allows me to test if the innovations I am making actually work.
While it would be quite relevant to just put the product on the market, that would not tell me anything. I might have created a runaway hit without knowing it (I actually did once before). But if I put one product on the market using traditional channels, and a similar but not quite the same product on the market in an innovative way, then I will see whether the innovation actually worked. So that is what I plan to do. I will blog about it as soon as the product is finished, but it will take some time. I will get back in other blog posts