Calling all Designers

[Inventor]

Hi folks, I'd like to open up a discussion and get people's opinions regarding what is possibly a bit of a touchy subject. Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, I'm treading lightly - walking on eggshells as it were - so as not to offend the offendable! Here's the deal:

What I'm doing these days is I'm starting a small hobby business by creating and manufacturing a line of miniature modular synthesizer boards. I'm talking super miniature, like most boards are from just under 1 square inch in area to just over 2 square inches. Like the size of a half of a stick of gum. That's small.

So far I have seven designs ready for manufacture and four more ready for conversion to surface mount. OK, so good luck with your little hobby business attempt, why are you posting about it here?

The reason is I'm planning to offer royalties to designers. The plan is to take 10% of the net profits (not the gross sales) and distribute that to people who make significant design contributions to the modules.

For example, you are very familiar with your own past design of circuit X. You decide to get in on the action and design a super-simplified, low cost version of circuit X without all the bells and whistles (well with some maybe) and then you submit said design to me via this forum (electro-music.com). I then approve your design and work it into the product line. Then you would begin to receive PayPal royalty payments up to 10% of the net profits of the sale of that module only.

Some details include things like you need to have $10 USD in royalties for it to be worth the time to send out the royalty, and you must offer continued support in the form of design advice in the event of any problems. Plus if your design involves tables or graphs or other data like schematics and so on, you provide that stuff too.

So what do you think? I am doing this because I think it's a fair and rewarding way to acknowledge the electro-music.community for their contributions to my product line and to foster a sense of community involvement for all of us. Please let me know what your thoughts are on this, especially any legal, tax, or other horrid things that would be necessary should we set this up. Thanks in advance for your input.

Les