My wife works at a dog daycare and grooming facility, called Scrub a Pup. They have groomers there, plus on Saturdays, they have a room where people can wash their own dogs. Its a suprisingly steady business, even now in this downturn.
I was also fortunate enough to have lived next door to the guy that invented the Chuckit
http://www.caninehardware.com/. I did some of the intial modeling of it for him, but he had to hire someone that could dedicate more time to it. I'll tell ya, we had some of the happiest dogs in our neighborhood, with all the toys he tried to invent.
Not sure what kind of advice you need - 'cept it takes a long time to get products out and you'll struggle for a while until you find something that sells.