Quirky: Socially Developing Physical Products (Startup of the year!)

lukep

lukep

He Hath Arisen
Sep 18, 2010
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Featured on Bloomberg today is a fresh, young startup called Quirky. The basic premise is that people with nothing but an idea (or are only good at one small part of the product development or even marketing) can come forward and socially work together to create physical products like you'd buy in stores like Walmart. (More likely the Sharper Image by the look of the stuff on their site.)

I am obstaining from joining Quirky myself because after reading the entire FAQs page, it is apparent that this fucking site would be more addictive than cocaine!

Here is a product development overflow: (You can do more than just 1 part of this process, and in doing so get a larger chunk of the profits.)

quirky-infographic.png


Damn it's one tempting site. Part social network, part Gameshow, and part Lottory. SRSLY. I honestly think that a lot of people are going to quit their day jobs and spend all their time on Quirky once they start making some bucks.

Check out this film on how they divvy up the loot: Quirky influence - YouTube (Sorry not embeddable.)

-And that's not even addressing the people whose idea its was, it's just the people that log in and say "Let's try this tagline" or make some artwork, or simply vote on other peoples' additions to each product.

For anyone pooh-poohing this site or the silly products made on it to date, I feel it necessary to mention two serious points other than its' addictiveness:

1. The owner of Quirky is keeping all of the patents. How would you like to have an army of ppl working hard to make you product after product and you get to keep all of the IP? Dude's going to be a TRILLIONAIRE in time.

2. These new "Socially Developed Products" as they call them are a serious threat to the business models of the current corps they are competing with... Why? Because:

A. It's FREE R&D!!!! (Actually cheaper than free since the 1st person in the process spent $10 to get it started!)​

B. All of the people involved feel like its' "their baby" and order a few themselves and market to their friends and relatives with pride!​


Anyone who's ever done some Direct Sales (MLM) will know exactly how much influence that can have on the sales of these products... More so actually in this case because they have bragging rights to say "Hey dad, I helped build this thingamabob, so buy a bunch of them ok?"

In fact, all you have to do is read for a minute or two on one of the workflow pages there for any product "in development" and you'll see that they're all PLACING ORDERS for the product ahead of its' completion because they want the product to succeed.

Fucking Awesome. I predict that Socially Developed Products are going to be HUGE. As in bigger than all MLMs put together... And then some.

You heard it here first.
 
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Exceptional idea and it could certainly gain steam and make the creator a heck of a lot of money.

However, you'd have to be nuts to actually share one of your own ideas in this format. The TOS even outlines that quirky has the right to sell the patent to your product if they so desire to. That would leave the actual inventor and/or product creator completely shit out of luck.

Maybe I am being a negative nancy, but I have to think this type of format would only bring out the worst or most general ideas. I at least would hope that people smart enough to invent or create something, are also smart enough to realize this is an exceptional way to get their idea outright stolen from underneath them.
 
Awesome stuff. I saw something else very similar to this, but Quirky definitely seems better. And they have a TV show?! This will definitely be huge.
 
DrewClement said:
However, you'd have to be nuts to actually share one of your own ideas in this format. The TOS even outlines that quirky has the right to sell the patent to your product if they so desire to. That would leave the actual inventor and/or product creator completely shit out of luck.
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When you have a huge, Billion-dollar Idea, I agree wholeheartedly.

But when you just have those everyday "If you put a thingy on a pen it would be cool!" ideas then some money is better than none. Of course I don't have to tell you the alternative to produce that thingy-pen would be huge amounts of money and risk... And I get the feeling that 90% of the people just want to see something they made in walmart. (Or BBBY.)

When I was a kid I had about 20 of those thingy-pen Ideas every single damn day. No joke. It was really annoying! If only quirky had been around then...

DrewClement said:
I at least would hope that people smart enough to invent or create something, are also smart enough to realize this is an exceptional way to get their idea outright stolen from underneath them.
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There was something in the FAQs there about how anything posted on the site could be stolen by anyone, it is a risk you have to take. At least, it went on to say, there would be a huge inventors community with over 10,000 members that would all be very angry at whomever did so. :thumbsup:

Dreo13 said:
And they have a TV show?! This will definitely be huge.
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Totally forgot to mention that, thanks. Tonight @ 10pm on the Sundance Channel is the debut of their TV Show.

It's the gameshow part I hinted to; each week as they pick a new invention to run with, they notify the originator and make an episode out of it!
 
lukep said:
When you have a huge, Billion-dollar Idea, I agree wholeheartedly.

But when you just have those everyday "If you put a thingy on a pen it would be cool!" ideas then some money is better than none. Of course I don't have to tell you the alternative to produce that thingy-pen would be huge amounts of money and risk... And I get the feeling that 90% of the people just want to see something they made in walmart. (Or BBBY.)
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Completely agree, and that is why I think this could be a huge success....especially for the creator of the site as I mentioned.

Lots of people will be drawn to this........but even as you admit, I believe it will be the small ideas, little do-hickeys, and ideas that inherently lazy people may come up with on a late-afternoon stroll some day.

Of course there are risks of any idea being stolen...which quirky.com notes in their FAQs(although thats a pretty lame way to try and convince people to share their ideas)

but the reality for me is that the TOS specifically explains that they can sell the patent if they so desire. That is a much much much much higher risk than simply having your idea copied or replicated by a competitor down the road.

If you truly believe you have a GREAT idea, you'd have to be NUTS to simply give someone ownership to the patent for free. Or.....simply lazy.

Yet those stupid or lazy or just people that dont know any better are surely going to be the reason this guy banks hard off this idea. We all know from personal experience how many stupid people there are out there....and how many of them flock to shiny, pretty things.
 
Really innovative. I think a precursor to this model was kickstarter with the process of "crowdsourcing" ideas and taking pre-orders to measure the viability of manufacturing runs. This is setup much more specific to product development though, and really interesting at that. I will agree with DrewClement with the notion that a lot of amazing inventors won't be submitting their million dollar ideas, but obviously it's working to some extent for some small items that are already in a retail outlet like bed bath and beyond. Now to see if what people in the quirky community agree to be a good product will resonate with the rest of consumers.

The whole idea of crowdsourcing customer prospective in an easy and social format is heating up with companies like this.
 
This is basically that patent idea TV commercials on the web
+ some crowd-sourced research done for the patent company
+ then you have to prove that there are enough pre-sales to even get your product created.

As discussed above. This is a racket for Quirky.
 
Quirky shares 30 percent of all top line revenue brought in by direct sales on quirky.com, as well as 10 percent of indirect retail sales revenue, with each product's influencers. About 35 percent of that reward goes to the ideator/inventor.
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seems kinda cool but the payout seems a little 1 sided towards quirky
 
^Well after they pay for the lights, their staff, and their servers they still have to MAKE this shit, i.e. Materials, packaging, etc... I don't think it's all that 1-sided considering all they bring to the table.

Like Drew said tho, they could always sell the patent to someone... And of course they keep the patent even if they don't so bottom line is none of your Idea turns into any IP for you. Just some cash, and perhaps bragging rights.
 
I really think this is neat - but overall, i can't imagine anything great happening. and think of those poor people in the factories in china:

Another Pen with a thingy on it?!? This is america's inventors at work?

No wonder their economy is growing and ours is stagnant. As OP said, at some level, we just want to see our ideas in walmart.
 
DrewClement said:
I at least would hope that people smart enough to invent or create something, are also smart enough to realize this is an exceptional way to get their idea outright stolen from underneath them.
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this.

I'll take my ideas to market myself with as few people involved as possible thank you.
 
lukep said:
^Well after they pay for the lights, their staff, and their servers they still have to MAKE this shit, i.e. Materials, packaging, etc... I don't think it's all that 1-sided considering all they bring to the table.

Like Drew said tho, they could always sell the patent to someone... And of course they keep the patent even if they don't so bottom line is none of your Idea turns into any IP for you. Just some cash, and perhaps bragging rights.
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I didnt quite make it through all the materials but are you saying that quirky actually funds the project costs ?(r&d, protoypes, manufacturing) I was thinking that 1 of the ways someone would contribute would be by filling some of these responsibilities. But if they are paying for it then its a great way to put a few bucks into your pocket with out any downside risk (except missed opportunity costs)
 
Looks like a bit of a bubble business to me.

The idea is neat. So was Groupon at one time.
 
Speaking of which; Groupon was a complete & utter failure.

Today Yelp and Facebook both closed the doors on their offers alternatives and Bloomberg officially announced that the reason Groupon is on no one's hotlist anymore is because that business model requires more advertising costs over time with fewer returns for customers... It's all hitting a wall very soon and won't be able to pay all of these regional ad execs!

The really should have sold out to google. Poor bastards.

Anyway, back to the comparison, Quirky has extreme interest with it's USP, Extreme marketing with their TV show, extreme addictiveness, (site stickiness) that I explained above, and one of the most profitable business plans out there, too, considering the owner keeps all the IP.

All they have to do is not fuck up now and piss off their users. They can be bigger than GE one day if they just keep doing what they're doing now!
 
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