Community member Alex de Beer is an Excel god! He put together these awesome graphs to track product sales over the past three days (since the start of our big Fan/Follower Drive) and over the past month. Check them out for a visual representation of Quirky sales!
March 29-31
If you’re at all plugged in on Facebook and Twitter, you’ve noticed the increased back-and-forth flow of info on the Quirky pages. The Great Facebook/Twitter Fan/Follower Drive is in full swing! Here’s an update on the action thus far:
Our members are killing it on Facebook… we went from 399 to 640 fans in just three days. That’s a 60% increase — amazing! Don’t forget: we’re offering free idea submissions and Quirky gift packs to the community members who suggest the page to the most eventual fans. Check out all the details here. We’ve also posted an exclusive 24-hour Facebook-only discount coupon code for idea submissions, which is only accessible to fans.
The results of our Twitter drive have been a little less impressive. In three days, we went from 1,421 Twitter followers to 1,480. That’s an increase of only 4.15% — not too impressive. Any community advice on how to boost those numbers? We need your help to make this drive a success!
Have markets become so saturated that ad agencies and branding firms now see the only possible avenue for expansion of existing brands as the alt or hipster subsets of the demographics that they’re already targeting?
Take for example:
Does there really exist a sizable market segment consisting of people in retirement communities buying lame hot pants? I think not, but I suppose it is larger than discerning babies who might own an Apple product, shop at places such as Urban Outfitters, and control their household’s grocery spending.
However, such things have not gone unnoticed (just Google “Gerber hipster babies” or the like). Unfortunately, I suspect the noticing and commentary from such social media pundits (young people with Macs) will only drive these campaigns into overdrive as they shall be seen as evidence of their success. All of this will lead to the alienation of such alternative verticals and the eventual collapse of Western style capitalism. What comes after? An economy based on personal currencies pegged to an individual’s retweets and Facebook likes.
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the release of multi-colored PowerCurls! “Get wound up” with a brand spankin’ new line of our popular PowerCurls in pink, blue, lime green, charcoal, and our classic dead-sexy orange.
Designed by the Quirky community and Apple enthusiasts in just 24 hours, the Quirky PowerCurl is a clip-on cord wrap for Apple’s 45W, 60W, and 85W MagSafe Power Adapter. The Curl, as we like to call it, makes it easy to unplug and pack up quickly without having to untangle your extension cords the next time you set up shop.
Oh, and we’ve quirkified this thing — it’s bright orange and dead sexy. Here’s what else makes it hot:
- Both ends of the cord (the plug end and the MagSafe end) can wrap around the device, allowing for quick and easy unraveling.
- The included clip enables the plug end of your cord to clip to itself, just like your MagSafe end does.
- Fear over-heated adapters no more — PowerCurl elevates the power adapter for improved air circulation and cooling.
- You will be able to choose between the 60W or 85W model prior to device shipping.
Don’t wanna buy one? Check out Twitter NOW for the chance to win one!
This week, we catch up with Pieter Laga, the brains behind Petal Drops, a Quick & Quirky product that recently hit threshold and is now available for just $5.25 in our online store.
1. What do you do? (job-wise, ya know, when you’re not on Quirky)
I work at a local advertising agency as a graphic designer and I do some copywriting, motion design and I know a thing or two about interior design.
2. Where are you from?
I live in Belgium, a small (yet complex) country in the center of western Europe.
3. How and when did you think up the idea for Petal Drops?
After influencing some products, I was confident I could come up with a product concept. I was playing with the idea of rain water — the fact that it’s better for your plants than tap water — and a way to collect it. Using a bottle was a logical step. Only I wasn’t sure about the shape of the funnel… until a few days later, when I thought of plant leaves. You can say form followed function, in this case.
Seconds away from paying 99 dollars and submitting my well-prepared pitch to Quirky, I saw a banner for the green QnQ challenge and realised, “Hey, my idea is perfect for this!” 24 crazy hours later, Petal Drops was ready.
4. Had you tried to make this thing on your own already?
For my idea submission I made dummies out of paper and experimented with the shape and size of the petals. Took some photos that I retouched and colored digitally, and included them in my pitch.
I couldn’t have made this a success on my own — I’m not a product designer, developer, or marketer. During the summer, I discovered Quirky and immediately fell for the concept. Now that I know Quirky, I keep a small sketchbook to write ideas down. Most of them are silly and will never sell, but I believe I have a quirky idea left.
5. From who/where do you derive your creative inspiration?
Books, magazines, documentaries, blogs… I believe a creative person is a curious person.
At the time I was searching for an idea it was raining for 3 weeks in a row. I guess this was part of the inspiration for Petal Drops. 
6. What do you wish Quirky did that it does not already?
I’d love to see a better organized shop — maybe separate from the main site and very intuitive for (non-member) buyers — focused only on selling our products.
+ More creative, totally unique crazy quirky products that people really want!!!
7. What’s your favorite deli meat? Cereal?
I am fond of grey North Sea shrimp from our coast. They’re delicious.
8. What are some of your quirks?
OK, I confess… I’m a Quirky addict.
MugStir — “A Spoon That Hangs With You” — just reached its pre-sale threshold of 630 products! We knew this product could make it, and we’re excited to push it through manufacturing. The MugStir is now available in packs of three for $12.99 in the Quirky store.
The Quirky MugStir is a portable spoon that hangs onto the side of a coffee mug or cup of tea. Bring your MugStir to work to replace those nasty communal spoons, or to avoid wasting a new plastic spoon every time you need to stir a hot beverage.
The MugStir features:
- A handle that clips to the side of your mug, rubber-coated to protect the mug from scratches and your fingers from burns.
- A spoon that holds about 1/2 a teaspoon of liquid and acts as an ideal stirrer for your hot (or cold) beverage.
MugStir’s dimensions are approximately 3in tall x 1.25in wide x 1in deep. The product comes in packs of three, so feel free to keep a spoon at work, a spoon at home, and a spoon with you when you’re on the go!
A big congratulations to ideator Judi Sigler, who really pushed the social sales on this product. Not only did she create a Twitter feed (@MugStir), she also made a Facebook fan page and a website! She’s proof of what a bit of creativity can accomplish!
That is the foundational belief at Quirky. Since the industrial revolution, business has been “closed” — meaning relatively few people have made the decisions about what products come to market and how a business should be run. At Quirky, we believe that’s an outdated way of doing business. In fact, we’re betting the company on it. We believe that we, together, are smarter and more capable of designing great products and building a great company. Together, we can reshape markets, design breakthrough products, and demonstrate to the world that, in fact, Open Beats Closed.
I’m creating a forum topic about this: let us know your thoughts here.
I wrote this in my last blog post, but it’s worth repeating. What we’re trying to accomplish here won’t be easy. No start-up is. But Quirky especially will take incredibly hard work, imagination, a willingness to take risks, and an incredible team of employees and community members. We’re trying to do something absolutely profound here. We’re trying to bring the dreams of inventors from all over the world to life. We’re trying to build a consumer brand from scratch. We’re competing in many different consumer product categories against many entrenched companies. We’re sharing rewards with thousands of contributors from around the world. We need to build robust capacities in design, manufacturing, and distribution. We need to build a great team. And we need to manage cash flow. Like I said, this won’t be easy.
This works if we do it together. We’re committed to building an extraordinary team at Quirky. And if you’re interested, we want you to be a part of it. We’ll always post our open positions on the web site and do a blog post about them. If you think you’re a great match, or know someone who is, let us know!
But the Quirky team won’t be enough. We need your participation. We’re going to let you inside the Quirky business in a way that I don’t think has ever been done by another company. You’ve begun to see it: the forum and our blog posts. That’s just the beginning. We promise to be honest and fully transparent with our community.
In return, we’ll ask for your participation and your bright ideas to help us navigate the difficult choices we’ll face as we grow. Keep telling us what we can do to get better. We’re listening.
Because of Facebook’s terms and conditions regarding promotions, we’re going to explain our Facebook fan promo right on this here blog post.
Here’s the deal:
1. Become a fan of Quirky on Facebook.
2. Click on the “Suggest to Friends” link, located just under our profile picture.
3. Suggest becoming a fan to one, five, or better yet, ALL of your Facebook friends.
4. See how many of your friends accept the suggestion and actually become new fans.
5. Return to this blog post and post a comment, listing the names of the new fans you’ve referred WHO HAVE ACCEPTED THE INVITATION. If possible, post those names 5 at a time, please, to make Jess’s life easier.
At week’s end, the person with the highest number of referrals will get a free idea submission and a Quirky gift basket (estimated value: $200). Four runners-up will get a free idea submission and Quirky gift.
So what are you waiting for? Hop to!
Please note: Facebook is in no way a sponsor or administrator of this promotion.
As of 10:35 a.m., Quirky had 1,421 Twitter followers and 399 Facebook fans — not too shabby for a 9-month company like ours, but we know we can do better.
And so, this week, we’ve decided to launch The Great Facebook/Twitter Fan/Follower Drive! It’s a mouthful, we know, but it best describes what we want to accomplish over the next week: engage our existing community to boost our number of fans and followers exponentially. Our goal is to break 3,000 Twitter followers and 800 Facebook fans by the end of the week. Ambitious? We know. But do we think we can do it? Say it with me… YES. WE. CAN!
All week, we’ll be holding exclusive contests and giveaways on Facebook and Twitter. Keep your eyes on these sites for timed discount coupons and the chance to win free products and idea submissions.
If you’re not yet a fan or a follower, don’t delay! You don’t want to miss this.
Become a fan of Quirky on Facebook.
Please note: Facebook and Twitter are not sponsors or administrators of this promotion.
Hi all. I’ve been following your posts in the forum about payments and referrals and I wanted to take a minute to address some of your concerns and hopefully clear things up a bit.
Payments and Account Balances
First, payments and negative account balances. While building the new payment system, I found a few bugs in the old code that lead to inflated account balances. They were:
(1) a rounding error that rewarded people more than they should have earned for each order.
(2) an error that occurred when (re)submitting an idea with a coupon which resulted in credits to your account that shouldn’t have been made. For example, say you resubmitted an idea for $10 with a $25 coupon. It would deduct $10 from the coupon and then credit your account with the remaining $15. Oops.
(3) some of you were getting rewarded for a presales order that you did not complete.
(4) we removed referrals from presales influence as the rewards for referring one order were greatly outweighing the reward for say, ordering 30 units. This wasn’t fair to people stepping up and making large orders. Also, referral influence was being granted before orders shipped meaning that people were getting rewarded for unshipped orders.
Everyone’s case is different but they’re all likely the result of some combination of the above. And what seems common to all is that account credits were used for idea submissions, product orders, or payout requests based on the inflated account balances. With them now adjusted to their correct values, some of you have a negative balance. If so, don’t sweat it, you don’t owe us anything. You just have to earn your way back to positive, which for most of you affected, is not much and should happen soon given your influence.
Referrals
There’s been a good deal of discussion about how referrals work and what they mean. Let’s break it down. I’ll try to keep it simple.
(*) Anytime someone clicks thru your social sales link, a cookie is dropped on their computer with an expiration date of a year from now.
(*) All subsequent requests to quirky.com by that referred user will pass along this referral cookie for us to track.
(*) The only way that this cookie can be removed is if (1) a user clears their browser cookies, (2) a user visits quirky in another browser, or (3) a user registers, submits an idea, or buys a product.
(*) In the last case, we convert the referral to a user referral and track whether it was for an idea, order, or registration.
(*) All rewardable actions by that user in the next 30 days are then attributed to the referrer (you). So, even if you don’t refer someone directly to a product, you will still earn a reward if the person purchases a product in the next 30 days.
(*) If we didn’t have a cap, then everyone would be rewarded in perpetuity for every order their referred users submit. We just can’t do that. But you all do make good points about having some flexibility in the cap. I’d appreciate your comments below.
(*) And finally, referral rewards are distributed only when orders ship.
Some of you have questioned whether or not the referral system is working because you are seeing a high number of referrals but very few conversions. This is a symptom of the old system and some of the bugs it had.
I could get all technical on you here and drop some serious code-fu about polymorphic database associations and the butterfly effect of a single missed keystroke… but I won’t. I’ll just get to the point.
We’ll be awarding account credits this weekend to reward people for referrals that are not currently appearing in their balances. It will be a one time credit for the cumulative referrals rewards earned to date. From here on out, all referral rewards will be tracked as social sales for products.
Phew… that was a lot of thinking for a Friday night. I think I covered most of your questions, but if not, please let me know. I read the blog and forum everyday. So either way. It’s cool. In the meantime…
Time for a bottle of Malbec and a devil with a blue dress on 
Good night my quirkies.
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