Archive for April, 2010

• Fri, Apr 2 2010

  The Launch Of Click ‘n Cook: The Essential Utensil

  By jess at 10:36 am

  Cooking tools cluttering your kitchen? Despair no more. Click ‘n Cook has finally launched in our online store at a pre-sale price of $32 (MSRP: $35) and a threshold of 780. This product’s sure to be a hit — buy yours now!

  

  Click ‘n Cook is a modular spatula system that keeps all your essential utensils in one easy place. The set features a stainless steel storage block, a sturdy ergonomic handle, and five detachable spatula heads:

  ————-

  Classic flat spatula

  Long flexible slotted spatula (for cooking fish)

  Extra-wide slotted spatula (for flipping burgers)

  Flexible mixer (for mixing batter)

  Slotted spoon (for stirring pasta)

  ————-

  Just snap the attachment into the handle, cook up a storm and release with a click of a button when you’re done. Organizing your cooking supplies has never been easier!

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  • Tags:
  • click 'n cook,
  • p33,
  • products,
  • spatula
• Thu, Apr 1 2010

  Spring Is Nature’s Way Of Saying “Let’s Party”

  By mike at 7:25 pm

  Finally.

  My first post that is NOT going to be about payments. Thank <insert-your-favorite-deity-here>.

  Spring has arrived here in New York this week and one of the grandest of all algorithms is beginning to unfurl its beauty across the city.

  With the arrival of warmer temperatures, trees have sprouted buds that are just now beginning to flower. A profusion of life is filling every street, every lane, every park. Ivy is beginning its slow and tedious ascent up the sides of buildings. Birds are singing impossible tunes and frolicking in the air.  Hipsters are wearing ugly shorts.

  All of this … the result of a simple genetic code coupled with a brutally efficient algorithm: live and reproduce, or die.

  It’s the way in which myriad forms of life express their unique genetic code under the stress of the great equalizer that is the algorithm of evolution … this, besides payments of course, is what fascinates me to no end.

  

  If there is a god, I’m pretty sure (s)he’s a computer programmer.

  • 4 Comments
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  • Tags:
  • algorithms,
  • programming,
  • spring,
  • ugly hipster shorts
• Thu, Apr 1 2010

  An Interview With Mike Cavada

  By jess at 4:02 pm

  Time for another Q&A, this time with Space Bar ideator Mike Cavada. This high-class product has already been a huge sales hit… and it hasn’t even been released yet! It’s available in our online store for $48.

  

  1. What do you do? (job-wise, ya know, when you’re not on Quirky)

  I’m a high school technology education teacher of digital photography and computer illustration.

  2. Where are you from?

  I’m originally from a city just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I now live far from the big cities in the small town of Selinsgrove, in central Pennsylvania.

  3. When and how did you think up the idea for Space Bar?

  After setting up a new iMac lab in my classroom, I thought, “How can I protect the keyboards when they’re not being used”?

  4. Had you tried to make this thing on your own already?

  I’ve made these things out of wood since the school got their first desktop computers. I just thought it was time they were reinvented.

  5. Where do you derive your creative inspiration?

  My Father, a Normandy Beach D-Day veteran, taught me well. After the full loss of his right arm, he still managed to learn a trade and work 25 years as an automobile paint and body shop technician. He continuously would attain ways to overcome his disability and always was a hard working DIY guy. Actually, there was nothing he couldn’t do.

  Now that’s influence!

  6. What do you wish Quirky did that it does not already?

  Have a listing on the NY stock exchange and stock sharing options for its hardest working members.

  7. What’s your favorite deli meat? Cereal?

  Hard salami. Cereal? No favorite… how about a chilled mimosa on a beautiful Caribbean beach.

  8. What are some of your quirks?

  4 major quirks…

  1. I have the worst memory for things I need to remember.

  2. Never finishing things I start.

  3. Making people laugh.

  4.

  • 4 Comments
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  • Tags:
  • ideator,
  • interview,
  • inventor,
  • p22,
  • products,
  • space bar
• Thu, Apr 1 2010

  It’s Been Decided: We Will Remain Undecided (For Now)

  By ben kaufman at 3:11 pm

  Thank you all for your contributions and thought starters to the threshold aging question over at the forum. It has been both challenging and humbling to try and keep up with you all.

  We’ve had a pretty heated debate here at Quirky surrounding the issue, and found ourselves agreeing or at least considering almost all of your comments (which didn’t make make coming to a conclusion very easy). Given the magnitude of this decision, and the influx of things to consider, we’ve decided to slow this process down a bit… implement a few of your ideas and see where things take us.

  Here’s where we stand:

  Instead of trying to make assumptions about why things aren’t hitting thresholds, and make arbitrary rules/decisions based on those assumptions, we’ve decided to set out on a round of discovery, inspired by Judi Sigler‘s post-mortem idea.

  On product pre-sales pages, we will be adding a four-button questionnaire available to all users who did not commit to that given product. It will allow them to choose the reason why they did not commit — something like: “Don’t like the design,” “Price,”  ”Don’t need it,” or “I’d need to see the real product first.”

  Further, to speed things up, we will be sending out an email blast to all users sometime in the next 2-3 weeks which will link to a short survey that will allow users rapidly debrief us on why they did or didn’t act on each product.

  We believe both of these actions will provide us with a ton of insight, which will allow us to make rules about product aging based upon real data.

  Once we have this data, we will re-evaluate each one of these ideas, plus any new ones that pop up:

  - The Shelf/Icebox/Graveyard

  Kill a product after a certain amount of time and put it in a graveyard, where members can vote to resurrect a project at any time.

  - Commitments expiring after 90 days.

  After 90 days, your commitment expires, and you will get an email telling you to go back and re-commit to the product.

  - Sales trajectory assessments, to accompany thresholds.

  Given sales data from the previous X weeks, we can determine whether or not (if kept on the same trajectory) the product could hit threshold within 3-6 months. If not, the product gets shelved.

  We’re excited to be making this decision and going through this process with you all.

  Soo… what do you think?

  Keep the conversation going.

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  • Tags:
  • community forum,
  • pre-sales,
  • product aging,
  • thresholds