Mon, Jan 24 2011
Don’t forget, everyone: Town Meeting tomorrow. Be there or be cuadrado.
Tuesday, January 25 | 7pm | Quirky’s uStream Channel
Got questions for Ben and the team? Post ‘em in the forum.
Don’t forget, everyone: Town Meeting tomorrow. Be there or be cuadrado.
Tuesday, January 25 | 7pm | Quirky’s uStream Channel
Got questions for Ben and the team? Post ‘em in the forum.
Baby, it’s cold outside (especially in NYC!) and summer seems a lifetime away. Probably the last thing on your mind is cooling down. But if we want to create a product for the hot summer months, we better get cracking now.
Let’s make a product for keeping cool when it’s hot.
We’re looking for products that will help keep your home and/or person nice and comfortable when it’s scorching outside. ‘Cause let’s face it – hot fun in the summertime is only possible when you also have a place to cool down.
This week’s brief is co-sponsored by our friends at HSN. Join us by submitting your ideas starting January 24 until January 31. And don’t forget — submissions are free!
The countdown begins! 8 days, 22 hours, 31 minutes, and 11 (10… 9… 8…) seconds until Quirky’s LIVE television debut on HSN.
Learn all about our partnership with HSN, calendar our air dates, and read the official press release on our HSN LANDING PAGE.
And stay tuned for news on our virtual Quirky On HSN premiere party. Trust us — it’ll be a good one.
Just like our other products in production, Contour is moving along swimmingly. Check out the latest update from Jordan and Nikki (Skyping in from China).
The gist:
- Nikki’s in China, pushing along a number of our products (Contour included) before Chinese New Year kicks off at the end of January and our factories essentially “shut down” until mid-February.
- Since Contour launched, we’ve been trying to reduce the amount of material needed for the product. We’ve managed to shave off approximately 20-25% of the overall material.
- We also wanted to choose the right kind of plastic. We ultimately went with ABS plastic so we can incorporate flocking. Because of that, we had to revise the living hinge design on the body of Contour — the clip that attached to the top. The clip will now be a separate part made out of polypropylene and will feature a living hinge.
- That day, Nikki met with a great supplier that also handles Click ‘n Cook to discuss several products, including Contour.
- The product is now in tooling, and we’re aiming to see a T1 sample before Chinese New Year.
Gaz and Nikki (via Skype) share the latest production updates on Contort, our new flexible USB hub.
Highlights:
- Nikki will be in China FOREVERRRRRR.
- We just cut a purchase order for charcoal-colored Contorts.
- We started out at one factory (the same one as Split Stick). We went all the way to tooling, but then realized that the factory wasn’t too capable at co-molding. We decided to partner with another factory (the same that makes Cordies) to solve those co-molding issues. So now we have two factories working on different elements of this product.
- We have working T3 samples in-house and we’re using and testing them around Quirky HQ.
- Next steps: We’ll be experimenting with different hardnesses for the TPE. We’re trying to make sure the neck is flexible and strong enough. We want to make sure the color is pure white (not off-white).
- After working through these issues, we hope to ship units from the factory before Chinese New Year. Fingers crossed!
Cooking is one of the simple pleasures in life. But nothing kills a softly-lit Julia Child fantasy faster than a messy kitchen. It’s time to regain cupboard control.
Let’s make a product to organize your kitchen cabinets.
We’re looking for a great product idea that will help you sort your pots and pans, dishes and silverware, cereal boxes and peanut butter jars. We want a product that will keep your kitchen cupboards spic-and-span, so you can focus on the coq au vin.
This week’s brief is co-brought to you by our friends at HSN. Join us by submitting your ideas starting January 17 until January 24. And don’t forget — submissions are free! Submit your idea here.
PHOTO CREDIT: New York Times
Great news, everyone. We’ve received final samples from our new MugStir factory, and we’ve moved this baby into production. Woohoo! Jordan and Nikki (live from China via Skype) share the latest.
Oh, and the audio quality was a little, well, “Skype-y” — so we’ve broken down the highlights of the video here:
- As you know from the last production report, we switched factories. The new factory has done an awesome job.
- The silicone is now co-molded to the spoon, and it looks fantastic. Nikki’s pumped.
- We received T1 samples in brushed metal on December 16. We were blown away by how much better these samples were than the last ones.
- The only remaining issue was color matching on the colored samples and improvements to the tolerance of the spoon handles.
- Jordan spills milk all over our pretty Apple keyboard.
- Final samples were anticipated later in the day; if they were good, the plan was to green light production.
UPDATE: They were, and we did!
3 hours ago
4 hours ago
5 hours ago
6 hours ago
6 hours ago
