Our warehouse says “Bring on the Cloaks….we’re ready!”

We’ve alerted our warehouse to the volume of orders that will need to be shipped out in a very short amount of time. They have done all the prep work they can to get these out effectively and efficiently and have added extra staff members for the Cloak shipping days.

The Cloak is coming!

And to echo what Mike said before, I could not feel more lucky to be part of such an amazing company. It is truly unbelievable to think that a year ago it was literally 3 of us sitting in a room trying to make it all happen. And well, I think we have all proved that it is more than “happening” now. I feel the office is humming with excitement, buzz, movement, energy, enthusiasm and knowledge. And of course rock star products, people and smelly melting plastic from Bertha.

I continue to be thankful for the opportunity to grow and develop with this company. I started out in sales (for Kluster), then switched to PR, then to copy writing, then to customer service, community ambassador, and I am settled here (for the time being) in Operations with a side dish of Domestic Sales.

So while you Quirks are thankful that we have created a place for your innovation and invention ideas to come true, I am thankful for a work environment where I continually learn and feel challenged each and every day. (Sorry if that got slightly corny, Quirks.) It is the truth.

I will admit – I remain perpetually cold in the office. At Avenue A it was because of our faulty heater, and here, well we have to thank Bertha for needing so much AC so she does not overheat. (well, or maybe, it is just me!)

But if the AC is my only issue here at Quirky, well then, I think I have it pretty good.

Looking forward to our upcoming year/s ahead. Thanks once again to Ben, the entire Quirky Team, community and investors.

P.S. For those interested, I was able to purchase a $3 pashmina in Soho… you can really bargain for scarves when it is 85 degrees outside in NYC!

As you probably know, I am not a designer or engineer, operations is more my jam, but throughout my experience working at Quirky and being surrounded by so many awesome products that we make ourselves, it is quite inspiring to see what the MoMa sells.

Here are some of my favorite MoMa products that I use daily:

Muji Calculator – it’s beautiful and functional!

Daily Cereal Bowl – high rim keeps me from spilling milk on my computer! (yes, that happened before I started eating out of this bowl)

Nesting Bowls – Awesome cooking bowls and cups. They store compactly inside one another!

I won’t bore you by showing you my entire MoMa collection but I will mention that every time I walk around the store, aside from being tempted to buy more, I wonder when (not if) one of Quirky’s products will hit the shelves at MoMa.

We KNOW we will get there.

So Quirks, do you think our MoMa-worthy product has already been made, or is it yet to come?

Well both, really. That is a hammer in the wall. And we are REALLY EXCITED.

You see, we will be rigging a 2000 pound 3D printer up to our 3rd floor model shop in the coming days. This means that one of the current walls will be coming down in order to make room for the delivery. (Yes, we will put the wall back up after the printer is safely installed). But for now, why not stick a hammer into the wall!? You know all those times you wished you could just throw something at the wall? Well for today and tomorrow, we are exercising that option…

Who’s excited for our 2000 pound robot?! We know we are!

As some of you have noticed, there is sometimes a short lag time between when one project ends and the next one is launched. We know you are curious as to why this might be so I figured it was time to share some insight.

I can assure you it’s not because we are out to lunch or taking coffee breaks (unfortunately we don’t really take many of those while at the HQ) but it is simply because we are reviewing/discussing ALL the submissions and community votes/comments to ensure we make the best decision for each and every project.

Please bear with us if you see these slight delays. We promise that we’ll be selecting the winner(s) as soon as we can.

Also, one thing we will work toward doing in the future (and you can see that we have started it for the Gym Carry naming project) is updating you with a current design brief after the ID phase is over.

In other words, after the ID phase has ended and winner(s) are selected, we will do our best to add descriptive briefs to the project desciption boxes when projects launch. We will include info like:

– Here is what we currently know about the industrial design of this product.

– Here is what we are still investigating about the industrial design of this product.

– And here is what we need from you all in the mean time.

Often the “here is what we need” will be your brilliant naming suggestions, but in some cases it might be a different project, maybe ID round 2, maybe product research round 2, etc.

Bottom lines:

1. Trust that we are working to move projects along as fast as we can – there is a lot that goes into every decision.

2. We will do our very best to inform the community of our current “design briefs” so that you can use this info when submitting your names/taglines/logos.

We think this will work to help you all in your submissions and in turn help our products be even more awesome.

As always, hit us up with questions about any of this and we will continue to do our best to move projects along as speedily as possible!

On an unrelated note, how sad? Double scoop of gelato slid right off my cone last night after lick 1.

The Broom Groomer is a sweeping improvement in dustpans.

Here is what makes this dustpan so awesome:

- A row of rubber teeth protruding from the back end of the dust pan to clean the broom’s bristles when you’re done sweeping. No more dust bunnies!

- A foot rest built right into the dustpan handle, so that your foot can steady the dustpan for hands-free sweeping.

The main body of the Broom Groomer is made out of hard, durable plastic, with rubber accents on the handle grip, wall-hanging hole, bristle cleaning teeth, and front edge guard.

Get on over to the store and commit to yours today!

Winding down on an awesome week, Quirks. Newsletter 0009 should be in your inboxes. If you did not receive it, check it out here!

So sorry for the delay on the Scratch-n-Scroll, Cordies, and colored PowerCurl shipments… and thank you for your patience.

The goods have cleared customs and are on their way to Quirky’s warehouse in Philadelphia as we speak.

All shippable orders should be out of the warehouse and on their way to you by the end of the week.

Remember, we will email you your tracking number as soon as we have it for you. Get excited for your writeable mousepad and colorful cord management solutions to arrive at your door step very soon.

And place your orders now if you haven’t already:

Scratch-n- Scroll
Cordies
Powercurl

… and of course the DigiDude is still available in all four colors!

Now that we are ending Q1, I figured it would be a good time to give you a Quirky Operations update. We’ve got a lot of exciting things accomplished in the past few months and will continue to progress in the coming months. I have included the latest below:

1. We have successfully set up our USA warehouse in Pennsylvania. EchoData has been a great partner and we are happy to be able to ship orders same day. We will continue to do our best in this regard as long as the order comes in before 2:00pm EST and that the item is in stock.

2. We set up our Hong Kong warehouse and consolidation center. All of our international distribution partners will pick up their Quirky product orders in Hong Kong. This is an exciting progression for Quirky because it is helping to set ourselves up for an optimal global presence!

3. We are working on getting freight costs down…we realize this has been a community concern and are working as fast as we can to make this better for you all. We will pass along any news on prices when we have them.

4. Invoicing and Payments is working properly! Time for all your hard-earned Quirky work to pay off in CASH!

5. We are working to hit out 2010 goal of a product shipping within 75 days of it hitting threshold. I do think we will get there VERY SOON.

6. We promise an effective and effiecient delivery of Cordies and Scratch-n-Scroll very shortly! If  you haven’t confirmed your orders, please do so now!

That is all I’ve got for you at the moment. As always, if you have any questions about this feel free to let us know. Here’s to an even more successful and lucrative Q2 for the Quirky Team and all Community Members.

P.S. Did you know they sell both Corn and Taro Pie at McDonalds in China?!

Hi all,

We wanted to remind you that Monday is March 1, which means our new terms and conditions will take effect. You might remember that Ben blogged about this here, but we figured we’d give you a recap below.

For all product ideas that are submitted on or after March 1st, 2010, the 30/10 product rewards will take effect. In other words, for Product 36 and onward, we will reward 30% to all influencers for direct sales on quirky.com, and 10% to all influencers for indirect sales (wholesale/distribution).

Remember, we are doing this to allow us to invest heavily and confidently in the expansion of all of quirky’s products into channel(s) which should allow for a LARGE increase in overall sales and overall reward distribution.

As we explained previously, changing the product reward % is something we don’t want to have to do, but it has become apparent that if we want these products to reach their full potential, we need to invest heavily in opening up a full scale sales department, retail/wholesale distribution partnerships around the world, etc. All of this will be done at the company’s expense.

That said, once we’ve built the machine, we need to make sure it’s sustainable. Specifically, we need to make sure that the actual sale of each individual unit is profitable– otherwise we won’t be around very long.

Let’s walk through the mechanics of a hypothetical Retail/Wholesale Deal:

:: Assume an accessory type Widget with a retail price of $20.

:: With the way we are pricing items, it’s safe to assume a product with this retail price will cost us roughly $5.50 to source, manufacture, QA , package & ship.

:: An average retailer looks for at LEAST a 50% margin on accessory type items. (this means we would have to sell to them at around 10 dollars)

:: We would likely have to pay a Sales Rep anywhere from 5-10% to complete/manage the sales relationship (lets just say 7%, so $0.70 on this transaction)

:: Once the retailer pays us, (and that could take a while) quirky will take in roughly $9.30.

:: Off of that $9.30, as it stands we would pay 30% out to the community ($2.79)

:: The “profit” received by quirky for the sale of this $10 item would be: $9.30(net receipts) – $7.29 (Community Expense + Cost of goods)  = $1.01

:: That leaves us with about a dollar on each unit to pay the quirky staff, run the website, warehouse all of the goods, carry / purchase inventory, market the product, etc.

While we would love to be able to do this, it’s just not possible. We need to build a model that will allow us to provide this service to you for decades to come AND make every product successful/profitable for both the business & our influencers.

We feel strongly that this change will work out for everyone’s benefit, and we are confident that we won’t have to make a change like this again for quite some time. As always, hit up our Community Ambassadors at questions@quirky.com if you have any questions or concerns. We’re always listening!