Thu, Feb 25 2010
Check out these pictures from the big move… more to come!
Yep, you heard us. We’re continuing our search for great, quirky people to add to our team. Check out the job description below, and pass it along to anyone who you think might fit the bill!
The Quirky e-Commerce & Online Marketing Guru will be responsible for selling Quirky’s products directly on quirky.com <http://quirky.com>. This person will have experience with online marketing strategies such as SEM, SEO, affiliate networks, CPA display advertising, social sales tactics, and partnerships with other sites to drive sales. This person will also have experience with data-driven direct marketing techniques and work closely with a technology team to develop conversion tracking, A/B testing of UI, landing pages, etc. He/she will create an unparalleled customer experience that drives conversion rates and grows revenue and profitability. The ideal candidate will have strong e-commerce experience and a passion for design and consumer products, as well as a healthy obsession for the Quirky brand.
What We’re Looking For:
– Two or more years of experience in e-Commerce marketing, preferably with consumer-facing e-commerce site(s).
– Experience bringing ideas from concept to prototype and the ability to document functional requirements and work well with the Quirky technology team.
– Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Equally effective communicating in formal and informal settings with senior executives, peers, and potential business partners.
E-mail your resume and cover letter to ecommercejobs@quirky.com with the subject “E-COMMERCE GURU.”
My French Press coffee maker is one of my favorite items I keep in my apartment. The version I currently own is composed of many different materials like glass, metal, and some plastic. Each having a specific purpose, contrasting visual quality and feel, all working together to help to achieve its general function of brewing coffee.
There are a few stages to making coffee with a French Press. First you need to coarsely grind the beans, boil some water, stir, wait, cover…then press and pour. This simple method of brewing coffee tends to produce more flavor than a standard drip machine. But beyond taste alone, the french press style of brewing is a process that instills patience and proportion, skills that are much further reaching than your coffee cup.
There are many ways to make a cup of coffee, each one having its own unique aspect of preparation. If you like to drink coffee from time to time, check it out!
One of my passions is building companies. I’ve been involved in three start-ups over the past 15 years. One was successful and two were not. My definition of success doesn’t mean the company sold for a lot of money. Rather, I define success as building an incredible culture of smart, hungry, and humble employees all trying to build something extraordinary, and having customers who love us. If you can do those two things, really great things happen. That’s the kind of success I want to help recreate at Quirky.
I met Ben through a mutual friend in September. Over the next couple of months I got to know Ben and Quirky much better. Ben is an incredibly gifted person: bright, creative, and driven to see his dream of social product development become reality. I also got to take a hard look at the team and the business model. It’s innovative and disruptive. I fell for it completely. Ben also got to know me and my philosophies for building a company. In November, Ben asked me to get involved with Quirky in a big way. So I did. I made a significant investment and agreed to make Quirky my top business priority. My role is as a co-pilot to Ben, to help advise and coach him and the team.
It 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’re building an entirely new kind of consumer products company. 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: a team of employees who are smart, energetic, driven, great teammates, and passionate about building something great. But that 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 the community. And 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. I’ll be writing regularly with progress, the difficult issues we’re facing, and thoughts on areas I find fundamental to our success. Tell me exactly what you think. Be direct. We need everyone’s best thinking.
Together, we can do something really extraordinary here. I’m honored and humbled to be a part of it.
– Mitch
Today is moving day… I’m super excited about the new space, but 34 Ave A certainly treated us well. We had a great year here, and we’re ready for even bigger and more exciting things to come!
I figured it was a good day to share a few of my favorite memories from our first year at Quirky, on Ave A. Here are some things that stick out in my mind:
1. When our first product, Split Stick, hit threshold.
2. When we did our first Quick & Quirky event and decided to take on two products in just 24 hours. That call to Jeff Scholen at 1 am asking if he was cool with us moving forward with his concept, even though it wasn’t at the top of the community vote originally, will always stick out in my mind!
3. When we shipped thousands of Powercurl boxes from the office itself. This was in our pre-warehouse days, and it was quite exciting to be part of the action from start to finish. The FedEx team thought we were insane (I think they are still recovering).
4. When we had one week full of TV press hits that we watched live in the office — we’re talking ABC coverage of the DigiDudes and Ben’s appearance on Fox Business News.
5. And, of course, the laughs that ensue every time someone asked, “Where is Avenue Wesome?”
I don’t know how many of you out there use Solidworks, but it’s a program that allows you to build 3D models. Sometimes it does so quickly, and that’s always good to hope for, but mostly Solidworks decides the rate at which Solidworks wants to work. Unless you want it to crash, you often have to switch to something else for a minute or two while it thinks over whether or not it’s going to do what you requested. My five favorite places to go (in no particular order):
1. http://www.quirky.com – OK, that’s a cop out, but I really do read the comments, I obsessively watch what’s close to its presale threshhold, and I’m starting to leave more comments of my own.
2. http://www.asofterworld.com/
3. http://thereifixedit.com/
4. The Onion horoscope
5. http://wondermark.com/
Happy Monday! We kicked off the day with a staff meeting to discuss our goals for the coming week. Some highlights:
- We received a ton of sales orders over the weekend, and we’re coordinating with our warehouse to fulfill them. Translation? More money for you!
- We’re working on the log-in issues with GetSatisfaction, and we hope to have the problem fixed shortly.
- Our design team is super-committed to providing feedback on all idea submissions. Check out their comments in this week’s product evaluation.
- The next Quick & Quirky throwdown is tentatively scheduled for March 16. We want to get y’all involved in choosing the theme, so keep checking back for updates!
- Over the next several days, we hope to roll out a series of system upgrades — pretty new notification e-mails, a date stamp on ideas, and improvements to our community forum, including direct links to threads.
- IT’S MOVING WEEK! We’ll spend the first half of the week packing up shop, and we hope to be settled in our new space by Thursday.
That’s all, folks… and here’s a jam to get you pumped for the week:
By now, you should have received your very first Quirky newsletter. We hope you like it!
If you didn’t receive the newsletter in your e-mail inbox, check it out online at this link.
If you didn’t receive the newsletter, and you’d like to, you could try a few different things:
1. Check your filter settings. If you’re using Gmail, check your “Spam” folder and mark the newsletter as “Not Spam.”
2. Add jess@quirky.com to your list of approved senders.
3. Delete some of your messages — it’s possible you’re over your disk space limit.
4. Check your Quirky user account to see if the e-mail you’re registered with is the e-mail you use now.
5. If all else fails, shoot me an e-mail at jess@quirky.com and I’ll be happy to fix the problem!
It’s been a crazy day — leading a Community Pulse meeting to discuss valuable user feedback (implementation updates to come!); visiting our new office space; learning Lighthouse, our new issue tracking system; attending a staff lunch at Cafetasia (I recommend the honey roasted duck); and putting the finishing touches on our new e-mail newsletter, which should go out tomorrow or early next week. Whew!
Micah, our beloved intern, also swung by. He’s taking fancy-schmancy photos of all our new products.
Yes, that’s a pink PowerCurl you see, and it’s hot!
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