Your idea can become a successful product

Against all odds, Quirky has evolved rapidly from a strange but good idea into a profitable business. Quirky is probably the most interesting experiment in that the products are designed and produced quickly. But when they were launched, it seemed crazy and instead have just scored an impressive $ 6 million in Series A venture financing.

Here's how it works:
The site is open to any Thomas Edison, paying $ 99 for presenting an idea. Each week, the rates of community the new lot. Among the ideas facing the site in a given week, you may vote for, say, three: a bowl of dog RFID keeps other pets kibble from chomping Rover, a double-sided USB stick, for the separation of work and personal files, and support in the form of a credit card that stores a half-dozen SIM card, for example. Drag the maxipads axillary and dog mints, among other things.

The idea that the most votes will become a product: at worst you can get free advice and feedback.

Quirky team consists of industrial designers who are initially looking at the ideas and choose those that can be mocked as rendering. These are then put back to the community Quirky to consider additional features and refinement. Finally, if an idea wins, everyone has the opportunity to pre-order item. Once you have secured a number of pre-orders, the product goes into limited production.

Quirky originally started just nine months ago, with 1.6 million U.S. dollars collected from friends and family of his apple-cheeked, 23 years founder, Ben Kaufman. The new funds are intended to build a store on a large scale, a strong global sales and retail, design and engineering for 24 hours, and new interactive tools for the site. Kaufman will remain as the founder and CEO, but will of course be combined with certain types of VC:
Kaufman invented Quirky age of 22. It is his third company. At 18, he had an idea for a lanyard headset. His parents mortgaged their house to finance the project, and a year later, in 2006, his new company, Mophie, won Best in Show at Macworld. But in 2007, the iPod accessories market was already saturated. So at the next Macworld, Kaufman and his collaborators have given out 3,000 notepads and told the people, that's our next product invention.

Mophie has developed a better idea: A case for the iPod shuffle, which also served as an opener. "This product was invented by a skater for 17 years. At best, the prototype would have been discarded at a flea market," said Kaufman. "But it ended up being sold in 25 countries." And then I realized that Kaufman was more interested in product development and to help people like him, when he was 18 years. So he sold Mophie, and built a platform for sharing an idea, called Kluster.

Today, Quirky has a user base of 20,000 and has 12 products in production.