Suppose you have a product idea but don’t have the time, the money, or the know-how to turn the idea into reality. There may now be a solution to your problem.
Serial entrepreneur Ben Kaufman has created Quirky, a social network for product development. So how does it work? You’ll have to read the following case. First, to fully appreciate Quirky and the thinking behind it, you have to know a little about Ben Kaufman, the firm’s founder.
Ben Kaufman Kaufman received his formal education from Portledge High School in Long Island, New York. During high school, he had an idea for a lanyard headphone (like those now commonly used to listen to an iPod or iPhone), an idea he went on to pursue during his senior year. The headphones were known as the Song Sling and became the initial product for Kaufman’s first company, mophie (named for his two dogs, Molly and Sophie). mophie launched the day Kaufman graduated from high school.
After a brief, one-semester stint in college, Kaufman focused on mophie, and at the 2006 Macworld trade show won Best in Show for a modular case accessory system for the iPod Nano. This early success enabled Kaufman to raise $1.5 million in funding to move mophie forward. The next year at Macworld, Kaufman and his company did an unusual thing. Instead of bringing their hottest new products to showcase, they brought next to nothing. Instead, they set up a booth made out of twoby-
fours, and handed out scratch pads to 30,000 people, asking the Macworld community for new product suggestions. The sketch that got the most attention, and was repeatedly exposed to the community for improvements, was a case/bottle opener for the iPod Shuffle. The product was built, and with this amazing story behind it, became a hit selling in 28 countries worldwide.

At this point, Kaufman had an epiphany—it wasn’t so much about the end result, the process was the key.
A week later he sold mophie and started kluster, a platform that allows its community to take any problem and apply the collaborative brainpower of thousands of people to come up with the optimal solution. While happy with kluster’s success, Kaufman is a product guy at heart and wanted to transition back into product development but at a grander scale than mophie allowed. Enter Quirky—Kaufman’s third company.
Quirky allows ordinary people to submit product ideas that are then vetted by the Quirky community. The best ideas are selected for prototype development and possible sale. Now, here’s how it works.

Quirky
The basic idea behind Quirky is to provide inventors a social platform to vet and improve their product ideas, and to take the best ideas to market. Here’s a step-bystep description of it works.
Step 1 You submit your product idea to Quirky’s Web site, along with $10. The $10 fee is to prevent people from submitting multiple ideas, and only submitting ideas that they think have a chance. You can submit as many ideas as you want on a weekly basis. You can include sketches, drawings, videos—anything that you think will help illustrate your idea.
Step 2 The Quirky community—that is, anyone who creates an account for free at Quirky—offers feedback on your idea in the form of comments.
Those responding to an idea also propose ways in which the submitter’s idea can be modified and strengthened.
Step 3 Members of the Quirky community (who are called “influencers”) take a vote, and select the best five ideas each week. These ideas go into a deep dive evaluation, which is performed by Quirky’s expert staff. The evaluation is based on three criteria: design potential, marketing potential, and viability. Two ideas are chosen.
One idea can be anything; the other is based on a brief that Quirky provides to its community for feedback and evaluation.
Step 4 Quirky has a team of professionals that then creates prototypes of the two ideas that are selected. During the development of each prototype, the Quirky community gets to weigh in on every step of the process—the product’s name, color scheme, logo selection, packaging, etc. The original inventor doesn’t pay a penny during this process.
Step 5 Based on the product’s price point, Quirky determines how many units need to be presold through Quirky’s online store before they can justify producing the product.
Presumably, Quirky’s community will help presell the product by telling their friends and family how cool the product is and encouraging orders.
Step 6 If enough units of the product are presold, the product will be manufactured and made available for sale. The credit cards of the people who preordered the product will be charged, and they will be the first to receive the product with free shipping.
Step 7 If your product is manufactured, you sign over all rights to Quirky but get 30 cents out of every dollar your product earns as a royalty.
Step 8 The members of the Quirky community that participated throughout the whole development process also get 30 cents out of every dollar your product earns, split among them.
If your idea isn’t chosen, you don’t get your $10 back. Instead, you retain full rights to your product and benefit via the extensive feedback you’ve received from the Quirky community. You can then resubmit the idea for another $10 submission fee if you’d like.
So far this business model seems to be working.
Quirky was founded in March 2009 and as of January 2011 had launched 90 products. Quirky announces all product launches on its Web site and on Twitter. You can see the Quirky products that are for sale at www.quirky.com/products. Quirky currently has 10 categories of products including Bed & Bath, Electronics & Accessories, Organization, Kids, Kitchen, Housewares, Pets, Sports/Outdoors, Travel, and Other.
Remember, not all products that go into the prototype stage are launched. They must obtain a certain threshold of sales to be manufactured. You can help determine the products that will be manufactured by preordering them on Quirky’s Web site and encouraging others to do the same.
Quirky’s most compelling innovation is that it raised the bar for co-creation by paying influencers. There are many ways to solicit feedback on product ideas, but Quirky is unique in that it assembles a large group (30,000 strong) of influencers who actually have skin in the game. The better job they do selecting products, and providing feedback for product ideas that don’t make it the first time but may be resubmitted, the more they’ll earn.
Quirky has gotten a nod of support from the venture capital community. In early 2010, the company generated $6 million in Series A funding. Prior to that, it had raised $1.6 million in capital from friends and family.
Becoming a Quirky influencer in an experience in and of itself—you should give it a try. Many weeks include more than 100 product ideas. Each idea includes a written pitch, and many are accompanied by drawings and a video. You can view the comments that others have left before you add your two cents and vote.
Many of the comments are left by engineers and product development specialists, and reading through them on a weekly basis can be both informative and insightful.

An example of a Quirky-initiated product that was available for presale at the time this feature was written follows. On January 25, 2011, the product had presold 226 units of the 980 units needed to go into production.
According to the Quirky Web site, 401 people helped influence the design of the product.

Discussion Questions
1. In what ways was Ben Kaufman the ideal person to start Quirky? If you were an investor in Quirky, would you have any concerns about his qualifications moving forward?
2. Do you think Quirky’s basic business model, described in the eight steps shown previously, is sound and fair?
If you could suggest any changes, what would they be?
3. Do you think the concern that Quirky will systematically attract novice inventors, who are likely to submit the least promising ideas, rather than experienced inventors and product designers, who are likely to submit the most promising ideas, because all ideas are placed on its Web site and are publicly vetted, is a valid concern?
If so, should Quirky vary its approach for experienced inventors and product designers, or leave things the way they are and live with the consequences.
4. What do you think? Is Quirky a real opportunity, or just a “quirky” idea? Justify your answer.

Application Questions
1. Log onto Quirky’s Web site and sign up as an influencer.
You can start providing feedback as soon as you verify your registration by clicking on a link Quirky will send to your e-mail account. Provide feedback on three separate products. Briefly relate your experience, and comment on the quality of the products that you evaluated and the quality of the comments that had been made prior to yours.
2. Think of the challenges in your own life that might represent a product idea for Quirky. If you don’t think of something right away, don’t give up. All of us encounter problems and challenges in our everyday lives that might represent the basis of a promising business opportunity. Be prepared to describe to others one of the challenges or problems you encounter and how a solution to the problem could be fashioned into a product idea to submit to Quirky.