It has been about 5-6 weeks since tidy dino, Ben Kaufman, and his team launched their crowd-sourced product development platform in the firm of the quirkiest website on the internet. In this short amount of time the quirky community has managed to turn out 3 full products to pre-sale (shop ‘em), and has two more currently in development. Quirky is an especially convenient platform for those who lack the resources or contacts to turn their inventor’s dreams into reality. For just $99 you could have your idea voted on and considered for development by the quirky community. However, before you let your idea run wild through the minds of the quirky community, I would suggest you take the following things under consideration and advisement.
Do Your Homework. Make sure that the product you decide to submit is a relatively new idea, a significant improvement on an existing product, or has the potential to squash any other inferior products in the market. There are a few people in the quirky-sphere dedicated to spending as much time googling and searching the web to find products similar enough, in an effort to warrant calling you (the submitter) a rip-off artist. At times such a name is necessary and deserved, other times there might be a similar product – but the idea is such that it is not a rip-off at all. Make sure your idea is well thought out and planned before unleashing it on quirky.
Don’t Put your Stock in the Marketing. If you do decide to post a product idea that is already popular and in use thinking that Quirky’s network and resources will beat the rest of the market into submission, think again. Pre-sale is a difficult but necessary hurdle that must be overcome before the product launches to the mass market via stores and the rest. Until then, it is up to the quirky community to create their own marketing and sneeze the product out to bloggers and others in hopes of grabbing a pre-sale or two more. At this point, no products have made it past the pre-sale stage – let alone reached 50% of their quota. A killer idea (usually) always comes before the killer marketing.
Remember that this is the InterWeb. People are naturally a bit more skeptical, egotistical, sarcastic, and pointed than they may be in their every day offline life. This is par for the course when you are on the internet. The other side of the coin is that quirky is all about finding excellent products that are going to hopefully hit it big. If your idea is bad, expect to hear that. The best way to protect against the “bullies” (or realists perhaps) is to offer up excellent ideas. If your idea is excellent, expect a bit if dissent anyway. As the great Thomas Hughes put it – “Life isn’t all beer and skittles.”
Quirky is Community Development. Submitting an idea to the quirky community means that you are essentially providing everyone with a rough sketch. If your idea is chosen, you are no longer in control. Sure, you can attempt to steer the discussion and creative process a small bit – but ultimately the decisions are left to the brains behind quirky and the community-at-large. Quirky is not the place for the over-protective ideator.
If at first you don’t succeed…Understand that there maybe more brilliant ideas being submitter other than yours. Your product may not make the cut this time, but it is well worth submitting again (especially if your metrics and feedback were excellent). The Pressto! Tofu Press was passed over once before making it into the development stage. Besides, what is an extra $10 when it comes to pursuing your dream as an inventor?
To see what great stuff has already come out of the quirk-a-tron check the quirky shop. If quirky sounds like something you and your product development oriented mind would enjoy make sure you join and weigh in on the next round of products!
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