Quirky | Free-For-All | Open Beats Closed
Open Beats Closed
MITCH'S BLOG POST -- LET'S DISCUSS!
That is the foundational belief at Quirky. Since the industrial revolution, business has been "closed" -- meaning relatively few people have made the decisions about what products come to market and how a business should be run. At Quirky, we believe that's an outdated way of doing business. In fact, we're betting the company on it. We believe that we, together, are smarter and more capable of designing great products and building a great company. Together, we can reshape markets, design breakthrough products, and demonstrate to the world that, in fact, Open Beats Closed.
I'm creating a forum topic about this: let us know your thoughts here.
I wrote this in my last blog post, but it's worth repeating. What we're trying to accomplish here 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 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. And if you're interested, we want you to be a part of it. We'll always post our open positions on the web site and do a blog post about them. If you think you're a great match, or know someone who is, let us know!
But the Quirky team 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 our community.
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. Keep telling us what we can do to get better. We're listening.
Mar 29, 2010 12:12PM
Clinton Fleenor Mar 29, 2010 12:45PM
OK, Jess. Since you asking for ideas, I went ahead and posted an explanation of how to design a pre-sale system that serves as a valid, reliable product viability test. I stuck it as a second reply under the idea topic "Ratings: validity and reliability" in the feedback system. I thought the quirky staff maybe didn't want to wade through it, but now I think maybe you do - so there it is.
Last Edit: Monday, March 29 at 03:11PM Link
Br3nt Mar 29, 2010 12:47PM
I love the Quirky business concept and hope it will be successful.
Here is one of my suggestions for improvement.
Instead of choosing one design winner in the industrial design phases, I think it would be better to choose the best elements and concepts from all the submissions and create a design using them, then divide the winnings equally among those that submitted them.
iAndy Mar 29, 2010 12:50PM
@Jess - I would imagine that there are a bunch of people in this community that would love to be a part of it but may not want to move to NYC to do it...at least on a part-time, make your own hours commission type basis.
Did I mention that I live in the metropolitan area where the headquarters for Family Dollar and all of its 6,617 stores is located (Matthews, NC)?
How about anyone living near Bentonville, AR (Wal-Mart), Troy, MI (KMart), Richfield, MN (Best Buy), Chicago, IL (Sears), Sunnyvale, CA (Fry's Electronics) - and the cities of thousands of mom and pop stores in between......
Wouldn't it make more sense to reach out a person from nearby each of these locales to make the sale on a commission basis? It would save you a bunch of money on salary, hotel and airfare wouldn't it?
I would think in the year 2010 and this global Information age of virtual online environments, collaboration and electronic communication that we live in - you wouldn't let a little thing like GEOGRAPHY stand in the way of hiring a good candidate(or candidates) for a sales position - no?
:)
Brian Shy Mar 29, 2010 05:32PM
I think Quirky has a great business model and have no doubt that it will be successful if it follows through with the principles stated here. I am very grateful to Quirky and while the following may seem critical, it is only because I want to see it be the best it can be.
"(in the past) relatively few people have made the decisions about what products come to market and how a business should be run. At Quirky, we believe that's an outdated way of doing business". Beautiful statement, so how are you going to uphold it? It is apparent to me that the community is not in fact making any decisions, we simply have a place where we can spout our opinions and hope that someone in charge reads them. Now I understand that the community may make poor decisions because they are not well informed on issues like production costs, competition in various markets, and the retail business. But isn't the solution then to inform and educate us on these issues, rather than deviate from the goals implied by the above statement?
Here is my opinion on the changes that would promote a truly open and transparent process that holds the opinion of the community at the core of its decisions.
1) Show us the votes.
2) If you are going against popular opinion, explain why - every single time. Educate us so we can make more informed decisions next time. Learn what information is important to direct our votes, not decide for us.
3) Even if you disagree, allow us to fail. Sometimes we will make a Homer-car and it won't sell. Those failures are ok and we will learn and adapt. Where did we go wrong? What factors weren't considered? How can we include that information for next time?
Jessica Marati Mar 29, 2010 10:55PM
Actually... I'll try to recreate right now.
The conversation Mitch started on the blog is an important one that we need to have as Quirky continues moving forward at a rapidfire pace.
It’s also a very difficult conversation to have, especially right now.
Let me explain.
Quirky is going through a period of completely crazy growth. In the past few months, we’ve expanded our office (from an Avenue Awesome apartment to a NoHo loft); our staff (from 4 to 14); our community (by thousands per week); and, of course, the workload that accompanies all that growth.
Not that I’m complaining – I’m not! Growth is good! Great! But since we’re asking you to be honest with us, I have to be completely honest with you. Addressing the needs of a community as passionate, vocal, and rapidly growing as ours is a tough task. In addition to the correspondence that occurs on visible channels – project comments, the forum, the blog, Get Satisfaction, Twitter, Facebook – there’s also a ton of interaction that happens behind the scenes. This morning, I opened my inbox to find more than 100 e-mails!
So what am I trying to say with all this? Basically, this: as a company, we’re trying to be as open and transparent as we possibly can, given our current capabilities. As Community Ambassador, I’m still trying to find a balance in the way I approach communication on the different channels of Quirky. It’s a work in progress, for sure, but be assured all of us are working (hard!) toward creating a company like no other. Hopefully as we continue adding staff and improving customer service functions, we’ll be able to serve the needs of this growing community a whole lot better.
… And I just realized it’s 10:53 p.m. See how late you guys keep me up?!?!
Kidding. Let’s keep this conversation going! I’ll return in the A.M.
Jennifer Willis Mar 30, 2010 10:25AM
I think Quirky is making so much progress so quickly. It's good to see, there were times it was really frustrating, but you handled it all well. I'd like my influence to mean something - the influence that doesn't earn us money on the sales.. I'd like to earn credits to submit new ideas.. or something.. :) Thanks for all the hard work guys.. for realz.. we are such a bunch of crazy creatives..
Sandra Lehr Mar 30, 2010 11:26AM
What a fantastic thread...!
I do agree that Quirky is growing really fast and I'm impressed that they've been keeping up with that pace - so far.
First off, I LOVE Andy's suggestion above -- let us earn some commission (just like a sales rep.). I've ordered many products that I do plan to try and sell the idea to various retailers located near me. I've even thought of the idea of renting a kiosk at the mall or even airport for these products. (These are long term thoughts (1.5 yrs out).)
From a community member perspective, Quirky is, in fact, gaining thousands of members each week. There is going to be a point in the near future where we see 1000+ folks participating on products through naming, logos, design, etc. What does this mean to us individually -- A MUCH SMALLER influence share. From a wholesale perspective, that 10% shared with the community will not make any impact on our wallets (unless we had the winning idea). Our influence will be microscopic. My idea, while not very popular, could help ease some of that growth. For those that want to be active quirkers (not just purchasers of our great products), but active in all the phases of each product, I propose an annual fee of some sort. I'm personally not fond of paying any more money; however, adding a fee will definitely slow the growth of the number of folks participating on ideas. Put another way, I don't see some of our most active quirkers putting as much time/effort into their wonderful comments if the payoff is so little. This is just something to think about...
As I noted in one of my posts from long ago. I actually do consider this a job, with a really crappy hourly wage at this point. However, I do see great things for the company and I think we will all be rewarded for our efforts. Hey Quirky, I'd like a raise please!
Maria Mar 30, 2010 12:17PM
Sandra you made some very good points. On that note I would like to mention an idea. Maybe when the community has grown to the point that influence is close to nothing b/c of the large amount of participants there could be a limit as far as how many products we take a part in influencing. For example...about 4 products are chosen and put out a month right? Well, my thought was how about we have to choose 2 from the 4 that we are going to engage in, that would then break down to the design and name choosing etc. Basically the community gets to choose which 2 competitions to be a part of, or we are assigned.. This is just a thought, not sure if it would work. This would be for later in Quirkys life when there are many influencers, that way we can still make some $.
Joao Mesquita Mar 30, 2010 12:58PM
Sandra, i'm actually thinking almost the same thing in terms of getting my own little quirky shop. ehehe
I would also like a raise but until that doesnt happen, the business would sound good.
If we're gonna get crowded and people will try to get the more influence they can, its not just paying a fee. I have written a topic in this forum called "verified membership" that will handle the first issue with double accounts and prevents bad quirky "game" players to do whatever they want. I'm just sorry that people didnt jumped in to discuss it.
Clinton Fleenor Mar 30, 2010 04:31PM
Sandra, I agree that we need to figure out a way for the quirky process to grow as the number of quirkers and inventors grows. Otherwise, by this time next year we could be looking at 300+ submissions to evaluate every week, 2000+ names in a naming round, and getting almost no influence except by submitting a winning influence idea or invention.
I think Maria's idea is worth exploring. Quirky already has some limits, like only three ideas and three votes per project, so adding more limits is not a big departure from what we're already doing. But, I'd prefer not to limit creativity. Maybe we can allow people to contribute ideas freely to any project, but somehow just limit the influence % they can earn. I'd keep submitting ideas even if I wasn't able to earn influence (the fun I have trying to be creative is worth more to me than the money.)
Another idea we could try: selecting more than one product every week. We could have inventors submit their inventions by similar categories (technology, accessories, home and garden, toys, etc.), then have the community select a product from each one. The inventors would still come to quirky because they would continue to have a reasonable chance of being selected, and all the quirkers (and the chance to earn influence) would be spread out among more products. If the number of categories kept pace with the growth of inventors and quirkers, the quirky process would stay manageable.
Last Edit: Tuesday, March 30 at 04:32PM Link
Sandra Lehr Mar 30, 2010 05:18PM
I don't know if I completely agree with Maria's idea although we can certainly build on it. What if one idea is completely off the charts cool? The group working on the other projects would never realize the influence from it. Perhaps a time limit to get comments/ideas in during each phase might be better? If you don't get them in, then you get locked out of a phase. There's probably a million ways to approach this one.
Jennifer Willis Mar 30, 2010 05:43PM
Brian - I disagree. I have lost to almost every product that is currently sitting in presales; there is nothing fun or ok about dropping money to get the idea out there and losing to a product that will never make it to market. Quirky doesn't really owe us a response, maybe the submitter, but not the community. By making the voting information public knowledge, the company could hurt the success of future submissions. The trend is, once you've submitted a product, you almost never get the same number of votes as you did the first time.. so it would be far more difficult to win a second time around if the Quirky staff didn't know that.
Maria - Good ideas. Multiple rounds could get frustrating though.
Clinton - How'd you get so smart? The option for non-winning submissions to filter down to a broader category contests would keep people engaged and I do think their are really good ideas that will never win via this selection process. Giving them a second life, could be a way to attract interest from resellers too..
Brian Shy Mar 30, 2010 06:44PM
Jessica - Thank you for your hard work. I realize you are all working at max capacity and you are doing a great job. It's always easier to be critical so let me say something positive as well. I love ideas, I write them down on index cards all day long and keep them in a shoebox. I have never followed through on any one of them and I probably never would have without Quirky. Whether I make any money or not, one of my ideas is now out in the world, with hundreds of people thinking about it and contributing to it's production. That is already a beautiful thing...if I can hold it in my hand someday even better :)
Jennifer - I saw the same effect with my second round submission...I wonder how much of that drop off is because people are betting on what they think Quirky will pick? If they didn't pick it the first time it certainly makes for a weaker bet. I would rather see a system where people were betting on what they think will make the best product. Certainly nothing is owed, Quirky can do whatever they want - I hope that they would do whatever they think is best for the company. However, the above statement implies that they believe in the wisdom of the crowd. My point was that they should then make listening to the crowd their focus, and minimize the decisions made by "relatively few people".
Last Edit: Tuesday, March 30 at 07:21PM Link
Sandra Lehr Mar 30, 2010 09:20PM
I have had a different experience with my idea submissions. The 1st round, votes always low. For the second round, they would skyrocket (like 10% of votes). The 3rd round (because 2nd gave me so much momentum), they would drop like a hammer with minimal votes. My thought is you never know who (or what) your competition is from week to week. That is why I don't give up so easily. I am sometimes disappointed when an idea is only posted once - especially if it one I really liked.
With respect to ways on keeping the community growing too quickly (from and influence per person perspective)... I think every active quirker should be entitled to participate in every project out there. I'm a fan of the annual fee because that could be kicked off right away with any new "active" users to the site. There first needs to be a way to segregate active users from shoppers. One idea is that if Quirky is collecting an annual fee (say $25 or $50), on 2 - 3 thousand users, maybe Quirky can increase the 10% retail/wholesale influence for the active community. Just a another random thought.
And I couldn't agree more with Joao's comment. There needs to be a way to block a user from creating multiple IDs. I don't know if this can be done through the ISP, enhanced authentication or what, but I can totally see how this can be used to someone's advantage.
Jessica Marati Mar 29, 2010 10:43PM
I just wrote a very long reply... and it disappeared. Trust me, Quirks, I feel your "No Save Feature" pain! I will try to painstakingly recreate in the A.M.
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