Everyone has a product idea. Chances are, you do, too. Our 23-year-old entrepreneur-in-chief, Ben, has launched two successful companies based on this premise, with write-ups in Reader's Digest, Businessweek, Entrepreneur, and other mainstream media - including more than one primetime appearance on CNBC.
Among other things, mophie and kluster made him something of a posterboy for aspiring inventors. Over the past few years, he's received literally thousands of emails from people all around the world looking for the same answer: I have this idea for a product and saw your article/tv show/website and want your help getting it out of my head and into the marketplace - how do I start?
The truth is, neither mophie nor kluster were created to answer that question directly. They did, however, uncover the solution to bringing virtually any product idea to life and putting it into the hands of consumers. Part process, part platform...we're pretty sure quirky will change the way people think about product development forever.
Tiny Dino
Tiny Dinosaur is the heart and soul of quirky. His business socks are wee, but his spirit...well, it's huge. (All the girls think so.) His hands are always up and ready to take on any fight - and he always wins. This guy knows the secret to success and he's guiding us every step of the way. He's also who you turn to for all of your support questions...so basically he'll guide you, too, whenever you need him.
Ben Kaufman
Ben dropped out of college because, well, he was smart enough to go from 0 to 60 and get down to business right away...which he first did by condomizing iPods over at mophie. Then he sold mophie and kicked it kluster style, bringing together an awesome team which built the awesomest collaborative decision-making platform on the interwebs. With ADD sitting on his shoulder like a pirate's parrot, and a strong itch to get back into product development (he is a product guy after all), he started quirky and thus we are all gathered here today. Since the launch of quirky... he's been known to live in the office (both figuratively, and literally).
Jason Port
Jason Port is the brave soul who saw Ben's quirky vision and stepped up to help make it a reality. (Go Jason!) This is a man with a serious background - words like vice president, strategic development, business development, accretive acquisitions...pepper his cv. And those terms come with serious companies like the Wicks Sports Group, CBS Sportsline, the NBA - and he was all over getting fantasy sports/gaming subscription products up and running, too. Better yet, it all started from food concessions back in college with PORT-O-DOG. Yes, you read me right...PORT-O-DOG....which is also how he earned the catchy moniker, the Hotdog King. Mm-hmm, you read that one right, too.
Brian Kerr
Brian's the "quiet one" in the office, but don’t let that fool you. As part of Quirky’s design team, this guy has some serious experience and expertise under his belt. He studied painting and design at the University of New Hampshire and received his masters in Industrial Design from Pratt. "BK" from BK (Brooklyn, that is) spends his days knee-deep in blue foam prototypes and his nights placing our beloved plastic figurine mascot, Tiny Dino, in precarious situations. He’s enamored by tea, coffee, and overly-designed brewing devices for tea and coffee – don’t even get him started on the simplistic beauty of his French Press. He loves NPR and misses his snare drum. He’s also from Brooklyn. Did we mention that?
Michael Lacy
"YEAHMikeLacy!" is Ben's battle cry. Which is fair enough, afterall, Lacy drops the logic bombs that make the quirky work. You might not be reading this very blurb if not for his mad coding skills, but it's not his only superhero strength. He's reproductively gifted (2 girls by 2 girls...quick shout-outs to Jordan and Ella), never loses at Wii tennis (which is the bane of at least some of our existences), and fully believes in his own awesomeness. He's persnickety about his 4pm wine - Malbec, if you must know - and spends much of his weekend time lurking around NYC on his bike, photographing graffiti (if you can't do it, shoot it...or so they say). Though sometimes said lurkery leads to biking-on-sidewalk-type citations. And then he sometimes misses court appearances for said citations. (Say, like today...but worst comes to worst, sure they must have wifi in jails by now, right?)
Nikki Laffel
Nikki's the only one at quirky who doesn't mind using the phone - which makes her our top (and only) sales/PR chick. She's up at a grandparently 6am and off to the gym so it’s little surprise that the girl is hungry all the time. Just give her an ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles and she’ll be satisfied for a while. She's rarely seen not rockin' a hoodie (the same could really be said for the whole team, but hers are usually from lululemon). And when in PR mode she kicks on those loud-sounding clicky shoes, you know, because she's a professional. Oh, and did we mention she went to Princeton? No? Nikki went to Princeton. She also swam at Princeton. She still wears her Princeton ring.
Jeff Natland
Wines, cars, racing, art, real estate and entrepreneurship: these are just some of Jeff’s interests. And well, the list of companies that he has been influential in moving forward is just as long: trustme.com, phonetag, cloudsponge, broker payment systems, grid.com, brightsquid, proplayerconnect.com, jumpstart digital marketing, neteller, and quirky fall among his reputable list. But when Jeff’s not drinking wine, hiking or investing, he keeps busy as a partner at Arizona Bay’s consulting firm and venture fund. Oh and we can’t forget to mention that Jeff personally developed the initial prototype for a sponge counting system for what is now Patient Safety Technologies which is used to make surgeries safer. I think we can all agree that quirky is lucky to have Jeff on board.
Charlie Walk
Charlie Walk is currently the President and CEO of CWE Media, a multimedia entertainment company developing projects for TV, music and online platforms. Just before that, Charlie was the President of Epic Records, and you know what that means...indeed, after-work happy hours involved folks like Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Ozzy Osbourne [our devil horns are thrown up thusly], Good Charlotte, George Michael, The Fray, Natasha Bedingfield, Sean Kingston and Sara Bareilles. But more about CWE - under Charlie's leadership, they've exclusively partnered with Endemol USA, a leading producer of television programming, where he'll executive produce and develop new scripted and unscripted television shows. You think he'd be into one about a group of quirky staffers....?
Josh Spear
At 25, Josh Spear is one of the youngest marketing strategists in the world. He's regularly sought out for his fresh perspective and no-holds-barred style of consulting on...oh, say...basically everything new media. In addition to JoshSpear.com, his internationally recognized trend-spotting blog, he's a founding partner of Undercurrent, a digital think-tank focused on exploring new ways to reach young people without interrupting them. Josh has appeared in Time Magazine, the New York Times, Flair Italy, Chicago Tribune, Inc., and many other major media outlets. He's also a member of the Global Agenda Council at The World Economic Forum, and was recently nominated a Young Global Leader. And with his obvious glut of downtime, he signed up for some team quirky action, too...
Philip Erdoes
Philip Erdoes is founder and CEO of Bear Ventures...yet he still chooses to hang out and advise the quirky crew. Makes sense though, the guy's a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years experience in creating new enterprises...so when he talks, we listen. He's also a member of the Young President's Organization (YPO) and is engaged in a number of charitable activities and foundations (good man). Before all of this went down, Philip practiced law at Texas-based national law firm, Andrews and Kurth, where he specialized in corporate finance/M&A. He holds a BS in Biology/Bio-medicine from Oklahoma State University, a JD with Honors from the University of Oklahoma, College Of Law, and an MBA from Harvard University, Graduate School of Business. Yeah, top that.
Mitch Lowe
A Chicago native, Arizona State Business Major, and lover of sailing, surfing and guitar, Mitch Lowe is our Bay Area quirk. And well, the Bay Area seems the perfect place for him - he's got start-ups in his blood and a wide range of entrepreneurial experiences under his belt. We're talking: starting a direct marketing firm at 23 (which later failed, but hey, that's how you learn, right?), employee 2 at a consumer Internet start-up, founder and CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Media which grew to more than $50M annual revenue and then sold, and more. Now that Mitch has been in the thick of it himself numerous times, he works closely as an advisor and angel investor with various start-ups including quirky. He's pumped about quirky's potential and we are thankful that his plethora of start-up experiences can help us get to where we need to be.
