What's New and Quirky

At 22, Ben Kaufman has already created and sold a company and started two more. In high school, he launched mophie, which developed iPod accessories. At MacWorld 2007, mophie experimented with real time group decision making by inviting people to collaborate on product development and marketing. Intrigued by his experiment, Kaufman sold mophie and founded kluster, which markets crowdsourcing development tools to other companies.

As an outgrowth of kluster’s success, Kaufman has started quirky, a company devoted to “social product design.” Armchair inventors pay $99 to submit a product idea, which quirky’s community rates. Top ideas go through development with community feedback on everything from naming to design to marketing. Products are then pre-sold until enough orders accumulate to put the new invention into production.

Quirky rewards people for providing product input, for committing to product pre-sales, and for plugging products on social media tools. Quirky community members register for free and earn influence for participating in a product’s development. 30 percent of every product’s total earnings go to the community of influencers who have made the product happen. Watch quirky’s influence video to see how this cash incentive motivates participants not just to rate ideas and make suggestions, but also to create demand for a new product.

Quirky not only harnesses online community development, with its power to test ideas in real time, but also creates sales incentives, and brings new inventions to a potentially huge population of buyers. All in less time than a traditional product development company might take to create a prototype. Anyone can submit an idea, weigh in on projects, or see what’s quirky.

(Scratch 'n Scroll image courtesy of quirky)