Founded in 2009 by Ben Faufman, Quirky began by using crowdsourcing to determine which products to design and manufacture. The company puts forward ideas for new products via their website and allows both visitors to the site and employees to vote. Each product that gains the sufficient amount of votes is then designed, manufactured and marketed by Quirky.
So what is Crowdsourcing and why does it work so well for their business?
The term Crowdsourcing, originally coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”, involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. The difference between Crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that the task, especially in this case, is outsourced to the undefined public (i.e. The crowd) rather than a specific person such as a paid employee. It works so well for Quirky.com as the solution that is returned by the ‘crowd’ is then owned by themselves – the ‘Crowdsourcer’.
Quirky not only submit their own products for sale but also allows “Inventors” to participate after paying a small fee to list their product.
They cleverly arrange the site in the way that a minimum number of products have to be pre-ordered to justify production, thus gaining the “Inventor” 30% of sales, quirky.com take 30% for their investment in design time and the rest is shared amongst the “influencers” that helped it happen. Once a design has been submitted to Quirky and is put into production, the idea then becomes Quirky’s property. They are free to use the idea as they like, but always make a point of rewarding the inventor and the influencers. A perfect example of an efficient crowdsourcing process.
With so much going on in such a growing digital community you could find yourself lost on this site for hours. What is more satisfying than feeling you have successfully influenced a product into production, especially one that you truly believe in. Each time I visit this site I find products that I didn’t even know I needed but can’t stop thinking about afterwards.
I enjoy how open the site is, how everyone ‘chips in’ with their ideas and constructive criticism. The website itself is very easy to navigate with tonnes of information surrounding any queries a visitor may have.
Overall, I think it is fantastic that Crowdsourcing has allowed both small and large business to promote an idea to market by embracing a community much faster than historically possible. When you think about the opportunities that Crowdsourcing offers, disregarding the fact that you may be a small, medium or large sized business, the opportunities become equally available for all that choose to take part.
Go check out Quirky.com for yourself, I’d love to know what you thing about this Crowdsourcing way of business.