Do I understand correctly from reading the comments here that he just found the 'knock-offs' on alibaba and ordered them?<p>The article made it seem as if he actually created the knock-offs himself and then found a factory to make them for him. Which is it?<p>Also, if I had an idea for a small little toy/gadget, how would I have to go about finding someone in the world who can make it for me in a factory?
Here's a viable business model (I want 10% of profits):<p>* Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it.<p>* Wait for someone in China to copy it.<p>* Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price).<p>* Send them to your backers.<p>Keep the rest of the money for making a single slick video.
I'd say lots of these entrepreneurs are designers or engineers who were passionate about an idea they had and began crowdsourcing their idea, without much business experience. They are gonna learn the hard way that time to market is a bfd.<p>A product is absolutely useless until its in the hands of the consumer.
The value of execution. Being able to get something done is a powerful thing and this is one way it can be monetized. Reminds me of the German startup knockoff company that made its mark doing successful US startups in Europe.
So basically this kid made money by selling cheap knockoffs before the original designers could launch a patent lawsuit? Seems like the moral of the story is that you can make some money before the slow gears of our patent system kick in.<p>Also, links to those stupid inflatable bags on alibaba were everywhere once the kickstarter went viral. The article makes it sound like the kid magically found it.
Just looked up the Fidget Cube. It is $22?! Yet the Stress Cube "knockoff" is under $5. It is a little plastic and vinyl cube with some switches.<p>Not to mention the Fidget Cube is still on pre-order whereas it looks like the Stress Cube has been available since around the end of last year.<p>Is it a kinda crappy thing to do? Yeah I think so. However how on earth are Antsy Labs not selling these things yet?
There's an excellent documentary on the hardware/hacking ecosystem in Shenzhen on YouTube: <a href="https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY</a> . A lot of people there seem to embrace the ethos of moving fast and ignoring IP laws (both original creator and spoofer) because by the time you get a lawsuit or patent filed, the tech will have moved far beyond what you were trying to protect, and it will no longer be worth your time.<p>Basically, move fast and try to keep up. It's crazy how fast the tech cycles are there.
Time is definitely huge. I've got one of the knock-off fidget cubes on my desk right now, a Christmas gift, but my kickstarter-backed one doesn't arrive until later today. I expect the real one to be higher quality, but it seriously got scooped.
What wasn't said in the article/video is that Chinese mfgs are scooping kickstarter.<p>One of many stress cube listings on Alibaba <a href="https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hottest-stress-cube-in-stock_60580604549.html?spm=a2700.7724838.0.0.yOaWG7" rel="nofollow">https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hottest-stress-cube-i...</a>
I dunno, I see this more as an Instagram marketing play than a 'knock-off' play. The fidget cube is little significance, it could have been anything. He found a trend, got supply, and marketed it on the right channels.
Link is dead for me. Get's a 404 on CNBC's site.<p>Here's the Google cache of it: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sNwuEIJ:www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/a-24-year-old-made-345000-by-beating-kickstarters-to-market.html" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sN...</a>
I was looking at making an IoT doodad recently that already had a pretty crowded market because everyone who is currently making the same basic idea, including US and Chinese manufacturers, sucks at software.<p>The one US-based iteration of this product, understands what consumers want, but it's software very much looks like it was produced by hardware people. It works, but only barely. I bought it second hand yesterday and there are already two software-only features I would add that would have increased the usefulness of the product significantly.<p>The Chinese versions are so damn cheap, I wanted to buy one, but their software (even from xiaomi) doesn't even meet my basic requirements.<p>Part of this is probably the fact that consumers (like me) are stingy and software developers are expensive, and you have to keep paying them even after you've gotten all the money you're going to get from consumers since people hate paying for subscriptions.<p>Maybe these knock off makers will get better with software, I don't know, but at the moment I feel like there's a big gap in what knock off makers can do.
What seems weird about this is that he did very little of actual 'beating Kickstarters to the market'. If you read the article, he is just selling things that are already listed on alibaba(so it's the chinese manufacturers who are beating Kickstarters to the market).<p>So the question is: where does the margin of the guy in the article come from? If you read the article, he bought the toys for 2.5$ or so on alibaba and sold them for 20$. That's quite a markup for...some marketing. You could at any time probably have gone to aliexpress and gotten the same thing for 4$ including shipping.<p>I think the answer is that not enough people in China are savy in how to market their products to US+EU. And not enough people from US+EU are aware of the gadget candy-store that is Aliexpress. The overall profit is too small for a large company to swoop in, so what is left are some shady indiegogo campains (that try to sell a product that is already offered on alibaba) and the kind of company portrayed in this article.
Wow! I can't decide if this is innovation, disruption, or something a little less than ethical. I also wonder what the IP issues about this might be.
Article is not quite clear but it appears it was $345K in sales not net.<p>The guy's edge is marketing which has been always been the great differentiator.<p>Of course, it could be just luck as there must be thousands of people attempting the same type of "business".<p>Reminds of that Ipod clone kid in Australia which HN had an article about a few years ago. Made some 100K from selling iPod clones in late 200Xs.
Usually if you ask a company for a customized product it won't happen or you have to be willing to put a lot of money in it. But if you go through the work of mocking up your imagined product on Kickstarter, China may get it to the market for you at no cost.
Good for him!!!<p>I had a similar idea years ago where I was searching through RentACoder projects for potential product ideas. I figured that there had to be a few gems in there, but never found anything worthwhile. Glad to see someone else made the same concept work!
Saw the article mention FollowLiker <a href="http://www.followliker.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.followliker.com</a> not really sure what it does. Is it for creating a bunch of fake accounts?