Amitai (EPD) @loewamitai-blog - Tumblr Blog

On today's episode of "Why didn't Amitai work on his Thesis?," Amitai gets a nifty new addition to the studio, his friend Oleg's rarely utilized 3d printer. Soon I'll be using it to print parts of my thesis but right now it's an excellent distraction

Stephan Ango - Lumi

I’m late posting this, didn’t take a lot of notes, and my memory sucks. However, I do remember the one big takeaway that stuck with me from our conversation with Stephan, co-founder of Lumi.

First, Lumi is one of those startups that people might think of as kind of boring - they sell packaging. Well, honestly I like that kind of stuff. But also it highlights an area of entrepreneurship that some find unglamorous but I particularly like - logistics.

Not everyone is super creative. I don’t sketch a ton. Ideas for designs come to me whenever they want. But I’ve always been great at logistics - keeping all the plates in the air and making sure everyone has what they need to do their job - and that’s kind of what Lumi does.

It’s really cool to see a creative entrepreneurial business built less on product and more on helping the creators get the little stuff they need.

Chad the Rad

Chadwick Parker of Big I Design swung through EPD the other week, and it was pretty darn great.

His story was interesting; starting with a background in manufacturing and then a couple of failed projects. It was really kind of neat to see how Big I focused their product style through a sort of trial-and-error system on Kickstarter.

Couple of takeaways:

- Trying to convince people to buy your stuff sucks (I knew this already, but nice to hear someone successful tell me that)

- Don’t do it just for the money! Always ask yourself why you’re doing a particular product.

- Retailers: find ones that align with your product values but can also reach audiences you’d never find on your own since you’re starting small.

- The good old piece of advice - your old backers are your return customers and best customers. Do good by them and love them and they will reward you with dollars.

Thanks for the nifty gadgets, btw.

sonandheirofnothinginparticular

loewamitai-blog

When a well-worded email nets you a >10% spike in pledges

Back Suva on Kickstarter!

Am I Insane? Probably

I decided to revive one of my old personal projects for Kickstarter’s make/100 initiative.

I wish I’d thought of it sooner, since January is almost over and Suva launches on Thursday, but I’m relaunching Lou (the guy in my tumblr photo) in a limited run of 100.

Check out this preview link

Squarespace (which I use for my site) has a great built in landing page template. I’m going to be using it to send people to my campaign with a much simpler link. The page isn’t active yet, but it will be on Thursday at www.ayloew.com/suva

#alwaysbehustling

Charles in Charge

I’m not sure why I feel the need to make a pun in every post. but whatever

I swung by after class to check out what Charles Adler had to say during his lecture to the College of Design. His experiences are always interesting to listen to and the sheer number of cool things he’s gotten involved in always blows my mind. Awesome to hear from him again and it was definitely really interesting to hear about Kickstarter’s grungy beginnings as I come down to the wire on my own campaign.

(Also there’s a fun left-to-right beard gradient in this picture)

Humanity Doesn’t Stand a Chance

Max Temkin of Cards Against Humanity took the time to welcome us and chat with us about Internet Entrepreneurship last week. Lots of cool stuff to see, but since it’s a crazy week I’ll keep it to the takeaways:

- Do the most with the least - take free advertising wherever you can

- Already having an audience isn’t everything - but it definitely helps

- Keep trying - take lots of litle risks

- Sometimes failure is the intended outcome

A prototype in the hand is worth two (or six, as it were) in the bush

My manufacturer just emailed me

My prototypes will be ready on Monday, giving me a teeny bit of wiggle room to film, edit, and take photos before launch.

PR Draft

Hi _______

First off, I’m a big fan of (blog/site) and I’ve been following your (blog/feed/page) for a while. I wanted to share something with you that I think you and your (readers/followers) might find interesting.

My name is Amitai, I’m a Design student at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I’m testing the waters of entrepreneurship in design by actually doing it. One of my recent designs, Suva - a tessellating trivet and coaster set designed to beautify your home, is now live on Kickstarter.

Though they may seem like simple objects, Suva’s design and story are about something more - togetherness. I designed them primarily as a trivet to serve as a reminder of the warm and raucous weekly family meals that were part of so many childhood memories.

Each ceramic tile is made in Logan Square by a small studio, Penguin Foot Pottery before I cut the cork and assemble each tile by hand.

Here’s the Kickstarter [Link]

[Here] are a few more photos of Suva

Thank you so much for taking the time. You can contact me anytime at:

PHONE

EMAIL

ETC

Actual Good News

I haven’t had a ton of great news to report lately - my prototype is behind schedule and I probably won’t have anything to photograph until two or three days before launch.

But this post is about good news: Shipping costs came way down when I figured out that my pieces will fit in small flat rate boxes. This brings down the pledge necessary and means I can offer Suva at the price point I was hoping for.

Monica Khemsurov

What a cool lady. Full disclosure here: the audio was kinda screwy so I only picked up like every 3rd word but gleaned some neat stuff:

- Want to get featured on a blog? They probably won’t find you randomly so send an email! Then follow up

- Sexy photos. Sexy photos. Sexy photos and links to download said sexy photos. Otherwise nobody cares

- Don’t overjustify your object - nobody likes a snob - why would they like a snob who’s BSing? (my words, not Monica’s)

- It’s really easy to sell expensive lighting, apparently.

Well, Fuck.

So I was finally able to schedule some time with the CNC mill to move my project forward: making positives of my parts for Penguin Foot to use for the plaster mold.

Except since it’s finals week, it all went to shit.

The bad:

First, it turns out that the bed of the CNC isn’t level, so some of the pieces are a little off to start.

Second, during setup something was wrongly entered and the pockets on the bottom of the pieces are too deep. Way too deep. Making the top of the piece really thin and definitely brittle (you can see through them in the photos)

Also, there are little HDPE shavings everywhere.

The good:

The HDPE I got from Inventables mills beautifully. Like a hot knife through butter.

Because of the shrinkage rate of ceramics, the pieces I’m milling are 12.5% bigger than the final product will be. But I kind of like the bigger size, and might tweak the design to reflect it.

Also, I now have a full set of perfectly identical Suva for our critque, so that’s nice. Even if they’re identically fucked.

I’ll get more material and try again tomorrow.

Stephanie Pereira

Stephanie’s advice was among the most timely, succinct, and helpful advice we’ve received this semester (not surprising, considering her job). I’ll hop right into my major takeaways:

- BRING YOUR FULL SELF TO KICKSTARTER

- Get an audience ready before you launch. Send a teaser blast to your personal circles. Find forums and listservs of communities that might be into your product

- Long-term goals - do you plan on using this community again?

- Mix your campaign media - there are different types of backers, looking at different parts of your page - make sure to cover all your bases

- Choose your social media outlets and be consistent about updating

- Get on that backer survey and update cycle - don’t be a stranger to your backers.

Thanks for the feedback

Yeah... so I saw this inbox full of emails and assumed the worst. Obviously everyone hated it and I was going to be a giant failure.

You guys all gave awesome, helpful feedback. I saw some trends across multiple posts that’s making it much easier to address those holes (like not specifying how many come in a set. oops).

Thanks

I feel like an idiot

I’ve been banging my head on the table and tearing my hair out, trying to make my finances make sense for this project. Nothing made any sense and I was dreading having to try to negotiate my manufacturer way down.

I had messed up a macro in my spreadsheet and fixing it totally solved all of those problems.

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