How often as a consumer have you wished you could tell a company what products it should make? Imagine if Apple, Crumpler or Nike said “Here’s a bunch of products, you can now have a say in which ones we actually produce”. Or maybe you are a frustrated young designer, who has a great concept, no money and is unable to find a manufacturer willing to take a risk on your product.
Joel Yatscoff has experienced both these situations. His solution. Start a crowd sourced product development company, Joy de Vivre. Launched at the 2009 Toronto Design Week, Joy de Virve, is working to alter the way designers have their products manufactured and at the same time is giving consumers the power to choose whether a product is worthy of being produced. How are they doing it? By rearranging where the manufacturer sits in the equation.
Traditionally for young designers, once they have their concept figured out, the first step is to find a manufacturer, angel investor or venture capitalist who is willing to bet big on their design in order to produce it. But who in their right mind would lay down the big bucks, in some cases over $100,000 for molds alone, to back an untested and untried designer. The potential losses are significant – if the design never makes it to market then the whole investment is lost. If it makes it to market, but never sells or sells badly then the majority of the investment is lost. Thus many young designers cannot get their products produced. But take this all too common scenario, apply some good old design thinking, turn it on it’s head and suddenly young designers no longer need to rely on the manufacturer, angel investor or venture capitalist to move to the next stage. I can see you sitting there thinking “Well where does the money come from then?”. The answer – from the crowd.
Cellule Modular Lattice – Joy de Vivre’s first product.
And here is where the consumer gets to exercise their power over which products get produced and which don’t. Joy de Vivre harnesses the power of the internet to find funding for those “thousands of great ideas [that] have been lost due to the inability of designers to find a manufacturer willing to risk expense on development”. The design is shown on the Joy de Vivre website, where it is avaliable for what Joel descibes as “engaged consumers” to purchase. An engaged consumer decides that they would like to own this product, they purchase one and this provides the mechanism for Joy de Vivre to be “able to raise [the] development costs, by selling products ahead of their production”. The “development and manufacturing costs can be distributed over many people, thus making these costs very small per person” – essentially removing any risk involved with the investment, because if the funding goal is not reached and the design not produced, the consumer gets thier money back. This also provides Joy de Vivre with a chance to “truly test whether an idea will be successful”.
Joy de Vivre sources the products on offer from around the globe by harnessing the power of the internet. Currently anyone can submit their design and Joy de Vivre consider it for funding. However according to William Yatscoff, Joy de Vivre “are working towards being fully crowd sourced with both our submissions and the selection process. Very soon, [the Joy de Vivre] community will be able to submit product ideas” and vote on them. This will provide the designer of the product with “feedback on their product’s popularity through the community” and will allow the Designer to “resubmit their ideas if it doesn’t do well the first time.”
Designers receive a royalty of 5% of the production volumes, while “Joy de Vivre aims for a 30% margin”. And it is not just the designers and Joy de Vivre that share in the profits. As an engaged consumer you also get more than just a great product to use. If you are one of the consumers who has helped fund the products production, you share in a 2% royalty if it continues to sell beyond the funding round (typically lasting between 60 -120 days).
Joy de Vivre currently has two products in its catalog that are searching for funding. Cellule, a “modular lattice designed for the urban gardener”, designed by NYTO Studios. And “Fruity Bowl, a modern redesign of the traditional fruit bowl” Designed by Toronto designer Terence Cooke.
Head on over to Joy de Vivre’s website, help a young designer realize their product by purchasing one. Or if you are a designer submit your own design to the crowd.
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