In The New Instant Companies, Business 2.0 describes "how today's startups are going from idea to $30 million hit — overnight." The article talks about how Kidrobot, a retailer of limited edition art toys and apparel, saves tens of thousands of dollars and tons of time by using Basecamp to collaborate with its engineers in China.
To create new characters, Kidrobot's designers first sketch them using Adobe Illustrator, the off-the-shelf drawing program that goes for $500 a copy. They produce six views of each toy, plus blowups of detailed areas like eyelashes. Then they move to Basecamp...a Web-based application that links everyone who works on Kidrobot's toys — from its New York City design team to manufacturers in China. Established toy companies spend tens of thousands of dollars shuttling designers around the world to iron out product details. Kidrobot pays about $100 per month for Basecamp.
Once Budnitz is satisfied with the initial designs, his team uses Basecamp to share Illustrator files with engineers in China who transform them into clay or wax models. One week later the models arrive in New York. With Basecamp acting as the messenger, the two sides repeat the back-and-forth until the toys meet Budnitz's approval. The final design — along with specs for paint and form-fitting packaging — is then uploaded to Basecamp, and 30 days later finished toys march off production lines in China. "I can have as many as 40 toys in various stages of production at one time, and we can still manage all of these projects with just a few people," Budnitz says. "It's stupid simple."
So simple, he says, that Kidrobot can get a new toy designed, manufactured, and available for sale in four months. Mattel and Hasbro, hamstrung by massive product design teams and elaborate production procedures involving paper forms, consider themselves lucky to get a new toy out in less than a year, according to industry experts. Budnitz talks about those behemoths as if they were has-beens. "What we are doing in toys is almost like what JetBlue is doing to the major airlines," he says. "Our competition just doesn't move this fast."
In fact, affordable Web-based services like Basecamp — part of the software category called product life-cycle management, or PLM — are the key to ramping up quickly, especially if your product is complex.
Nice. We love hearing stories about our products helping the little guy compete with the big boys. Learn more about Kidrobot.
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