Archive for Inspirational – Page 2

IdeaPaint

Whilst looking for a way to be able to brainstorm on the walls of his dorm, John Goscha stumbled upon the concept for IdeaPaint, a product that turns any surface into a dry erase board. Through the help of several partners and friends and over the span of four years, IdeaPaint came into commercial existence and revolutionized the process of innovation.

IdeaPaint sells dry erase paint in both clear and white colors, as well as their product PULL, which is a magnetic wall covering that combines with the dry erase paint. The truly unique thing about the paint is it allows you to turn anything into a dry erase board; we’re talking table, doors, and even a camper!

Customers from all over are having IdeaPaint products infused into their offices, businesses, and even their homes. Wayfair, an online home furnishing company, has featured this innovative creation in some of their design creations. TED even had an IdeaPaint coated wall at their 2015 Vancouver Convention Center. It was a prominent place for the TEDsters to collaborate, reflect, and add to artist Cascio’s designs.

IdeaPaint calls their product “the ultimate idea tool” and they hope that they can be a part of their customer’s best ideas. Their innovations are centered around the idea of helping others be innovative, and that’s pretty neat.

Warby Parker

When picking a product, I often hear people toss around the words “fashion” and “function” to describe their purchasing priorities. For me, there’s a third category that warrants equal consideration: the fiscal element. Luckily, one brand that has a tremendous impact of my life discovered how to ace every single one of these divisions. Warby Parker literally affects how I see the world. Yes, literally- not figuratively. They are an eyewear brand whose goal is to provide modish, high-quality eyesight for significantly less than other brands and to impact the world positively while doing it. 

The problem that commenced the creation of this company was the outrageously high price of a crucial product: glasses. The co-CEOs discovered this issue when one of them lost his frames while backpacking, and due to the (previously) expensive nature of the product, had to complete his first semester of grad school in the haze bad vision creates [see the rest of the story here]. They identified that one company had a monopoly on the industry and was creating, “artificially high prices” for the public’s only option. Solving this problem, the team now offers designer eyewear at substantially lower prices whilst simultaneously providing eyewear for those in need with every purchase. Their process is a win for the customer, a win for those in need of eyewear, and- through the buzz it’s created- a win for the company.

Although their number of stores is increasing, online is still a large contributor to Warby Parker’s sales. Glasses, which must be looked at in correlation to each individual’s face, are difficult to pick without having them there in front of you. Warby has two ways to workaround this. The first is a virtual try-on system where you upload a photo and and get to see the glasses on you virtually. The second is Warby offers their customers (and even just potential customers) a service where they send five frames to your home to try them on in person. These innovative methods make online glasses shopping possible and a highly-effective alternative if there isn’t a Warby store near you.

Another key elements of their brand is the atmosphere and community they’ve built. Everything about the brand, whether it be their packaging, website, store, or social media feeds portrays a unique blend of hipness and innovation. The are frequently community events, such as button making parties and concert series, hosted in their quaint and quirky storefronts. It’s very obvious Warby Parker thinks that fun should be a part of the glasses buying process, and honestly, the promotion they do of these events makes me want to be best friends with every single one of their employees. And the community! When I see people in Warby frames I can’t asking about them which without fail has always led to a pleasant, friendly conversation. This cool company has a lot of cool customers.

The best part about Warby Parker’s is that they wrap up fashion, function, social consciousness, and fun, into one neat looking and fiscally-responsible package. What more could a girl with poor eyesight ask for?

 

The Legend of Blake Ross

His History
This man, this entrepreneur, has impacted each of the people reading this post whether they know it or not. I am speaking of Blake Ross, the co-creator of Mozilla. When Ross was very young, ten years old to be specific, he created his first website. At fifteen he left his sunny home in Miami Florida and moved to California to take an internship at Netscape, which may have been a bad idea since the company was getting the tar beat out of it by Microsoft’s internet explorer. Regardless of the planning this proved to be a very fortunate move for the young Ross. While at Netscape Ross consorted with Joe Hewitt and decided to create a new animal in the realm of internet browsers, this new predator’s name was Firefox. Firefox lead its charge with simplicity as its vangaurd. It took all of unneeded, clunky extras which Netscape had incorporated into its system and threw them out of the window. The result was amazing, the browser loaded pages faster and in turn it was a hit.

His Company
With more than 100 million downloads in the first year this open sourced program quickly started to pull the carpet out from under the feet of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (which at the time held a 95% market share). Then in a very aggressive advance Firefox took hold of almost a 30% market share. It launched a phenomena of browser simplicity which people craved and Google used in their Chrome. He had succeeded in his initial endeavor.

His Path
Parakey, a social page company Ross started after he left Mozilla was purchased by Facebook in 2007. Upon this acquisition Ross came to work for Facebook as their Director of Products. This arrangement lasted for a time until Ross decided to leave. Now Ross is supposedly working on a new project, one which I am personally looking forward to seeing.