This is both a cautionary and inspirational tale of realizing a good idea for a product.
Patrick and Dallas are two Miami-based videogame developers that ship their own products. That being the case, the duo are well-acquainted with packing peanuts, which as every eBay shipper knows, can quickly messy without a good dispensing system in place.
Existing industrial-sized packing peanut hoppers (pictured up top) are too bulky for the pair's business, so they set out to design their own solution. Their resultant PeanutBuddy device is a clear design improvement over the hoppers (though industrial-design-minded nitpickers will take potshots). Presumably excited about their creation, the duo contacted shipping giant Uline to see if they had any interest.
Well, Uline called back, and they were interested. Just one problem: Patrick & Dallas weren't actually ready to produce the thing. (We jaded Kickstarter-watchers know fulfillment is everything, but these guys' expertise is videogames and not industrial design, so we ought cut 'em a little slack.) Newly motivated, the pair are now turning to Indiegogo in hopes of funding the tooling for a production run.
You can see how the device works, and hear their story, in the pitch vid:
(more...)