The Economist has a great piece up looking at the product development story of the Glif, a simple kickstand that attaches to an iPhone and doubles as a tripod mount. What didn't seem simple was getting the thing made: Tooling the mold would require $10,000.
So last month New-York-based Glif designers Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, the latter of whom works for frogdesign, turned to online funding platform Kickstarter to raise the cash. "We thought it would take weeks [to raise the cash], and a lot of effort," said Gerhardt. But in three days they had $70,000.
The Glif project, needless to say, is well under way, with the assistance of short-run injection molding firm Protomold. Read the full story here.