News & Events — Page 10

Mobile Fans Have a Big Day at the Farm

March 24, 2013 By Graeme Thickins

A whole bunch of busy tech professionals dropped everything on Thursday and headed to the farm — the Earle Brown Farm, that is (now called Earle Brown Heritage Center — a very cool place). Okay, it wasn’t all that far out of town, only Brooklyn Center, but it was like a trip to the country in a way, getting out of the office to focus on a where our world seems to be heading these days: mobile everything! (Wonder what Earle would think of that?*)

The occasion was, of course, the 4th Annual Mobile March Twin Cities conference, and it drew a sellout crowd of some 300. This conference gets bigger and better every year. The 2013 iteration offered myriad opportunities to network with mobile developers, designers, enterprise IT people, gaming enthusiasts, marketers, and knowledgeable vendor representatives. And an awesome agenda of 32 break-out sessions made for a jam-packed day of learning as well. This ever-changing industry we call mobile is made up of many moving parts and pieces, and it touches every segment of the Twin Cities business community — from the smallest of startups to the hugest Fortune 500 giants. All those segments were well represented at MobileMarch, and there was some serious mixing of the pot going on!

Sessions were in four tracks: Mobile Strategy, Mobile Development, Mobile Gaming, and Mobile Business. A sampling: “Four Key Principles of Mobile User Experience Design” … “The Beginning and End of Mobile Marketing” … “BYOD & MDM FYI” (for enterprise IT types) … “Avoiding Apple Rejection” … and the ever-playful “Using Chipmunk Physics to Create an iOS Game.” It was damn hard choosing from the four concurrent sessions going on throughout the day! Which is why getting to see presentations you missed will be helpful — and many are in the process of being posted on the event site here. So keep checking back.

To get the real lowdown on the event as it happened, one can, of course, go read the very active #mmtc13 hashtag stream. During the day, I was trying to do my share on the Minnov8 tweet stream myself, and I also posted some pix here on Flickr — shot with a mobile device, of course! The official tweets of the @MobileMarchTC team were flying all day, too.

Next time you see one of that team, who do such a great job organizing this event, be sure to thank them: Justin Grammens, our own Phil Wilson, Linda Cummings, and Mike Bollinger. Also, Phil made me tell you to lavish the sponsors with copious amounts of gratitude, as this event would definitely not happen without them: Verizon, Fusion Room, Livefront, Code 42 , SDG, W3i (now NativeX), Microsoft Windows Phone, Compuware, Intertech, and Digineer. They rock, each and every one of them! It was great meeting and talking to many of their people during the breaks and cocktail reception.

Postscript: To illustrate the reach and impact of this four-year-old MobileMarch event, I learned on Thursday that it’s inspired the Fargo tech community to launch one of their own: Mobile Summit, taking place April 28-29. The organizers were in attendance and have already landed some Twin Cities-based speakers.

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* Earle Brown Farm, which went through a major renovation that transformed it into an impressive, sprawling conference center, is the namesake of, you guessed it, a really cool guy named Earle, who was Hennepin County Sheriff in the early 1900s and founded the Minnesota Highway Patrol. He was also quite a horseman. He just never got to own a mobile device, as he died in 1963. More history here. When I worked for Medtronic early in my career, my office was in an adjacent building and looked right down on horses romping around the large corral, which is now a parking lot. See what you learn reading Minnov8! (No, I didn’t ride a horse-and-buggy to work — we had cars then. Just no airbags.)

W3i Rebrands, Launches Native Ad Platform for App Devs, Adds Trip Hawkins as Senior Advisor

March 20, 2013 By Graeme Thickins

W3i, one of Minnesota’s largest and fastest-growing Internet companies, with headquarters in St. Cloud and offices in Minneapolis and San Francisco, just made a major announcement today. The company has changed its name to NativeX and completely rebranded around a new platform to help developers better monetize their apps. The focus for W3i has long been primarily (though not exclusively) on game apps, so it’s no surprise the announcement was timed to hit the wire as the company prepares for the huge Game Developers Conference, which takes place all next week in San Francisco.

With this move, the company is positioning to jump on what is becoming a clear trend toward advertising that is more specific, or native, to various web platforms, as opposed to the old, tired banner advertising, which everyone loves to hate. W3i, now Native X, clearly wants to own the concept for apps, and what better way than to use the term right in their name?

A key part of the announcement today, adding mucho cred with the gaming community, is the addition of Trip Hawkins as an “advisor to the board.” Trip, whom the company rightfully calls an “industry giant,” has a history going back to Apple’s early days. You can read all about him here on his Wikipedia page.

“Native advertising is the future,” Hawkins says in the news announcement. “Every major publisher on mobile and web has their eye on native advertising right now. NativeX is proving that we as an industry can do better than banner ads.”

What many observers would find even more interesting about this new initiative of W3i (now NativeX) is that a guy named Young Sohn is chairman of its board. (More on Young below.)

I conducted an email interview with Rob Weber, cofounder and EVP of NativeX, after I got early word of this news last night:

Why did you decide to rebrand the company?

“As we reviewed our marketing strategy, it became clear to us that the name “W3i” didn’t convey what we are all about. In the digital media world, most industry experts would agree that display advertising is broken. Even the largest banner ad units result in CPMs for publishers only in the $2.00 range, max. The reason for the low performance is display ads don’t drive engagement, and ultimately value, for marketers. This is why Google invented a more ‘native’ ad unit for its business (paid search), Facebook created new ad units built for the news feed, Twitter launched sponsored tweets, and, locally, DoApp introduced ‘RSS news ads.’ We are focused on solving this problem for consumer app developers, and we felt like the name ‘nativeX’ speaks directly to where we are headed — creating new, native ad units for developers that bring strong monetization to their business.”

How did you get connected to Trip? What role will he play?

“I was first introduced to Trip about a year ago by a mutual friend on a trip to San Francisco. We stayed in touch, and it became clear he could help us in a number of ways. Trip will provide a strategic perspective to our board with respect to what is going on in mobile and in the app space, which is dominated by game apps. Trip will help us build even stronger ties and awareness within the broader app world, and specifically in the Bay Area. On a personal level, Trip has also been helpful as a mentor to me.”

How long have you been planning this? Who drove the rebranding?

“Plans have been in the works for a few months, and the rebranding effort has been led by our new VP of Marketing, Diana LaGattuta, based in San Francisco.” [Ed.: Her photo at right, and her bio appears on the NatixeX web site.]

What changes will result to the organization locally, if any?

“In terms of local changes, we expect a clearer message to our target clients, along with the new technology we are launching, will enable us to continue to increase the value of our company, which will result in us ontinuing to hire even more folks locally.”

How will this affect your SF organization? Will you be expanding it?

“We are looking to grow additional headcount in all three of our offices — Sartell, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. The Bay Area has a lot of relevant talent for a business like ours, and we plan to add significant headcount there. We’ve seen that the Bay Area talent we already have gives us the opportunity to increase our perspective, which helps the rest of the team grow faster.”

Does it mean any significant new hiring plans right away?

“We have lots of hiring plans immediately. Check out our career page for specifics.” [Ed.: That would be here. No specific jobs listed there yet, but there sure is some enticing copy. And an email link to apply.]

What new partnerships, if any, will become a part of this new initiative?

“We will continue to ramp partnerships with mobile and desktop app developers. For example, in October we announced a new partnership with one of the globally most popular mobile app developers in the world, Imangi Studios, maker of the smash hit Temple Run. We have some other new partnerships that will be similar, but taking advantage of our new native technology.”

What are the long-term implications in this for your company?

“We think the rebranding and new technology will help us create further differentiation in the market. We think we can own ‘native advertising’ within the app space. Expect to see more specifics in terms of new products, technology, partnerships, and more tied to this ‘native’ approach.”

What if anything can we read into this because you have the Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung on your board?

“Young was 100% supportive of our rebranding.”

Rob Weber and his company have long been champions of developers, not only helping them make money with their apps, but even helping them get funding to launch or expand. He wrote a guest post on VentureBeat earlier this month, Six ways the Five Horsemen of Tech can build better app ecosystems, in which he spoke about that. (The “Five Horseman” being Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Samsung.)

#3 Lend a Hand: Create Funding Programs for Developers

This one is also fairly obvious. On one hand, you have large thriving companies generating billions of dollars in revenue every year. On the other hand, you have an app market that gets more cutthroat every day and is filled with bootstrapped developers struggling to stay competitive. All of the horsemen should be creating sizable developer funds to help them build the teams and infrastructure they need to make great apps. Such funds would also encourage developers to leverage the horsemen’s technology and make something innovative on their platform. Samsung is a great example of this. With their recently announced $100 million Samsung Catalyst Fund, Samsung will expand their brand, work with great developers, and help build their app ecosystem as clarified at the recent Dive Into Media conference.

Horseman that does this the best: Samsung*

*Full disclosure, the Chairman of our board at nativeX, Young Sohn, is President and Chief Strategy Officer at Samsung, and is involved in overseeing Samsung’s fund.

Young Sohn will surely play a role in guiding NativeX to even more growth going forward. Stay tuned!

By the way, I will be reporting from GDC next week myself, including updates about Minneapolis-based startup Canopy, which also will have a presence there.

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(My disclosure: I provided consulting services to W3i in past years, but have no current contractual relationship with the firm.)

Thoughts from a Google event at the “Brain Exchange” in Minneapolis

February 21, 2013 By Graeme Thickins

(Note: This post originally appeared yesterday on my personal blog, Graeme Thickins on Tech.™ I’ve added a couple of updates where noted.)

Google and CoCo are cohosting a day-long event today on entrepreneurship and innovation at the former Grain Exchange in Minneapolis, including speakers, workshops, and panels — and I’m hanging out here right on through to the closing happy-hour reception. It’s just past lunchtime now, and I thought I’d punch out a post. The afternoon sessions will be split into two tracks: one for businesspeople, marketers, and creatives, and a second for developers and those interested in technology. (I’ll be sitting in on the former.)

“Google for Entrepreneurs” is the specific group CoCo partnered with for this event. But, as of today, we know this partnership is going well beyond just today’s activities. If you follow the Minnov8 site, where I also blog occasionally, you may have seen my story this morning: “CoCo Ties Up with Google.” Big news for our town.

To understand what the GFE program is all about, Mary Grove, who heads it up, explains on this YouTube video. Essentially, it includes Programs, Events (today’s not listed – haha, even Google can’t keep its own pages updated!), Resources — and you can guess that means tools and online resources like Apps, Adwords, G+ for Business, dev tools, Groups, free websites, consumer surveys, Google cloud platform, etc.

In this glowing Forbes article from September 2012, “Google Launches Global Entrepreneurs Initiative,” the writer notes what GFE isn’t: “Google Entrepreneurs is not an incubator, an accelerator or a venture fund. It’s merely a connection to all of these things.” I was particularly interested today in finding out what any connection might be to Google Ventures, the company’s very own VC fund. (There is very little connection, it turns out, though they seem to fit under the same box on the org chart.) By the way, you may think you know Google Ventures, but get this — it was recently ranked as the third most active VC firm in a study by CB Insights: “Google Grows Into a Venture Capital Power.”

An interesting initiative you can find on the Google Ventures site is called Startup Lab. Not sure how that fits on with the “Google For Entrepreneurs” initiative, if at all, but there sure seems to be some overlap the way it’s described. Note the web page says “we’re just getting started.” Well, um, yes — but their last blog post was July 2012. Hmmm. But they do have a current schedule of events, including several this month, all saying “at Startup Lab,” which presumably means Mountain View (it doesn’t say).

But Google marketing initiatives aside (which is essentially what GFE is), I’m hungering for some insight into other, related and developing Google news, How about you? Like this:

• “To get products into more hands, Google will open its own stores by the end of the year” (9to5 Google)

• “Report: Google to open retail stores in major US cities by yearend” (HuffingtonPost)

Could the big GOOG be planning a store in Minneapolis? As in downtown? Inquiring bloggers want to know…

[Update: I later asked someone from the mayor’s office, but got no sign of any knowledge on his part about that. Another thing I asked: Any chance of Google Fiber in our town? Again, no indication either way. But we can still hope, can’t we?]

I’d also like to ask Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak (who spoke at the kickoff of today’s event) what he thinks about Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement a couple days ago of a “We Are Made in NY” campaign to promote his city’s startups: “NY mayor launches bid to help tech startups.” I’m betting R.T.’s city budget probably doesn’t allow for digital billboards and bus ads hyping our “Made in Minneapolis” ventures. But then, we’re a little smaller than NYC… and Bloomberg throws millions around like chump change.

In Minnesota, we don’t do big, pushy campaigns about ourselves. We just talk about such stuff over coffee and cookies. Oh, and in blogs that no one in New York has probably ever seen or heard of.

Launch a Start-up With U of MN Tech

February 21, 2013 By Steve Borsch

This just in from Minnesota Cup: Entrepreneurs and business executives are invited to a free entrepreneur event hosted by the University of Minnesota – Office for Technology Commercialization (OTC). The purpose of this event is to educate local entrepreneurs on how to work with the OTC. The event will explain the process for technology licensing and how to build start-up companies based on University of Minnesota research.

Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 from 5:00-7:30 PM

Location: Maroon & Gold Room, McNamara Alumni Center (200 Oak Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455)

Agenda:
5:00-5:15 pm – Registration and Networking
5:15-5:20 pm – Welcome and Opening Remarks
5:20-5:45 pm – How to work with the U of MN – OTC
5:45-6:30 pm – Panel Discussion

Moderator: Doug Johnson, Office for Technology Commercialization
John Bergstrom, Early Learning Labs
Ken Shain, SMART Signal Technologies
Bill Faulkner, Ascenix
Eric Madson, Embomedics

6:30-7:30 pm – Networking with Refreshments and Hors d’oeuvres

CoCo Ties Up with Google

February 20, 2013 By Graeme Thickins

Big news today from our friends at CoCoMSP. The very successful, high-profile coworking venue announced today it will partner with Google to “boost entrepreneurship in Minnesota.” Specifically, CoCo has agreed to work with the “Google for Entrepreneurs” program to host a variety of events, conferences, and social mixers over the next two years at its Minneapolis location (the former Grain Exchange trading floor), all with a focus on technology and startups.

The news is breaking on the same day Google and CoCo are cohosting a day-long event on entrepreneurship and innovation in Minneapolis, including speakers, workshops, and a closing happy hour reception. (At 11:00 am, there’s even a Google+ Hangout on Air with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.)

According to CoCo’s news announcement today, its ongoing two-year partnership will feature several types of events to be held at the CoCo Grain Exchange location:

Launch and pitch events, such as Startup Weekend Twin Cities
Affinity and user groups, including Google Developers Group Twin Cities, Android Users Group of Minnesota, and House of Genius
One-day and multi-day conferences
Social and networking events for startup founders and mentors, including a mentor event for Minneapolis’ STEP-UP program.
Classes and educational sessions, including online-only sessions that will be available to entrepreneurs across the state.

All events in the series will (of course) make use of Google technology, including Google+ Hangouts, so that entrepreneurs from throughout Minnesota can participate in events remotely.

The first event of the partnership will follow the all-day event today: the local Google Developer Group’s monthly meetup, which will be this evening at CoCo. The news release states “a full 2013 event schedule will be finalized and made public in the coming weeks.”

Today’s “Google for Entrepreneurs Day” is being kicked off by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and features talks and sessions led by visiting Google employees.

“This partnership with Google will allow us to continue to expand our mission of creating a robust community of individuals pursuing the work of their dreams,” said CoCo founding partner Kyle Coolbroth in a prepared statement.

Google describes its “Google for Entrepreneurs initiative” as actively supporting entrepreneurs in the U.S. and across the globe. “We believe entrepreneurship drives innovation, economic growth, and vibrant communities. We see that happening in Minnesota and particularly at CoCo,” said John Lyman, Entrepreneurship Manager at Google, in the release. Google For Entrepreneurs says it empowers “the next generation of innovators to be successful.” (No word on you older entrepreneurs, haha.)

For those who haven’t yet been to CoCo, you should drop by and get a tour — it’s fantastic! (Disclosure: I’m a member, so I’m very biased.) CoCo describes itself as “a place where entrepreneurs, freelance professionals, small businesses, and corporate workgroups can gather to share ideas, team up on projects, and get work done.” For its members, CoCo is an alternative to working from home or meeting at the local coffee shop. CoCo also has a location in Lowertown St. Paul.

I’m looking forward to today’s event and hope to be doing several video interviews (especially of Google execs), as well as tweeting and more blogging during the day.

Mobile March 2013 Agenda Announced

February 18, 2013 By Tim Elliott

The final agenda for Mobile March 2013 has been released for the 4th annual conference. Keynoted by Bob Schukai, Global Head of Mobile Technology at Thomson Reuters, the event also features multiple tracks including Mobile Strategy, Mobile Business, Mobile Development and Mobile Gaming. Mr. Schukai’s keynote will highlight best practices for business model development, and creation & deployment of world-class user experiences.

The conference will take place at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Park on March 21st.

“We’re honored to be offering insight from thought leaders that have successfully made those thoughts reality,” said Mobile March organizer Linda Cummings. “From business to development, the day will cover the full range of mobile capability for both the enterprise and the consumer.”

Registration for Mobile March is now open via the Mobile March website or directly through Eventbrite.

Registration Now Open for Mobile March 2013

December 11, 2012 By Tim Elliott

The date for Mobile March, the annual Twin Cities mobile conference has been set for March 21st, 2013 at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Park. Now in its 4th year, the conference features multiple tracks with sessions on mobile app development, mobile advertising, strategic planning, mobile education, marketing, design, user experience and, new this year, mobile game development.

The conference organizers have also announced Bob Schukai, Global Head of Mobile Technology at Thomson Reuters, will keynote the event. Other speakers will be announced closer to the conference after an open call for speakers closes.

No question mobile is “the tail wagging the internet dog” as more and more of us get connected. But don’t believe us, take a peek at Mary Meeker’s latest internet trends report entitled, “2012 Internet Trends Year-End Update.” In it she reveals her latest update showing the explosion in mobile device use around the world and how it is shifting and disrupting more of what we learn, how we communicate, shop and buy. Whether you make money with mobile or just use it to stay connected, we invite you to join us for Mobile March.

Tickets can be purchased at the Mobile March website or Eventbrite. The cost of registration prior to January 15th is $85. Full PR follows.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 11, 2012

4th Annual Mobile March Set For March 21, 2013

The Twin Cities’ premier mobile event to present multiple tracks including business, development and gaming.

Minneapolis, MN – The Organizers of Mobile March have announced the date for the 4th annual conference. The date for the Twin Cities’ premier mobile event is set for March 21st, 2013 at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park. Long known for presenting top level speakers and seminars at a fraction of the cost of most events of its kind, Mobile March 2013 will include tracks of learning that address development, mobile advertising and strategic planning as well as mobile education, marketing, design, user experience, and more. New this year is a track dedicate to mobile game development and the use of gaming in mobile business.

Organizers have also announced that Bob Schukai, Global Head of Mobile Technology at Thomson Reuters, will keynote the event. Schukai is responsible for overseeing the development and execution of the mobile growth strategy globally for Thomson Reuters and is a noted speaker on the topic of mobile technology. The keynote address will anchor an agenda that will draw heavily from an open call for presenter submissions underway http://mobilemarchtc.com/be-a-speaker/.

Mobile March’s Justin Grammens commented, “Our goal continues to be to bring people from all aspects of mobile together. Those with a technical focus like developers as well as business leaders including CEO’s, marketers, and more can benefit. This year’s addition of a gaming track opens the door even wider.” Grammens continued, “There is much to be learned by different constituencies sharing their knowledge with each other.”

Registration is now open for Mobile March, Thursday March 21st, 2013 at the Earle Brown Heritage Center via the Mobile March website at www.mobilemarchtc.com or directly through Eventbrite. The cost of registration prior to January 15th is just $85.

Speakers interested in presenting may make submission at http://mobilemarchtc.com/be-a-speaker/. Topics on Mobile Business, Business Strategy and Marketing, Mobile Development, Hardware Expertise, and Quality Assurance, Gaming and Game Development, as well as Design including UI, UX, Responsive and Native will be considered.

About Mobile March

Founded in 2010, Mobile March is an event dedicated to exploring the latest in mobile technology and trends. According to founders Justin Grammens, Phil Wilson and Linda Cummings, the name Mobile March not only denotes the month in which it takes place, it also emphasizes the ongoing advancement and growth of mobile technology and the related lifestyle.

By offering content that appeals to mobile developers, business people, and users we hope to facilitate a greater understanding between the constituencies that make mobile happen. Whether you make money with mobile or just use it to stay connected, we invite you to join us for Mobile March.

Event sponsors include: Code 42 Software, Livefront, Fusion Room and Verizon

CONTACT: Phil Wilson
612-743-7860
phil@mobilemarchtc.com

MIMA Summit 2012 Liveblog

October 10, 2012 By Steve Borsch

MobCon and Mobile Twin Cities to Dole Out $25,000 Prize for Mobile App

September 14, 2012 By Phil Wilson

MobCon, the latest addition to the Twin Cities mobile conference calendar on November 13th and 14th, is teaming with Mobile Twin Cites and Lazard Middle Market to hand out a hefty prize to a Minnesota mobile app developer.

Dubbed MobDemo, Minnesota developers are invited to submit their mobile applications to be ultimately judged bu the attendees of the MobCon attendees. A cash prize of $5,000 plus a $20,000 credit towards mobile development will be awarded to the developers of the mobile application deemed most “technical, innovative and profitable”.

According to James Williams of MobCon, “We’re proud of Minnesota’s emerging mobile enterprise businesses. We want to take time to show them off and reward one for its outstanding efforts.” Mobile Twin Cities Founder, Justin Grammens said, “Some of our past Mobile 3D demo events really brought forward some exciting mobile developments. Joining with MobCon to showcase these apps and companies as well as awarding such a generous cash prize is a real thrill.”

If you’re a developer that thinks you’ve got the goods to score the loot, apply now to present a mobile application demonstration at MobCon 2012. A committee of judges will select finalists to showcase their applications and MobCon attendees will vote to choose a winner. Deadline for entries is October 15th, 2012.

Great Talk Coming at MCAD on ‘Indie Capitalism and Design Entrepreneurship’

September 6, 2012 By Graeme Thickins

MCAD has a really cool event coming up on Tuesday evening, September 11. The best thing of all? It’s free and open to public. Here are the details: Visiting-Artist Lecture: Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, Cofounders of Studio Neat, New York City, Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 6:30 p.m., Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Auditorium 150 (Map: Getting to MCAD.)

Tom Gerhardt (at right in photo) is an internationally recognized artist and designer who works across a broad range of disciplines. As a hardware and software developer at Potion, Gerhardt helped to create interactive installations for some of the nation’s most prestigious museums and retail spaces. And as an artist, his work seeks to reconcile modern man’s dual citizenship in the physical and digital worlds through projects like The Mud Tub, an organic interface that allows people to control a computer while playing in the mud. Gerhardt and his design partner, Dan Provost (left), created the “Glif,” one of the world’s first crowd-funded commercial products. Gerhardt and Provost also founded Studio Neat, a design practice based in New York City.

The two just published an ebook on their experience and philosophy of designing and launching crowd-funded products: “It Will Be Exhilarating: Indie Capitalism and Design Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century, As Observed by StudioNeat.” (Download a DRM-free copy of the ebook at that link, in a bundle of ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats. Also available in the iBookstore and on Amazon.)

Founded in 2010, Studio Neat launched its first of two successful Kickstarter projects late that year, helping pave the way for a new era of independent hardware manufacturing. It also recently entered the software world with its first iPhone app. “We’ve learned a lot in a short period of time,” say the cofounders, “and we wanted to share this information with the world. So we wrote a book. ”

The book was written to offer guidance and inspiration for those charting a similar path. It covers topics such as running a small business, creating hardware products independently, launching a Kickstarter project, and tips for promoting your products. “Everything is told through the lens of our own experience,” the authors said.

It’s a short read, and I found it very readable and inspiring. “It provides the needed ‘kick’ to start making stuff. There isn’t a better time than now,” say the authors. Here’s how one famous Internet luminary endorsed the book:

“There is no recipe for passion, no 5-step guide to making your idea real, but there is good, solid advice, and this book is filled with it.” – Clay Shirky, author

Last week, BoingBoing published an excellent post by Glenn Fleishman, a Seattle-based writer, that captures the passion of Tom and Dan: “Indie Capitalism relies on crowds — and you can do it, too.”

Tom and Dan describe themselves simply as “two designers who enjoy making simple things and making things simple.” The Glif, the duo’s first product, represents a new way of approaching consumer products, and it wouldn’t have been possible without a few thousand people who believed in the designers. “Not too long ago, the Glif was just an idea with nowhere to go,” they said. “We knew it was going to be something people might like, but we needed a way to share it with the world. Typically, if you want to make a physical product (especially an electronics accessory) you have to be, or sell to, a large company — but we didn’t like that idea. We wanted to stay close to the Glif and, more importantly, to our customers. So, after much thought, we decided to put the Glif’s fate into the hands of the masses and begin a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money required to make it a reality.” (Kickstarter is a web site that connects creators with people who are interested in helping them out.)

“Our contributors on Kickstarter pledged money towards our goal with no guarantee that we would ever be successful,” Studio Neat’s cofounders said. “They took a leap of faith, backed our project, and $137,417 and 5273 backers later, here we are. The Glif became a full-fledged, crowd-funded product.” It was one of the first successful launches of a consumer product on Kickstarter, and, at the time, #3 on the list of most funds raised.

Here are the products of Studio Neat to date:

1) The Glip Tripod Mount & Stand For iPhone 4 and 4S