The World Wide Web has revolutionized many things. It has changed the way we conduct business, listen to music, play games, and even watch movies and television shows. It has radically altered the way we communicate and share experiences. It has also fostered a new Industrial Revolution—in which anyone can start up a business, bring a product to market and get it sold directly to consumers. For a growing number, the days of having to hawk a potential product to distributors and sellers and hope someone will pick it up so it can finally make it to market are over.
But wait, there’s more! Now you can sit down at your computer with a cup of coffee, design an item for manufacture, hit a few keys, and have that custom-designed item arrive at your door within a couple of weeks.
Meet Ponoko, a New Zealand company that allows you to design a product right on their website, upload the design, choose your materials, click to make the product, and sit back and wait for it to arrive. Once you have the finished item, you can even sell it through Ponoko’s website. Customers can click on the design, the item will be manufactured, it will be shipped to them, and you get paid.
Because digital design is exact, your design is loaded into a laser cutter at one of Ponoko’s facilities and the components are cut and shipped to you. You do have to assemble it, but that’s all you have to do. The type of product is as varied as the imagination—from electronic components to furniture, from decorative to functional items.
Ponoko was the brainchild of two innovative Wellington, New Zealand, businessmen, David ten Have and Derek Elley, who clearly saw the next major potential of the Web and decided to act upon it.
“The motivation came from wanting to do something that has a fundamental impact on the future,” co-founder Derek Elley told Organic Connections. “Designing a system the world uses to get individualized goods was a pretty good candidate. We brought this to fruition with a strong vision, strong implementation and a strong will to make it work.”
And work it has. Since the company’s launch in 2007, over 50,000 user-generated designs have been made and delivered.
Ponoko creates the perfect environment for anyone who has ever had that “killer idea” he or she wanted to bring to fruition. For example, 18-year-old Alan Chao dreamed up a unique wooden coaster he thought would sell; eight weeks after his initial design, he landed a deal to sell his coasters through a major distributor. Two MIT students decided they wanted to design a line of jewelry; doing it all through Ponoko, last year their income topped six figures as their jewelry products now retail in over 40 stores. A teacher at a New Zealand design school came up with a photo frame he designed and built through Ponoko; it has now been picked up by Urban Outfitters.
Click on any image above to see a larger version.
There are many such stories, but equally there are those of people who simply wanted that lamp they envisioned but couldn’t find at any retailer, or that table to fit in the breakfast nook that couldn’t be found at any furniture store.
“Our clients are creators of all types—pro designers, hobby designers, crafters, inventors and many more,” Elley said. “The products range across almost anything creative people can imagine—homeware, lighting, jewelry, kitchen, office, furniture, toys, electronics, and on and on.”
In addition to creating designs from scratch, users can also access the many designs on the website and modify them to suit taste or function. There are even “open source” designs that users can contribute to.
With companies such as Ponoko coming online, the World Wide Web is rapidly becoming “the great enabler” for just about anyone. If you can imagine it, it can happen.
To find out more about Ponoko, or to start on your own “big idea,” visit the company’s website at www.ponoko.com.
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