littleBits
littleBits has a store on West Broadway in Soho. We were walking around Soho this weekend and stopped in. It was really exciting to see. I invested in littleBits in August of 2011. I wrote about the founder Ayah Bdeir in October 2011. This was my first paragraph.
What struck me when I spoke with Ayah about her company littleBits is people like Ayah are makers. To me makers are people who are making products that will hopefully transform our daily lives. Products of old will be put to pasture as new cutting edge products take their place. Just as new companies are transforming the way we do business others are making new products that are working on a different revolution.
What Ayah has accomplished since 8/11 is amazing. She has built a company of incredible products that are resonating with a new generation of kids that will understand electronics at an early stage through creativity. To now walk into a store and see parents working with kids on projects and watching those kids faces light up is thrilling.
There are now hundreds of gizmos and gadgets vs the handful when she began.
There are events at the store for companies and schools.
I am getting together with Ayah in the weeks ahead to catch up. There is one thing that I’d like to see and maybe they are already working on it. The products are expensive. For some families it is irrelevant yet for others it is unobtainable. I am sure that Ayah and her board would love to figure out how they get the product into the hands of every kid. There needs to be a social component to the business. Every kid who wants to geek out on this stuff should somehow have access to these products. Obviously there is a profitable business to build yet figuring out the broader reach regardless of cost is a challenge. If anyone can figure it out…Ayah can.
Comments (Archived):
It’s a cool thing. Love what they are doing. They might be able to increase presence and sales using a platform like Dabble.co Figuring out how to get the cost down will be an interesting problem to solve. Maybe because of the price point and their target market they could use a Tom’s strategy. My fear is that the Tom’s strategy has been so overdone that it won’t work. Wonder if there is a Toys For Tots effort where they could allow people to donate-and buy Little Bits at cost and let the Marine Corps distribute them.
Omigosh, can’t wait to check this out! We’ll have a great day here and at the Meow Boutique 😉
I am sure that Ayah and her board would love to figure out how they get the product into the hands of every kid. They need to organize contests and competitions (with prizes) in the US. My wife is all in to lego and FLL big time (and my ex wife with my kids was into odyssey of the mind) [1] for the past few years with my stepdaughter. I am sure that she has ever heard of littlebits. littlebits could own this market no question about it. But the first step if figuring out an angle so that every suburban mom/dad has some activity that they can get their kids involved in which exposes them to littlebits. Littlebits has chapters all over but doesn’t appear to have anything to use marketing wise to drive adoption of the platform in the way that I am suggesting.That is what I would concentrate on and I’d do it in the US as opposed to in countries all over the world (to start of course). [2][1] And actually coached a team and took them to the nationals (airplane trip required).[2] My approach would be simply to reverse engineer what is done by the current offerings. Roll out in enough cities so a national and perhaps statewide contests could be held. Along with appropriate publicity, pictures, news stories and so on.