By The Next List staff, CNN
(CNN) — How many times have you been in the middle of a routine day then – BAM! – a great idea pops into your head. Maybe it’s a way to solve some annoying problem or to make a household chore easier. But for almost everyone, the next thought is this: “Never going to happen.”
That’s because bringing a product to market takes so much more than having a great idea. Invention, it sometimes seems, is largely the domain of large corporations, people with access to big time cash or big-time connections.
And that’s where Ben Kaufman comes in. He’s the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Quirky.com, a start-up website that gives would-be inventors a place to go with their ideas.
The CNN show “The Next List” will feature Kaufman on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. Check out the preview video above.
At Quirky, a staff of experts and a community of thousands put every idea to the test. If a concept makes the cut, a real-life product is manufactured. The inventor gets his or her name on the package and a paycheck in hand. In fact, everybody who contributes to the final product gets a share of the revenue every single time the product is sold. Quirky keeps 70% of the revenue; the rest goes to the inventor and to the project’s “influencers,” leaving the actual inventor with about a 10% cut of the total revenue, according to the company.
With this model, Kaufman expects to pull in more than $20 million in sales revenue this year.
Ben Kaufman and his “Quirky” process are shaking up the way consumer products get to store shelves, giving people the power to choose what they buy. But most important, he’s providing creative people a platform to launch their invention ideas…a place to go when that “light bulb” moment strikes.
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