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The Curious Case of the Fidget Cube

How a product almost went from a million-dollar success story to a footnote in under a year

Fidgeting while Rome burns: Too much attention on quality control can result in lost sales
Christopher Martin
Thu, 08/03/2017 - 12:03
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On Aug. 30, 2016, a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign was launched for a small stress-relief, fiddler-friendly device called a Fidget Cube, created by Matthew and Mark McLachlan, collectively known as Antsy Labs. Within one day the project’s goal of $15,000 was funded, and 30 days later the campaign ended with a staggering $6,465,690 raised, the tenth highest funded project ever on the site.

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Fast forward one year, and the Fidget Cube came very close to being a flash in the pan. The world was now obsessed with a different shape, the fidget spinner, while the cube-based fidget industry was flooded with cheaper, near-identical copycats. So what happened? Well, a lot of things, but the one I am focusing on here is a commitment to quality, but a lack of risk management.


The debut image of the Fidget Cube, as seen on the Kickstarter campaign page

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Comments

Submitted by Alan Metzel on Fri, 08/04/2017 - 06:37

Fidgety

Perhaps a "Fidget Rock" would have been easier in the long run

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