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Since I spend a lot of time working in my home office, I put a lot of thought into designing my ideal desk setup where I can be productive and stay inspired as I handle the many different parts of running my business.
One of the things I always wanted was a central place to hold the small things that constantly cluttered up my desk. I searched for a well-designed minimalist organizer, but all I found were ugly, cheaply made products. None of them functioned the way that I wanted and they didn’t match the clean aesthetic of my workspace.
So I decided to design one myself. Little did I know just how hard it would be…
Over the course of 3 years, I worked through dozens of prototypes and sketches to dial in every detail. I went from chopping up rough foam models with a pocket knife all the way to working with industrial design engineers to produce 3D-models and technical drawings that are ready for mass manufacturing.
I ran into many different manufacturing roadblocks and almost gave up several times, but I’m glad I pushed through. We worked through each design challenge and continued iterating until each detail was perfect. Through this refinement process the final design ended up being even stronger than the original concept.
To validate that Gather filled a need for other people besides just me, I decided to launch it on Kickstarter. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I was absolutely blown away by the response.
We hit our Kickstarter goal in 47 minutes and raised $430,960! Over 2300% of our goal!
Gather was seen by over 1 million people and featured on popular sites all over the web. View the original Kickstarter campaign here.
In my 9 years of designing products this was the biggest response I’ve ever received.
Making Gather a reality was a long process, but I couldn’t be happier with the finished product. I use Gather every single day to help me stay productive, and I’m thrilled that now thousands of people around the world are using Gather and cutting through their clutter.