Million Dollar Grind

Starting his career as a woodworker making custom furniture, John Swartz has always been devoted to good design.  Although he was good at making furniture, he had feelings of discontent towards his work.  Swartz wanted to do something other than design furniture.  He wanted to do something that would be a greater impact to the world of design, so he teamed up with his good friend Aaron Lown and began looking for a product that needed a design makeover.  They realized that the wine bag was the perfect product to redesign, since the only competition in the current market was a brown paper bag.

Swartz and Lown started designing their wine tote in 2001.  They wanted to design a tote that was functional and sleek in design.  They used a man-made material called neoprene to acheive the final end product.  After locating a neoprene manufacturer in Taiwan (using google), Swartz and Lown maxed out their credit cards, borrowed $30,000 from friends and ordered 10,000 totes to start builtNY in 2003.

Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art store was their first customer, which gave the product instant creditiblity.   During its first year of business, builtNY sold several hundred thousand wine totes and generated $3.5 million in revenue.  Today, the New York based company sells its totes and other neoprene products across the United States and 20 countries around the world.  The company’s product line now includes lunch totes, laptop totes, baby totes and other ordinary objects with extroidinary design.

Can you think of another product in need of a design makeover?