It’s funny how chance encounters can flip the lid on exciting new endeavors. That’s exactly how Andrew Hyde and Matthew Wettergreen got started making Vinyl Monsters. The guys were merely acquaintances until a few weeks ago, when they ran into each other in Austin during SXSW and Andrew handed Matthew his business card — which turned out to be an actual, letterpressed card. Matthew was struck. He went home, flipped on his laser cutter, and, like any good friend should do, immediately tried to one up his buddy.

The next day Matthew had a brand new business card: puzzle pieces printed with his contact info that he had cut from a vinyl record. Now, this could have been a story about business cards, but it’s not. Matthew took the idea of puzzle-piece business cards one step further, conceptualizing vinyl-cut puzzle-pieces that could be assembled into little dinosaurs.

Vinyl Monsters was a chance creation built on coincidence, inventive minds, and immediate execution. (To date, it has been less than a month since the two originally traded business cards.) Matthew and Andrew thought they’d bring the idea to Kickstarter hoping ten people would be interested, but what they got was, oh, a couple hundred.

As their Vinyl Monster dreams come closer to reality, the duo are hard at work tinkering with new designs (yes, T-Rex is in the works, as is Velociraptor!), the schematics of laser cutting vinyl, and figuring out how to store their monsters. In the meantime, if their project hits $10,000, they’re planning a little something special for their backers. Check out some of their creations thus far, below, and join the fun by backing their project here.