Über dieses Projekt
Nugget | The easiest couch ever
84.748 $
574
THANK YOU. We hit the original $20k goal in less than 1 day. Then we set our sights on $60k: mission accomplished. We've been pleasantly surprised and now we want to build on that momentum: $75,000 will cover tools that help us pack foam into fabric more efficiently.
4 pieces, 19 pounds, 7 second assembly, 1 size sits all. Nugget was developed to delight, and it's ready to be made, and we have retailers waiting to carry it.
But what's missing is YOU. We have to pay for expensive industry certifications (furniture isn't all fun and games), and we are required to carry lots of liability insurance to release it. We still have to jump through the hoops...even though a 100% foam couch avoids the only things that ever cause safety issues (staple exposure and wooden splinters).
So we've come to Kickstarter. You can help us make Nugget a reality by backing our project and receiving a comfortable reward (at right of page). We can already sit on it, and we love it, and we want you to get to love it too.
You can choose color from options below.
The pillow turns the floor into the best seat in the house for kids watching cartoons and playing video games. For the rest of us, it's an easy-to-move, non-slip-sliding-sagging reading pillow in bed.
The blanket is colorfully double-sided and made from the Nugget's durable, soft microsuede. It's a wonder how something so thin can feel so weighty and warm. And it's more than big enough (75"x51") to cover all your toes, with cuddly room to spare.
STORY
At UNC-Chapel Hill, David studied Biology and Environmental Science; Ryan studied Journalism. We didn't have backgrounds in design or furniture, but we did have experience with futons that broke, had missing pieces, were about as comfortable as an outdoor grill, didn't work properly, were heavy, and ended up in dumpsters. And that last part especially lit the fire.
We took everything we didn't like about that furniture, and bundled it. Then we set out with pencil and paper to turn that bundle on its head: a real furniture design that was delightful, in every way that the old furniture wasn't.
The linchpins of that design came in two strokes, each made possible by the other:
- deciding that the assembly would be tool-less and glue-less, and no two pieces would be attached
- discovering low-density polyethylene (pool noodle foam) as a viable core material
The 2.5 year evolution of Nugget is below: prose turned into sketches, sketches into concept, and concept into Nugget, the real deal.
FEATURES: Easy, and all ways delightful.
Easy to receive:
Easy to assemble:
Easy to transport:
Easy to disassemble, move around, and store away:
Easy to use in lots of different ways:
"Easy" isn't just about convenience: it is, in fact, core to Nugget's versatility. We set out to make something so absurdly easy and mindless that it actually gets used all the ways it's meant to be enjoyed. That's the most important part.
Comfort comes from convenience. It also comes from getting to change positions every few minutes, and getting to say "ahhhh" in each one.
Easy to look at:
Pure geometry is a timeless element of design; and the colors do no less than put life back in your living room (or playroom, workspace, bonus room, basement, dorm, bedroom...).
Easy to not worry about:
- Washable microsuede fabric
- SAFE, and no fire-retardant chemicals
- Durable enough to play tug-of-war with our dogs.
When nothing's attached, nothing can break apart. And when it's 100% foam, stubbed toes don't exist!
Easy to feel good about:
LDPE is, by nature, recyclable. This is the future of furniture.
Easy to fit on, and to fit in all places:
The Chain
Designed and tested with care, so you can live on it carefree.
Proudly made here in lovely and lively North Carolina.
We want to bring new life to furniture in NC. It's an industry at the heart of our state, but fading from its heyday. It's a necessity to learn from those with experience, and it's an honor to work with the best in the business.
The Details
1. Seat Cushion - symmetry is crucial: up, down, forwards, and backwards don't exist; again, every way is the right way. We borrowed another model to design it, this time a sandwich. It had to be thin, light, and soft, all without bottoming out when 200lb people sit on it. It has the soft on the outside, the substance in the middle - and they blend together for seamless support.
2. Pillows - equilateral triangles mean you have an ideal 120 degree recline angle, and orientation doesn't matter: every way is the right way. It is strong and soft at the same time because we borrowed an idea from nature: the skeleton. A hollow, firm and flexible LDPE core supports for posture, and a cushy foam outer layer finds the elusive "just right" degree of softness.
3. Base - it needed to be strong enough under the feet of our jumping rugby player friends, and be light enough over the head of a 3 year-old moving it around. Again, we had to get creative: an extruded LDPE shape is welded together in a sheet, then cut and folded like an accordion (this time there was musical instrument inspiration) to create vertical strength like we previously didn't think was possible.
4. Fabric - microsuede is soft as a baby's bottom and smooth as butter. It's also strong as an ox — just ask Maximus:
The Friction
Testimonials and Action
Libby Brown co-founded THIS END UP, a crate-style furniture brand with mind-boggling success in the 70’s and 80’s. She’s the sweetest, and she’s now our mentor and friend, and she sent this to us for the Kickstarter community:
"I have great admiration for those who choose risk and usually find them to be people of mettle--committed and bright. David and Ryan fit that mould.
I have high hopes for NUGGET with them at the helm. There are many similarities between their approach to starting a furniture company and my own at the birth of THIS END UP. Additionally, the product is simple to assemble, easy to use, of excellent value--three things that made crate furniture an international success.
And the single largest complication at THIS END UP? The weight of the furniture mandated we have our own distribution company. NUGGET will be shipped via a well-established, outside delivery system… I am confident they will deliver a winner."
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Our friends are the best. All of them. But most important to note here are
Joe Alterman, thanks for grooving on the piano (joealtermanmusic.com).
Saleem Reshamwala, thanks for being our video sensei (kidethnic.com).
Thomas Kevin, thanks for the beat with bounce (twitter.com/fffoolery).
Risiken und Herausforderungen
We have already sourced our raw materials, and they are in the hands of our manufacturing partner (Nomaco Inc. in Zebulon, NC). We've designed and redesigned tools with them to make them properly, and effectively, and efficiently.
Certain tools are being used for the first time: many parts of our trial runs were done by hand: we're perfectionists. Though it's been fewer and fewer with each run as we've developed the tools that we've been designing alongside the product for a year now. So we're on call to do the by-hand thing again in any small part of the process if any given tool doesn't work as planned, and as they have been working in testing. In that off-chance, there could be a delay: but that is highly unlikely. These things have been developed with care and testing, and we're confident and capable.
A pre-production trial run of 25 couches - each with final raw materials and processes in place - has just come off the line, and run through our Quality Assurance tooling, and we're smiling.
Another issue often on the table with bulky items is shipping. We assure you we're well aware of dimensional weight measurements, fees applied, and everything associated with our shipping costs. We even designed plastic packaging not only to look great and be slip-in-and-out easy for a user, but more importantly to get Fedex and UPS's stamps of approval: inverted, reinforced seams mean that they won't get caught in conveyor belts in the warehouses and distribution centers, and the handles make handling a breeze. So with all that in mind: we have our rates and contracts all set with them, and we guarantee that the shipping cost is on us within the contiguous US: NOT charged to you after the campaign. In fact, we have shipped prototypes all over the lower 48 already to be absolutely sure that we understand all parts of the shipping process: front-end, back-end, and accounting.
So the risk and challenge here, honestly, is making people aware of that. We planned ahead, with care, and hope that comes across.
We are making something new, and there will be challenges that may or may not spill into delays. So the risk here is unpredictability. We've done all we can to stamp out the potential issues: studying what could trip up the business with experts in logistics and furniture industry veterans. We can assure you that we will be absolutely transparent and update you throughout the process.
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Finanzierungszeitraum
- (38 Tage)