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I know the guy behind FoldiMate a little bit. I've met him at trade shows. One thing I have to point out is that he has pursued this dream for years. Lack of in
by iandanforth 9y ago
I know the guy behind FoldiMate a little bit. I've met him at trade shows. One thing I have to point out is that he has pursued this dream for years. Lack of interest, team, funding ... nothing has stopped this guy. It's a really hard problem and he keeps at it. I can't say I'm rushing out to buy one myself, but there's a human story here too, and I think that's been lost in the coverage.
- gajomi 9y agoThis makes me think... are there any special circumstances in which clothes need to be folded in such a special way and with sufficiently high throughput that this kind of machine could make headway? Oftentimes general purpose technologies can come to market only after predecessors in niche areas.
- zimpenfish 9y agoAs a side comment mentioned: hotels would be an ideal case because they have a lot of standard things that need to be folded (sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc.) and sticking to those basic cases could probably bring the cost way down and reliability way up. (But I suspect you don’t need a fancy machine for simple shapes - a simple folding wooden rig would do and be almost as quick. Hell, I’ve got a cheap plastic thing that’ll do shirts in seconds.)
- dagw 9y agohotels would be an ideal case because they have a lot of standard things that need to be folded Large hotels and commercial laundry operations already have expensive specialized machines for folding. This does not seem to be targeting that market.
- toyg 9y ago> Oftentimes general purpose technologies can come to market only after predecessors in niche areas. There are already such machines in industry (in garment-making, hotels etc). The challenge is that they are typically specialised towards specific types of garment. Nobody in industry really needs a generic machine; but that's the only configuration that the home market will consider. The only sub-niche big enough that could maybe sustain a specialised machine in the home is "shirts and trousers" - but there the real annoyance is ironing, not folding.
- manigandham 9y agoAt some point, the better answer to is to admit that the timing and possible solutions are not viable. Think of what could be possible if that determination was applied to something else.
- krzat 9y agoMaybe he could repurpose this to fold origami or something.
- indy 9y agoPerhaps he could focus on folding towels and then sell the device to the hotel/AirBnB industry?
- extrapickles 9y agoThey already exist for large hotels for things like towels. Fairly expensive machines though, and typically can only fold 1 type of article (eg: need a machine for each towel size or spend time setting it up)
- 35bge57dtjku 9y agoSo he's insane?
- Beltiras 9y agoMost founders are, the successful ones at least.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agoThe successful ones are insane and lucky.
- dkersten 9y agoWith a heavy bias towards lucky (but they will usually attribute it to everything else but luck).
- threeseed 9y ago> but there's a human story here too, and I think that's been lost in the coverage There's a human story behind every product.
- rublev 9y agoYes, and 99% of the time it's "fuck it who cares dude lets just lie we need users". I've been at the forefront too many times. There's never been a remotely 'human story'.
- weego 9y agoThat's great, unfortunately he seems to have lost perspective and is developing a product no one will want at a price no one will pay.
- crdoconnor 9y agoLaundrettes?
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoMaybe if you had a guy whose job was to feed clothes into it in just the right way. TBF an experienced laundry person can fold them manually, much faster. Don't let a robot do something a human can do better.
- robbiep 9y agoDoes anyone want a folded ironed shirt with the buttons done up?
- lagadu 9y agoA robot doesn't have to do something better than a human to succeed; it just has to do it well enough for us to accept the trade-off. A good example is robot vacuum cleaners: I have had one for a few years now and it's easily the best purchase I've ever made: it doesn't vacuum as well as we do but it does it everyday which is something I'm absolutely unwilling to do. Having it in my home greatly reduced the amount of time we had to dedicate to cleaning the floor and dusting non-floor surfaces (it turns out that daily vacuuming the floor has a huge impact in the amount of dust collected everywhere else).
- dkersten 9y agoHe can be the nicest and most driven guy in the world, that doesn’t change whether or not his product is any good. You wouldn’t buy, say, a car that only got half the mileage or whatever just because there’s a human story behind it. There’s a human story behind almost everything.
- tragomaskhalos 9y agoI don't know if there's an equivalent in the US, but here in the UK we have a TV programme "Dragons' Den" where people pitch their business ideas - which are usually invention-based - to a panel of potential investors. Easily the most intriguing aspect of the show is discovering the often inordinate amount of time, energy and money that the candidates have invested in what, to the disinterested outsider, appears to be a completely mad and unworkable idea: the potentially destructive power of human determination.
- dkersten 9y agoDragons Den exists in the US (and Canada) too, I believe. There’s also Shark Tank. I quite enjoy watching Dragons Den (and Shark Tank on youtube). I agree with your second paragraph completely. I also totally undrestand it, having cofounded startups myself in the past. You get tunnel vision.
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago"Shark Tank" is what "Dragons' Den" is known as outside of the UK. It's the same show.
- dkersten 9y agoAhhhh! Thanks for the correction.
- NKCSS 9y agoIf it could do that, a 5-10k pricepoint wouldn't be a problem either.