September 1 2013
Hi again. A new
school year, 2013-2014. Lots of exciting changes and new venues of exploration
for the Chico State Center for Entrepreneurship. We have a new faculty member,
Jim Downing, who brings a wealth of new ideas and experience for his years in Chicago.
We have a new lineup of professors in the curriculum. Great leadership in the
Collegiate Entrepreneurial Association. We
even, now, have a center. That’s right, a real room. Glenn 221. Come on by and
check it out.
But before I blather on about the coming year, join me on a
quick detour to my hometown, Detroit Michigan. I’m not going to brag about the
Tigers, though they are looking awfully good. No, today’s topic is jewelry. You
read that right – jewelry. And not just any jewelry, but kids’ bracelets and
rings made out of rubber bands.
Choon Ng, is a mechanical engineer, who up until about 18 months
ago worked for Nissan in the Detroit area. In 2010, according to an article in Entrepreneur magazine “With his wife’s formal blessing and
access to the family’s $11,000 in savings, Ng spent $1,000 submitting an invention record, a
preparatory document filed before submitting a patent. Ng, a crash-safety
engineer at Nissan at the time, had generated 28 iterations of what is now
known as the Rainbow Loom.”
The
Ng's eventually invested all of their savings and then some into getting
molds produced in China and bringing in the first inventory which included
delivery of exactly one ton of rubber bands to their home in suburban Motown.
One ton.
Rainbow
Loom is an ingenious mechanism that allows children to weave jewelry out of
multicolored rubber bands. The Ng family – whose two teenage daughters, as you
might imagine, were instrumental in helping Dad figure the mechanism out – produced
a number of how-to videos on YouTube. It took a while, but about a year ago,
they received their first major order from the Learning Express in the Atlanta
area and the rest, as they say, is history. Now available throughout the nation
at the Michael’s chain, Rainbow Loom has taken off.
My
hope, of course, is that Rainbow Loom augurs new interest in all weaving, but
that’s a topic for another day. In the meantime, it’s great to be back.
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