Wow. We started taking pre-orders for Little Printer on Tuesday and what a response! Thank you everyone who is adopting one of these little fellas! We’re super excited that Little Printer will be in your home before too long. It’s a privilege.
If you’re new here, read about Little Printer and how to pre-order.
A little round-up:
We had some awesome articles from The Verge (“Paper lives: Little Printer and the rebirth of the hard copy”) and Fast Company (“It’s Finally Out: A Little Printer That Delivers A Tiny, Custom Newspaper”) who had access before we opened the doors. Thanks guys!
And – just to pick some favourites from the rest – an online piece in the Daily Mail, a round-up in the Huffington Post, a real-world newspaper piece in the Independent (the photo above), and some very smart observations about the strategy with BERG Cloud (Frankie, you’re pretty much spot on). Dan Catt blogged his insightful commentary too.
We’ve read all the comments, and we read Twitter avidly. Commonly used phrases? The two that jump out for me, reading the huge volume of tweets, are
- adorable ♥
- too expensive!
Certainly a love-it-or-hate-it response.
So let’s talk about the price, because that came up a bunch! We wanted to create a beautiful product that has a different place in your life than “printing.” Something able to do work for you, and to bring unexpected delight. For publishers and website owners, something that will best frame their design and content.
The product must reflect the experience, and you’ll find that in the magnetic clasps holding the body together; the over-the-air updates that always bring Little Printer the latest software; and the character design of Little Printer in the object and in the web app. We see a future where the Web and character fill every product in the home, and the products we want in our homes should delight and be fit-for-purpose all at once. Little Printer is our particular starting point.
And we are just getting started. Products get cheaper the more you make, and while I’d love to have the high volumes of Samsung or Apple, we’re not there yet. I’m inspired by the Web, where lightly-staffed blogs and massive publishing empires have equal access to audience and tools. The world of manufacturing is also moving in that direction, and one day the small product companies will be on an equal footing with the Mattels, Mujis, and Microsofts. The way we achieve that is to start building, and I’m proud that a lot of people – ourselves included – are making a go of it.
I hope that gives a bit of insight!
For those people who did query the price: I hope you check in as our product gets into people’s hands and houses, and I hope you’ll find that Little Printer is much more than you expect!
For those who said adorable ♥ — I totally agree, thank you, and thank you from the whole team 