Design
Ideate & Evaluate
Ideas are the starting point for solving the challenges in developing major home appliances. These ideas can come in the form of a drawing, a design, or a thought. Sharing your idea is the first step towards making it a reality.
A dialogue in the form of voting and commenting is the backbone of the FirstBuild community. It is how your good ideas turn into great ideas, and it is what determines which ideas go on to become products.
Build
Create & Manufacture
The making phase is a critical step in the creative process. We believe that the best way to learn about a problem or a product is to build it. FirstBuild provides the space, tools, and resources to build and prototype the appliances of your dreams.
Rapid and advanced manufacturing techniques at the FirstBuild Microfactory can produce products quickly and on a small scale. This gives customers the ability to provide quick feedback and influence the design.
Market
Share & Sell
FirstBuild will then help sell and promote your great ideas online through a dedicated web store and on physical shelves, including ones at the Microfactory.
Learn more about how ideas get produced in our white paper.
What's in it for me?
- Community
The community is the heart of FirstBuild. It is what drives creativity and inspires innovation. FirstBuild is an online community of like-minded individuals as well as a physical location where community members can work on projects. It is a place to bounce your ideas off one another or just take a break and hang out with other creative minds.
- Recognition
At FirstBuild, no good idea or comment will go unrecognized. We will make sure you are appropriately recognized for your contributions. This can come in the form of promotion of you and your talents, monetary compensation, or in the form of access to tools and resources.
- Protection
Intellectual property is very important to us. Contributions on the site are protected under a Creative Commons License. Therefore, even though work presented on this site is available for anyone to use at FirstBuild, attribution will be given to you as the initial author.
Compensation
Who is Eligible?
Concept Leader
Evolved an idea to a concept by consistently driving progress in solving the challenges at hand. There can be only one leader per concept.
Key Contributors
Contributed at least one key and novel aspect of a project which is visible in the product specification.*
*This does not include aspects from a winning challenge submission.
How Much Can You Earn?
Concept Leader
$1,000 initial award per concept plus a 0.5% royalty of feature sales* per concept.
Key Contributors
Up to $500 initial award to a maximum of $2,500 per concept plus up to 0.25% of feature sales* to a maximum of 0.5% per concept.
*Feature Sales defined as (feature cost / product cost) X product sales, would be full product sales for entirely novel projects. These amounts are a minimum award, which may be increased based on project scope and contributions at the discretion of the Community Managers.
When Can You Earn?
Start
Initial award and royalties will be awarded upon the first sale of the product.
End
Royalites will continue for a period of 4 years beyond the date of sale of the first product.
*Compensation is granted for a non-exclusive perpetual paid up license to make, have made, use, import, offer to sell and sell Home Appliance Products, and parts, components, systems, sub-systems, assemblies or sub-assemblies for same.
Example 1
Mike comes up with an entirely new idea and leads the concept through development to a novel sellable product which retails for $200 (he earns 0.5% * $200 = $1/unit sold). The product sells 20,000 units per year when mass-produced. Mike will receive $1000 initially and a royalty of $20,000 per year for 3 years.
Example 2
Bob solely contributes a key idea (led by a concept leader) to a new $20 handle to a refrigerator with parts costs of $1000 that sells for $1200.
The Feature Sales would be ($20 / $1000) * $1200 = $24/unit, with Bob receiving 0.25% of these sales. The refrigerator sells 90,000 units per year in production. Bob’s earnings would be $500 initially and an annual royalty of $5400.