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The Mininch Tool Pen: What Makes This Design Such a Funding Smash?
By Rain Noe - Aug 07, 2014
When a product design asks for $7,000 on Kickstarter but nets $228,000, it's worthy of study, particularly when the design is not an obvious home run. Any product designer should be asking themselves: What is it that these guys tapped into, in the backers' consciousness, that made it such a hit?
First let's look at the product in question. The mininch Tool Pen is a hollow, magic-marker sized hexagonal rod that holds six driver bits, with the frontmost ready to use. It's essentially a bit-storing screwdriver in a more compact form, and with a pen-like cap to prevent the front bit from spearing the inside of your pocket or bag.
Here's why I would not have expected the design to be a hit:
- Suffers from same capacity problem as all bit-holding driver handles: Requires user to predict, in advance, which bits will be needed on the road - Loading/unloading bits is linear and time-consuming, i.e. if you want the bit located in the middle, you must cycle out each bit before it, reloading them in the rear as you go - Lack of proper handle precludes user ability to produce serious torque
For me, that last one is the most damning, probably because I'm projecting my own needs onto the thing; in my sideline work (fixing vintage sewing machines) I often need the leverage to remove fasteners welded on with fifty-year-old petrified grease. But in the minds of the backers—whose collective opinion is frankly more important than your correspondent's, as they actually have the power to bring this design to fruition—the mininch's benefits outweigh the minuses. These benefits are:
- Compact form more convenient to carry than a proper driver, meaning it can be with you at all times - Handsome sand-blasted aluminum housing - Windows milled into the side allow you to see which bits are within - Bits "are constructed from high-quality, milled SAE 8660" - Bit shape and number appear to be laser-etched onto the sides, which is more legible than the faint stamping you find on cheapie bits
Perhaps it's ultimately the video that sells it. It focuses not so much on close-ups of the product, but more on the lifestyle scenarios the mininch developers are promoting: A world where lots of little mechanical things go wrong, and the mininch's omnipresence means you're always able to fix them:
Feedback time—what do you use drivers for, and would you buy this? If not, what do you feel the product owes its runaway funding success to?
Rain Noe
Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.
19 Comments
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JamesS
You say "There's no middle ground here? A tool is either supremely useful or utterly useless and making a mockery of your profession?"
I know you are being facetious, but actually, that pretty much sums up my view on tools. I have tools that are really well designed, and do what they were meant to do amazingly well, and then I have tools I regret having wasted money on. There really isn't much middle ground. I can't, ever once, remember saying to myself "wow, I'm so glad I bought that kind of ok tool, that sort of works moderately well, at tasks that I sometimes kinda do on rare occasions."
For me at least, tools are either incredibly good uses of money that make getting a job done much easier than it would otherwise be, or they are a mistake I never should have bought.!Report as spam -
I like how the skateboarder has obviously never ridden a skateboard before! HAHAA!Report as spam
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JameS has a point. My favorite small screwdrivers, my Wiha set, have a roughly similar handle diameter. They're not for building a deck or removing rusted in fasteners on a motorcycle, but they're great for fixing electronic stuff. I imagine with the right set of bits, that kickstarted screwdriver could be good. My EDC carry is just a small leatherman with only 4 bits; 3 phillips and 1 flathead. That gets me through 90% of my day (and includes a #3 Posidriv for my kite board bindings!). For anything else, I'll go find a proper screwdriver.!Report as spam
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There's no middle ground here? A tool is either supremely useful or utterly useless and making a mockery of your profession? Can't this be a nice looking (tacti-cool?) EDC driver for random tasks or fixes that happen to find you. I think the point of the movie (and this tool for that matter) is if something comes up that needs a driver, you have with you the possibility to address it, as opposed to having no tool and no possibility, unless you're McGeyver. The form factor looks to fit in the pen/pencil slot seen in most bags, so to have that amount of (possible) utility in that small space with you at all times seems appealing, no? Heck, right now I could use a small driver to adjust the pivot screw on my pocket knife, but I don't carry that single driver with me everywhere I go.!Report as spam
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Sean--you make some valid points, many of which I was thinking myself, but what the eff's up with your opening, man? The entire development team is in Taiwan, where I'm pretty sure they just refer to Asian females as "females." If she was black, would you have written "Just add a cute black chick?"!Report as spam
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It's just a variation on the Pop-A-Point Pencil. Childhood nostalgia is very appealing to the masses.
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Just add a cute Asian chick in your Kickstarter promo vid! Instant success. Duh. It has nothing to do with the trendy looking non-functional hipster tool. Otherwise she would have picked up a proper screwdriver, tightened the brake arm to the proper torque, and not have to haul around a little pen tool to keep retightening it. Or I could do what the other posters have suggested, carry around this thing, so I can also carry around a wrench or vise grips to use in conjunction with it. That makes sense (not really). Seriously, I see absolutely no point to this thing. I think it is just people discriminating against traditional tools because of the way they look. Jerks.!Report as spam
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I don't know how she fixed that skateboard, because to tighten the hardware you would need another wrench to hold the nut threaded to the screw or else it would just continually spin.!Report as spam
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This is a cool-looking product but I think there are others out there that may be more useful for some. I don't work for the vendor of this auction but if you search for "12 sixe multi screw" on eBay, you can see what I bought.!Report as spam
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My guess as to a major part of its success is that many of the more interesting Kickstarter tech projects are often complex and expensive - requiring assembly, a working knowledge of programming, and costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars. So if a nice-looking bit of kit comes along that is immediately useful and accessible to all potential backers, and you can get the complete item for only $35, it is a very easy proposition to say yes to and scratches the itch that, say, an awesome $2000 3D printer has created, but you cant quite justify backing.!Report as spam
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Who actively browses the actual Kickstarter website? I only find out about particular Kickstarter campaigns from other websites, like here on Core for example. Kickstarter campaigns still have a target audience to reach in order to have a chance to be successful.
Here is the target audience, which now includes Core77?:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/002/388/974/9f9d84bde9edff579507664627aad912_large.jpg?1407237626
GQ-Brasil?!Report as spam -
Au contraire to "Lack of proper handle precludes user ability to produce serious torque"
A hex-sided body is a lot easier to fit a vise grip or perhaps a box wrench onto.!Report as spam -
Remember the old sales/advertising admonition: "Sell the sizzle, not the steak."? The big pitch here isn't the Mininch product itself, it's the silent seduction of the "lifestyle"-- as subconsciously conveyed by the video's high production values, hip models, boho sets, lush colors, cool music, etc. One might substitute lipstick or fragrance into the chic "pen" holder, and run it on Vogue.com . . . with little or no difference in response.
[Sorry to be so critical] but many people (dare we say, especially those with a "lack of tool literacy"), will quickly perceive this over-designed tool-holder as a -- pocket panacea. It's not. It's more akin the latest update of the Ginsu Knife, Popeil Pocket Fisherman, etc., etc. Many will be bought with good intentions, or as gifts; but most will end up lost in kitchen drawers, or remaindered at garage sales. What a waste: ID in thrall to Sales.
[One more question: Just how many -- (note: Mininch-proprietary) bits -- does actually it take to screw in a bike?]!Report as spam -
I'm not sure this smart looking 'tool pen' is entirely practical as there doesn't seem to be any sign of a rubber grip and it is too slim to hold properly. It looks like something designed by a designer, not a maker. Most of the time I use a drill/driver (or impact driver) or a screwdriver with a good handle and replaceable bits. I didn't see any #1 #2 #3 square (robertson) driver bits which are the most popular drive in New Zealand.
I'd rather have multiple screwdrivers with proper grip that aren't particularly fashion conscious than 1 fancy one which isn't practical. My advice is to bulk it up for 'man hands' to grip it properly.!Report as spam -
Lack of tool literacy is maybe a good way in the merchandise aspect. When designer decided this form of tool, they were probably ready to give up some value of conventional bit screwdrivers.
It’s a easily available tool not a F1-pit tool. And there were only 6 bits inside the body.
Needs of extreme torque (which is not often), maybe attach a special sized wrench in the pack only for its hexagonal body will provide larger torque than any other conventional screwdrivers.
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I agree with your reasoning behind why you wouldn't think it would sell.., Also I look at all the extra cost in manufacturing these bits. 6 faces of etching per bit. All the machined flats. Not to mention the fact I would lose the lid almost straight away.
Lucky for them! It still looks good!Report as spam -
Regarding the critique that you can't apply much torque with this tool, I do like the fact that the hexagonal barrel allows you to grab it with a regular box end or adjustable wrench to apply some additional torque, breaker-bar style.!Report as spam
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I'm not trying to pick on this particular project, but in general I think that it is dangerous to try and extrapolate design guidelines from things that are successful on Kickstarter. As wildly successful campaigns like Potato Salad show, people on Kickstarter are mainly funding campaigns as a form of entertainment, not as a rational form of product design critique. If your goal is to figure out how to make money from Kickstarter, then that's fine, but I think that success on Kickstarter has everything to do with how well the campaign is designed, and next to nothing with how well the product is designed.
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Lack of tool literacy.!Report as spam
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