CritBuns in USA Today

I completed an interview with USA Today recently about the CritBuns story. They spoke with other small business owners about doing business on a global level. It's a great read overall, and certainly useful as case studies for anyone looking to go international with their small business. My best advice? Get your web presence up on day one.

Here's the complete article.

Here's the part about CritBuns:

A young online designer. Joe Gebbia, a 26-year-old entrepreneur and designer in San Francisco, credits sore backsides for helping him to create CritBuns (www.CritBuns.com), an online maker of colorful foam seat cushions.

As a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, Gebbia noticed that classmates were uncomfortable sitting on hard chairs and floors during day-long critiques of their work by professors. He designed the fashionable cushions and plunged full time into his new business after graduation.

Scores of skeptical retailers rejected his cushions, until Gebbia finally sold 200 units to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Last year, Gebbia launched his website, and the cushions were featured at a Tokyo design show and in I.D., a design magazine.

Demand for the cushions took off. Now, 25% of his sales are to customers in Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and other countries and regions. He also plans to market the cushions as "Sports Buns" to professional and school athletic events in the USA and abroad.

"I hadn't anticipated international sales at all," Gebbia says, "but people found the website, and I started getting orders from all over the world."

CritBuns.com ranked in the top 5%

Wow. Now this is cool. There's this web site called CommandShift3 (named after the keyboard command for taking a screenshot) that pairs two web sites against each other, and users click on the one they think is 'hot'. I entered CritBuns.com back in December 2007 and the stats are quite impressive: "Top 5% of sites (460 of 9924)"

Boo yah!

See the listing, browse other sites, or enter your own site.

CritBuns.com design gets noticed (again)

Another gallery of web sites picked up CritBuns.com. This time is across the pond in the UK, as seen on Design Shack.

They also allow voting.

CritBuns featured in Craft - Volume 4

http://www.craftzine-digital.com

Chicago Tribune

Guide to quirky creative gifts

"Nothing ruins a day at the office or football field more than a sore bottom from prolonged sitting. Made of cushy foam, this colorful, indoor/outdoor seat cushion"

CritBuns.com gets noticed

CritBuns.com featured on CSS Heroes - a site that catalogs beautiful web sites! Major props to Horace Ko who helped implement the vision for CritBuns' presence on the web.

CSS Heroes allows fans to rate the design. Cast your vote for CritBuns here.

CritBuns featured NOTCOT Holiday Gift Guide

As a avid reader of design and culture blog NOTCOT, I was thrilled to discover they selected CritBuns for their 2007 Gift Guide! Check out the buns, and all the hard work they've put into curating a collection of some really unique gifts. Each day will have a new addition to the gift guide, an entire page in fact, so check daily. With 28 more days to go, you're bound to find the right present for that certain someone. Thanks, NOTCOT!

Tokyo, we love you too

The results are in - Japanese have an affinity for soft curvy seat cushions. At least the ones who showed up at the 100% Design Tokyo Designboom gift mart. I went with a full box of 42 CritBuns, and after 5 days at the show, left empty handed (thanks for translating, Min). More Tokyo pics posted in the photo gallery.

Read the Core77 event coverage here.

Pecha Kucha, round 2

When Pecha Kucha asked me to come speak at November's event, I could hardly pass up the opportunity. This month's volume was sponsored by Oracle, and tied in with the massive Oracle conference taking place in San Francisco. Held for the first time at the Yerba Buena performance center, presenters had one heck of a set-up: a stage, giant projection screen, wireless mic, catered food, cash bar...and over 500 people in the audience!

Rather than repeat the entire CritBuns story from February, I did a product medley consisting of four short stories about four current entrepreneurial ventures: CritBuns, Ecolect, "Untitled" (coming soon from Citizen-Citizen), and Air Bed & Breakfast.

User Image: The Breakfast Nook

Thanks for sending in the photo, Angela S.!

Do you have an image? Mail to design@critbuns.com.