A lot of times, a product or a startup has to catch up to an entrepreneur's ambition. Sure, any entrepreneur can visualize the end game - the "ceiling" - but the struggle is formulating the idea, building the brand, and scaling the business in order to meet the mission. But, sometimes, an idea can take off before the entrepreneur is ready, leaving the individual in hot pursuit.
That's what happened to Dane Christianson, inventor of the X-Cube, a next-gen logic puzzle that looks like a Rubik's Cube on steroids. As a student at IIT in 2013, Christianson leveraged the school's 3D printing resources to build upon an idea that he had in high school.
"Around the 7th grade, I started solving Rubik's Cubes," Christianson said. "And to make it a little more challenging, I would take a couple apart and put one together. At IIT, I saw that I could make these a little easier."
In 2012, Christianson created his first X-Cube, a cube (kinda) with 52 moving parts, 102 colored pieces, and 125 decillion ways to solve it. (A decillion is a 1 followed by 32 zeros). Given the cube's x-shape, it can end up with several pieces sticking out at any given time, making it considerably different, and more difficult, than the Rubik's cube, which always maintains its box-like form.
With the completed prototype, Christianson decided to upload a video of the X-Cube to Youtube and then submitted it to reddit. And then Christianson went to bed.
"When I woke up, the video had 1.6 million hits. People were going crazy for it. I've been reacting to the demand ever since,"
This reaction started with a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, which raised $53,000, $20,000 over its goal. Christianson then built a website, started selling the X-Cube online, and soon got distribution with the Chicago-based Marbles The Brain Store, as well as Barnes and Nobles' across the country and other retail outlets. (I actually saw the X-Cube this weekend in the Museum of Contemporary Art's retail store).
Now, Christianson, who sells the X-Cube under the umbrella of Moving Parts LLC, has created several more logic puzzles and brain games that all share DNA with the X-Cube. There's the X2, a three-by-three version of the X-Cube, and the Boob Cube, a fun gag-type gift. Christianson is also a member of m-Hub, the Chicago hub for makers and hardware startups.
"I made a puzzle that took off," said Christianson. "I was not an entrepreneur in search of a product, I was an inventor in search of entrepreneurship skills. Fortunately, those came."
Take a look at the video below to see the X-Cube in action.
(Video via Chicago Inno and image via X-Cube)
