The independent innovation arm of GE Appliances, a Haier company, is relaunching part of its website to foster more inventions through community connection.
FirstBuild launched its new Co-Creation platform Thursday, allowing inventors and product users to engage with its work. Through the site, individuals can suggest their own ideas for home appliances or collaborate with FirstBuild’s already in-progress inventions.
FirstBuild recently marked its eighth year in existence. Since its launch in 2014, it has raised more than $4.8 million through crowdfunding campaigns and developed more than 90 products.
More than 17 of its products have moved into production by GEA, including Opal Nugget Ice and Shabbos Keeper.
In a recent interview with Louisville Business First, Andre Zdanow, FirstBuild’s president, told me the company exists to create the future of home appliances. It does that in the physical space it occupies on the University of Louisville’s campus, its MakerSpace at 333 E. Brandeis Ave., and online through its social channels and the new Co-Create platform.
“Really what we're trying to do is set a place where we can engage with the world at large, and we could share our product ideas or concepts or invite people out in the world to share theirs,” Zdanow said.
The platform will make it easier for FirstBuild to collaborate with passionate inventors across the world, but it also allows them to discover and purchase some of the products FirstBuild has already launched.
FirstBuild was founded on the idea that everyone is an appliance expert — they may not be an engineer or know all the regulations, but everyone is a consumer in the home, trying to get things done. Using that mindset, FirstBuild asks what users are doing at home that they don’t have a solution for, Zdanow said.
The Co-Creation platform helps connect these consumers to the makers and have more intentional conversations.
“It may start with us putting a post on YouTube with a video of our proof of concept, but we needed to be able to go a level deeper than just the comment section on YouTube,” Zdanow said. “…We really wanted to create that destination, not just for makers, but passionate enthusiasts, people who have unmet needs, who would love to see a product solution for what it is that they do every day or every week, and that's what Co-Creation is about. It's about really getting close to the people out there who have this type of unmet need.”
Mella, a smart mushroom fruiting chamber, is another product Zdanow lists as a big win for FirstBuild. It started as an idea between members of the FirstBuild community and went on to raise more than $600,000 on Kickstarter.
In progress now is the Arden Indoor Smoker, which also has had a successful Kickstarter campaign. Zdanow said this invention was created when a member of the team took a GE refrigerator and turned it into a meat smoker. It had been an idea in the works for about four years, but after it received funding early this year, the team partnered with GEA on the design and development on the product.
Zdanow said the pace of FirstBuild product development is dictated by the quality of the idea and its complexity. But more than anything else, it’s based on the user’s feedback.
In the early stages of an idea, Zdanow said the team tries to post a YouTube video about it as soon as possible to measure its engagement and comments.
“When we can go out and prove that there's a true market for something, that ultimately is a big test of whether or not we'll take it all the way to production,” Zdanow said.
New concepts are introduced every week, but its goal is to develop 12 fully fleshed-out product ideas a year, or one a month. It also aims to bring one sellable product to the market a year.
Zdanow said another key metric FirstBuild uses to measure its success is its ability to pay for itself. He said this forces FirstBuild to be very intentional with its process, and figuring out what’s viable is critical.
FirstBuild is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GEA, and it partners with the Louisville-based appliance manufacturer, but it doesn’t innovate solely on its behalf. Zdanow said a big reason it was key for FirstBuild to be independent was so it wouldn't think of everything through the same lens as its core business.
“We look very, very specifically at niche, ill-defined communities, underserved communities,” Zdanow said. “That's a big part of our inspiration.”
In its eight years of existence, Zdanow believes FirstBuild has changed the DNA of GEA by integrating the idea of co-creation and having consumers ideas core to the business direction. He said other large companies are implementing innovation arms into their work, too.
“The notion of what we're doing is integral to large companies in the 2020s,” Zdanow said. “Because if you're not finding ways to innovate or disrupt yourself, you have an increasing risk of being disrupted elsewhere. So this would almost be advice for large corporates out there, find a way to do it.”
FirstBuild employs 22 people full time, but often has interns and "Edisons" that add to its employee count. Edisons refers to individuals from GE’s technology development program.
