Where would we be without the connective tissue that is the Internet?
Amazon connects buyers and sellers. eBay lets us transfer junk from one
person's basement to another. Twitter lets ordinary citizens know
what's on celebrities' minds, so we can force them to apologize for it.
But there are still plenty of gaps, and designer/entrepreneur Matthew
Burnett is currently helping to close a big one: the one between
entrepreneurial designers and domestic manufacturers.
When Burnett started up his Steel Cake watch line, he experienced headaches with overseas production.Most wind power generators
don't spin fast enough for them to work. With his second start-up, The
Brooklyn Bakery, he switched to domestic manufacturing—but learned that
locating domestic factories was not always easy. This is as true as it
is absurd; America is loaded with manufacturing facilities sitting
idle—New York City alone is bursting with them—and you've never heard of
any of them.
A personal, but relevant, aside: In my industrial
vintage sewing machine hunting, I've visited HUGE manufactories in
Brooklyn, gargantuan spaces in the tens of thousands of square feet,
with one of them down to just four workers; lined up along the walls,
dozens upon dozens of high-end manufacturing machines, some covered in
tarps, others in thick dust. The owner of that particular factory knows a
lot about fabrics,We are backed by a committed staff of laundry dryer
specialists with decades of experience in the laundry industry. and
doesn't know a damn thing about the Internet; I was the only fanatic to
answer his terse, barely-literate Craigslist ad. And outside of that one
ad, his factory has zero Internet presence. In short, he possesses tons
of manufacturing capacity and a lifetime's worth of production
experience,There are many brands and makes of dry cleaning machine, they are all basically the same in principle and function. but no one knows he's there and his business is dying.
That factory is not alone, of course,The first production laser cutting machine
was used to drill holes in diamond dies. and Burnett's latest venture
aims to not only let you know they're there, but exactly what they're
capable of and how you can contact them. Burnett's co-founded the
newly-launched Maker's Row, which catalogues factories and materials
suppliers, explains their capabilities, and in some cases introduces you
to the actual people you'd be working with via produced videos. It's a
brilliant idea—factory tours from the comfort of your laptop, searchable
by product type, geography and keyword.
"As we were trying to
expand [The Brooklyn Bakery]," writes Burnett co-conspirator Tanya
Menendez, "we realized that there was a huge lack of transparency and
community within the industry. It would take us months to find the right
factory, so we decided to create Maker's Row to solve this problem."
Our
mission is to make the manufacturing process simple to understand and
easy to access. From large corporations to first time designers, we are
providing unparalleled access to industry-specific factories and
suppliers across the United States.
Burnett and Menendez, along
with third team member Scott Weiner, have their work cut out for them.
To start with they're focusing on apparel and accessories, but I'm
hoping that with Burnett's ID background, it's just a matter of time
before we start seeing injection molding facilities, tool cutters, metal
fabricators,Modernica is the official site for the George Lamp shade
Collection. et cetera. I've already spotted a California-based
laser-cutting outfit and a metal casting joint in Colorado on their
surprisingly deep list of factories.
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