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DQ News: Wise Words with Jared Aller and Beau Oyler

Jared Aller and Beau Oyler are co-creators of Urbio. Graduating from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, the pair worked as designers at NewDeal Design and Williams-Sonoma, creating products for the likes of Nestlé, Netgear and Clorox, before becoming partners at Enlisted Design, where they currently work.

Joining forces with Tim Cui of Volare Studio, the award-winning pair created Urbio as a solution for those in small urban areas that lack the space necessary to install a traditional garden. The Urbio vertical garden features large magnetic panels, which bind the plant pots of various sizes to wall mounted panels. Having greatly exceed their Kickstarter target of USD 15,000 by over USD 60,000, and having spent over a year on design and prototyping the product, Urbio is now accepting pre-orders as it prepares for launch.

1. Where did the idea for Urbio come from?

Urbio came from the desire to grow plants inside our apartments and houses. There are 10 designers at Enlisted Design, the creators of Urbio. We all live in apartments or small houses and struggle to find space to grow our own gardens. We were fascinated with other vertical garden products, but none of them met our needs. We needed a well designed, affordable mess-free system that we could easily take on and off the wall to plant, water, trim off a leaf for a recipe or even use as a centerpiece. We’ve dedicated over a year to developing the design, engineering and production of Urbio… and here we are, about to launch!

2. Tell us a little about the advantages, and challenges, of building the project using Kickstarter.

The greatest advantage of using Kickstarter was the community it provides. Our project got a lot of exposure quickly, and we were able to receive feedback from people regarding their thoughts and ideas about Urbio. It’s also tied into the blogosphere, so the word spread super-fast. By utilizing the kickstarter community, we essentially tested the product to validate the idea. Before launching, we decided that if Urbio raised $15, 000 on Kickstarter, we would continue to develop the product, but if not… we’d have to adjust our plans. As you know, Urbio was a hit, raising over $77,000 in just 40 days.
One of the challenges was trying to put a price to the product. You can get initial quotes for things, but that only gives you a rough idea. It wasn’t until much later that we found out the most expensive part of our project (the magnets) were going to cost us A LOT more than the original quotes we had received.

3. Can you describe a typical working day?

We run a full-time design studio, so a typical day is an absolute blast from start to finish. At any given time, we’re working on 8-10 different projects, including Urbio, so there’s never a dull moment! Our team has expanded from 4 to 10 designers in the past 8 months and will probably continue to grow alongside Urbio.

4. How do you unwind or relax when you’re not working on Urbio?

Enlisted Design consists of designers from all over the world, including Korea, Russia, Canada and of course, the United States. So, our backgrounds and interests vary. We take team outings to wind down, which are fun. As for ourselves, besides gardening, camping, surfing and fixing gadgets we like to wind down with our families. Jared has three kids and Beau has one. Raising a family has proven to be the ultimate entrepreneurial venture!

5. What’s the secret ingredient to success as an entrepreneur?

1) Visionary ideas
2) Work
3 Work
4) Work
… you get the idea.

6. What drove you crazy when building your business?

Building the right team. We’re building our second business now, so we’ve learned to keep things lean. Which means that each member of our team is a key player. Finding the right people at the right time has been our biggest challenge and yes, at times driven us crazy!

7. What motivates you to keep going?

The idea of building and growing a business that provides a great product to great people. Seriously, we love our people… they write us notes on Facebook and their blogs or make awesome comments on Kickstarter. Sometimes we get notes from haters, which kind of hurts, but then our loyal consumer base hits back hard… we never even have to say a word.
We’re also motivated by Urbio’s future product lineup. The vertical garden was our initial concept, but we’re currently developing an entire line of products based around the magically magnetic vessels and wall plates. I can’t say much as to what you can expect to see in the near future, but things are beginning to “light up” around here!

8. If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

We’ve been very fortunate and everything has fallen into place at the right time. There have been a few mistakes along the way and we see those as learning moments. If there was one thing we’d do differently, it would have been to order our magnets earlier. The prices of magnets have quadrupled in the past 8 months – ouch!

9. Where do you see your business in five years, and how will you get there?

In five years we want to continue to grow our service-based design studio and expand Urbio by offering an expansive product lineup of well designed, simple, innovative and affordable new products. Our ultimate goal is to launch multiple product ventures to which we remain the creative force. One day, we’d like to see 90% of our design efforts being utilized by our own ventures and 10% saved for our most loyal clients.

10. If you weren’t working on Urbio, what would you be doing?

We’d be doing what we did before Urbio, working on client projects, or creating new ideas for our next start-up. ALWAYS working, starting something new.

11. Tell Springwise a secret…

Jared and Beau aren’t sports fans, but we are Mormons.

12. Any final words for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Everyone has dreams. Work like crazy and anything can be realized. In the beginning, worry more about developing the idea and less about someone ripping it off. Get your ideas out onto paper, write them, sketch them, do what you can do to communicate them. If it’s a good idea, people will get excited and funding will come… so go get started!

Thanks Jared and Beau!

You can read more about Urbio in our article here, or visit the Urbio website here.

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