An Earbud Buddy

TuneTether and Quickparts grab a hold of your earbuds.

Additive Manufacturing News

Additive Manufacturing Resources

Latest News

AMGTA Shares Findings on Sustainability of Powder and Wire Additive Feedstock

MATLABS Features Modelithics EXEMPLAR Library

Fictiv Demonstrates New AI Capabilities

ADDMAN Earns Qualification Project for U.S. Navy

FREE WEBINAR May 7: Addressing the Skilled Worker Shortage with Customized eLearning

America Makes’ Spring 2024 TRX Explores AM Advancements

All posts

By DE Editors

May 30, 2007

By Becky Mikulis

Do you love your iPod, but keep getting tangled up in the earbud cords? Sonny and Michael Baird of TuneTether have devised a great solution. Their simple product keeps your earbuds where they belong; around your neck and not on the ground where they can become damaged or create a tripping hazard.

Working in the construction industry, Sonny Baird often enjoyed using his iPod during the long hours on the job site. “It made the day go by quicker,” he said. “And I was able to listen to my audiobooks while working.” Sonny would often times weave his earbuds up through his shirt so that they would not get caught or damaged.

When someone would call him on the phone he would have to take the earbuds out to have a conversation. Inevitably, the earbuds would slip down his shirt, or even worse, slide all the way to the ground.

TuneTether

“The worst is when they would fall to the ground unseen,” said Sonny. “I seem to have a knack of finding them on the ground with the hard sole of my work boot, which would announce its discovery with a loud and distinct crunching sound. Too many times I felt the pain of another destroyed set of earbuds.”

An Idea is Born
After several pairs of destroyed earbuds, enough was enough. Sonny started asking around and it turned out others were having the same problem. Whether it was at the gym, playing sports, or working on-site, people were in need of tethered tunes.

Market research was conducted, and several design concepts were conceived. The current TuneTether idea was born.

However, developing the product turned out to be more of a challenge than Sonny had anticipated. “Having no experience with injection molding or even the manufacturing of plastic parts, I turned to the Internet to look for more information.” He continued, “I tried to make a prototype using do-it-yourself molding, but that method didn’t work out at all.”

After asking around and talking to a local shop that required two weeks to make prototypes, a friend informed Sonny about Quickparts.

“We went to the Quickparts.com website to use the instant quote tool; I was very skeptical on the ‘instant quote’ part. That usually means: ‘We will instantly e-mail it to a sales associate who will then take a day or so to get back to you.’”

TuneTether

Sonny continued, “To my amazement it actually was an instant quote! And it was only going to cost about $300 for 10 pieces made in the SLA rapid prototyping process using a Polypropylene-Like material. It would even be done in a few days. What was even more impressive, within minutes after receiving the quote someone called me from Quickparts to ask about the project! The sales manager answered all of my questions and even had an in-house specialist help me decide which material to use.”

The SLA rapid prototypes worked well enough to enable Sonny to see what changes needed to be made, and to gauge the level of excitement for the product in his focus group tests.
“Being a small start up company and not flush with cash, Quickparts was able to help us conserve our cash, but still order enough parts to get us off the ground by using their Rapid Injection Molding process.”

Sonny continues, “We were even able to offer multiple colors, which was something that we were told by others would be too costly at that volume level. We had production units in hand in two weeks.”

“Quickparts’ instant quoting, professional customer service and speed of production enabled us to turn our idea into reality within weeks. We successfully took advantage of a large trade show where we received much needed press.” Sonny continued, “In turn, we leveraged that exposure to begin contracting with retailers. We are now currently in discussions with a large national distributor about selling our product.”

Contact Info