This Cube Does Absolutely Nothing, But It Raised $500,000 on Kickstarter
The Kilo Cube is all form and no function. Call it the modern day pet rock. Or the ultimate piece of desk candy.
Eager supporters have poured $487,241 into a Kickstarter campaign that promises to deliver small cubes of polished metal. The Kilo Cube does nothing but simply look a bit mysterious sitting on your desk. That didn’t stop backers from ponying up $199 for a single, 1.5-inch cube. The cube now sells for $299 on ForgeSolid.com.
The Kilo Cube by Forge Solid. (Photo: Jaime Raijman/Forge Solid)
So, what’s the appeal?
To find out, Jaime Raijman, the Kilo Cube’s 29-year-old creator, suggests putting one on your desk and watching what happens when curious colleagues stop to pick it up. The reaction is usually along the lines of: “Whoa! This is really heavy! What the heck is it?” That’s often followed by: “Where can I get one of these?”
The cube’s hidden heft is a big part of its allure. Roughly the size of a marshmallow, the Kilo Cube weighs a surprising 2.2 pounds — equal to a liter of water or the Apple MacBook Air. That’s because the cube is 95% pure tungsten, a rare metal that’s one of the densest and hardest materials on Earth. Tungsten is 70% more dense than lead and 19 times as dense as water.
A single Kilo Cube acts as a counterweight to eight heavy wood blocks. (GIF: Jaime Raijman/Forge Solid)
A self-described “metal junkie,” Raijman turned to tungsten when he started looking for a minimalist object to keep on his desk.
“I wanted something really heavy, but didn’t take up too much space,” says the visual designer for a Houston genetics company.
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But Raijman couldn’t find a tungsten cube in the right size with a polished finish. Most tungsten cubes are manufactured for industrial uses, such as counterweights. The entry vehicle for NASA’s Curiosity rover littered the Mars surface with 55-pound and 165-pound tungsten blocks. Due to its hardness and high-heat resistance, tungsten is also found in cutting tools, armor-piercing rounds, incandescent light bulbs, mobile devices and tablets.
Raijman, who has a background in interior design and architecture, eventually found a factory in China to make a prototype to his liking.
Then he put it on his desk at work.
“It became an ice breaker for people stopping my desk. Coworkers would stop by all the time. They’d pick it up and say, ‘Wow, that’s heavy!’”
The Kilo Cube on Jaime Raijman’s desk. (Photo: Jaime Raijman/Forge Solid)
A friend suggested he start a Kickstarter campaign. He’d never done one before. His initial goal was to raise $5,000. He blew past that mark within days. It didn’t hurt that Raijman smartly decided to partner up with an online advertising agency to spread the word around the Web. Over 45 days ending last week, the campaign pulled in nearly a half million dollars.
Despite the huge response, a lot of people, including Raijman’s friends and family, simply didn’t get the idea at first. A cube of metal that does nothing? For a couple of hundred bucks?
Indeed, Reddit forums have been lighting up with snarky comments about the Kickstarter campaign.
“Like, I’m 5, please,” posted one Redditor. “Why would anyone want or need this?”
Another Reddit user responded: “This makes no sense, has no practical use whatsoever. Pledged for 2.”
But according to Raijman, backers have reported a number of fascinating “use cases” for the cubes. Educators want to use them to teach students about the physics of density. A backer plans to gift one to his wife as a symbol of their “solid” marriage. Some therapists are giving them to patients who need a “centering object” that keeps them grounded in moments of stress.
“It really doesn’t serve a specific purpose,” Raijman says. “Its purpose is whatever the person buying it wants to use it for.”
That may be the most brilliant marketing plan ever for a Kickstarter project. Backers will soon find out if the Kilo Cube is worth its weight in tungsten. Raijman says the first batch of 1,500 cubes will ship later this month.
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