Crowd-sourced product design by Quirky

I’m rather excited by Quirky, who are taking a new approach to product design by crowdsourcing.

Got a new product idea? Submit it to Quirky (for a $99 fee, mind you). If your idea is chosen, it is then thrown over to the community of designers and marketers. The community helps you to flesh out the idea, by by submitting and voting for product names , logos, packaging and the product design itself.

Once the product concept is complete, it is then offered for pre-sale. Enough people pre-order it, and it gets made. The product ideator, and those who contribute along the way are given a generous cut of the profits.

Currently there are 5 items up for pre-sale, with no manufactured products just yet. But the early concepts look promising. I like the look of this split personality USB stick, as reviewed by engadget.

It will interesting to see how well Quirky do. It’s certainly an interesting business model, although paying $99 to submit an idea will be an obvious deterrent for many. That said, I can see this site having a huge appeal for all of us wannabe inventors out there.