Origami-like portable speakers a hit with Time, others

When you listen to music a lot, ear buds can get old.

Ask former Arlington Heights resident Mike Szymczak or his business partner Jason Lucash, of San Francisco. As members of Major League Soccer's marketing team, the two travel a lot, and they decided they needed a new kind of speaker, something light and packable, but not something they had to plug into their ears.

Their solution? Origami.

Combining the ancient art of paper folding, going green and their love of mobile music, the two created a set of cube-shaped speakers that fold flat and go anywhere, and they've turned the invention into an Internet hit that Time magazine called one of the top 50 inventions of the past year.

"It just clicked right away for us," said Szymczak, a Rolling Meadows High School graduate, in a recent interview with the Daily Herald.

He and Jason Lucash, of San Francisco, got the idea for their Fold 'n Play speakers from a product made of hard plastic from a company in Korea, and they refined it into a set of speakers made from recycled pizza boxes and other materials.

"We both love music and since we traveled a lot, we listened with ear buds, but that can get old after a while," said Lucash.

To be earbud-free, portable speakers could come in handy. So both men, now 26, thought about creating portable speakers for people of all ages.

In December 2008, the men put up about $30,000 of their own seed money and founded Forty Four Group, and a division called OrigAudio. They developed a business plan, researched the possibilities, and pitched the idea to an overseas company to make it.

After agreements were signed, they took a few months to develop a prototype. Once that was ready, they showed it to several friends and family members to get their opinions. It wasn't an immediate hit.

"They said it was mostly crazy," said Szymczak. "They couldn't believe we turned our idea into a physical thing."

It took a few more months to get verifications that the materials used were genuinely recycled. Then they lined up artists to adorn the cubes with clouds or lakes or other images.

They also created a corporate Web site and another for OrigAudio and began to sell the Fold n' Plays. Their products have been selling ever since in South Africa, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and throughout the United States. Most sales are online, but some have come from stores at airports.

A set of two Fold n' Play cubes sells for $16. The partners debuted the speakers last August and have since sold about 44,000. In an article on the Top 50 inventions of 2009 (www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934027 1934003 1933984,00.html), Time noted that some of the proceeds to toward the nonprofit Music National Service, which brings music to public schools and low-income communities.

"Origami has never sounded so good," Time said.

When the men learned their product made the illustrious Time list, it just "blew us away," said Lucash.

"That's when we Googled what was on the list in 2008 and the No. 1 product was the iPhone," said Lucash. "Now how can we compete with that?"

After their first product, the business partners didn't let the music fade. They kept inventing and marketing.

They now have Rock-It, a cheaper alternative to expensive speakers. This device costs about $50 and can be attached to anything - like a nearby wastebasket, for instance, or a book - and turns it into a speaker to amplify the music.

By April, the men expect to launch portable speakers with the look of a 16-inch softball.

Loida Rosario, director of the Multicultural Marketing Program and an expert on product marketing and innovation at DePaul University in Chicago, says a major factor for success of new products is whether they relate or capture a trend in the targeted market. OrigAudio's speakers appear to do that, he said.

"This product captures the need for enhancing entertainment experiences and possible productivity related experiences (connecting the speakers to other devices such as PCs) in a nice, environmentally friendly package," said Rosario.