Serving a Cause, 25 Cents at a Time

CherryCard Pairs Charitable Giving with Everyday Purchases

By AMY WALLACE

Originally appeared the The New York Times, April 17, 2011

IN February, Noah Fradin turned 18 — finally. It’s a relief, he says, that he no longer needs his mom to co-sign the nondisclosure agreements and other documents related to his plan to change the world.

Mr. Fradin, a high school senior and budding entrepreneur who lives in Studio City, Calif., is the creator of CherryCard.org, a new Internet start-up that seeks to make it easy for consumers to give money to the charities of their choice.

Last week marked CherryCard’s soft launch — very soft, because Mr. Fradin is still lining up retailers to participate. As of this weekend, thanks to a group of sponsors that include NBC Universal and the Milwaukee Brewers, anyone who visits the site will be given 25 cents to spend for a cause. But the underlying mechanism of the venture — retailers distributing CherryCard vouchers that customers can redeem and donate to charity — has yet to materialize.

“It’s a chicken and egg thing,” Mr. Fradin says, referring to his simultaneous need to attract consumers to use the site and retailers to pass out vouchers. While he believes his youth is an asset, not everyone he has approached sees it that way. Click to continue »

A New Book Treats The Beatles as a Muse for Success in Business

By AMY WALLACE

Originally appeared in the New York Times, March 20

THE Beatles were stymied. During a 1968 recording session, they couldn’t find a suitable introduction to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” a song written by Paul McCartney. John Lennon didn’t much like the song, and, after several hours, he stormed out of the studio. When he returned, he strode to the piano and banged out several chords, then added petulantly, “Here’s your intro!”

“All eyes shifted to Paul, expecting rejection, perhaps an outburst,” according to a new book, “Come Together: The Business Wisdom of The Beatles.” (Turner Publishing, $24.95). Instead, McCartney defused the tension with this: “That’s quite good, actually.” Lennon’s chords, pounded out in a fit of pique, make up the song’s now-famous opening.

“The underlying disagreement about whether the song had merit in the broader scheme of things did not disappear,” the book concludes, “but resolving the conflict informed the work and made it stronger, rather than destroying it.”

That takeaway — that disagreement can lead to synthesis — is just one of 100 lessons that the book teases out of the history of the Fab Four. Click to continue »

A Swarm of Wasps, if Not Investors

Research shows that wasps can be taught to sniff out most anything, even bedbugs. Two scientists want to turn the idea into a product but face challenges in raising capital.

By Amy Wallace

Originally appeared in the New York Times, February 20, 2011

THE white paper by the Georgia scientists Glen C. Rains and W. Joe Lewis has a technical-sounding title that masks the exciting news within. “A Project to Bring Innovative New Technology Into the Market Place for Detecting Agents of Harm in Agriculture, Security, and Human Health/Safety Arenas,” it says blandly.

Luckily, Prototype is here to translate: Move over, bloodhounds, there’s a new odor detector in town.

The Wasp Hound, designed by the two scientists, is a hand-held device containing five parasitic wasps. These flying, stinger-less insects have outperformed dogs in tests that measure scent detection of cadavers, but research shows that they can be taught to sniff out anything: explosives, drugs and even that newly resurgent scourge: bedbugs. Click to continue »

Prototype

Whimsy (and Clothes) for Sale

By AMY WALLACE

Published in the New York Times,  October 30, 2010

TO understand the thinking behind Chris Lindland’s company, Betabrand, you need to keep three seemingly disparate ideas in your head at the same time: 1) It’s a challenge for Web-only businesses to sell clothing. 2) Most people want to be witty. 3) Some shoppers go crazy for limited-edition goods. (Think Beanie Babies.)

According to Mr. Lindland, his interpretation of these truisms is crucial to his company’s success. And because he’s a lot of fun, it’s worth hearing him out. After all, he’s the guy who invented Cordarounds, which are horizontal corduroy pants (and horizontal seersucker, for summer). They cost $90 a pair.

Mr. Lindland, 38, is also the man who, along with his business partner Enrique Landa, created a reversible corduroy-brocade smoking jacket — business wear by day, Hugh Hefner by night — that goes for $195, and a $100 pair of trousers, called Disco Pants, that are made of fabric that disperses light. Once, while in Ireland for a wedding, Mr. Lindland found himself sussing out the possibility of making sweaters from the wool of actual black sheep. The $120 Black Sheep Sweater, which comes by its color naturally, sans dye, was born.

Click to continue »

Originally appeared in the New York Times

By AMY WALLACE

THE idea was never to try to supplant retail, says Fan Bi, the 22-year-old chief executive of Blank Label. Sometimes you need a dress shirt right now, and at those times, Mr. Bi says approvingly, “you can get it right now at Nordstrom.”

But what about those times when you get a hankering not to wear the same thing that 10,000 other men are wearing? Or when you wish you could have the fabric, collar, pockets and lining you’ve always wanted — not what some fashion buyer has chosen for this season? What if you could design that shirt yourself and hang it in your closet for about the same price as a mass-produced button-down?

“The value proposition of customization at retail prices was a cornerstone of our company from the very start,” Mr. Bi tells me by phone from Shanghai, where Blank Label shirts are sewn to customers’ specifications and delivered anywhere in the world in about four weeks. But Blank Label, his Web start-up based in Boston, offers something else that off-the-rack doesn’t: “the emotional value proposition: how expressive something is.”

“People really like a Blank Label shirt because they can say, ‘I had a part in creating this.’ ”

Since last Halloween, when the company’s dress shirt design application made its debut at www.blank-label.com, Mr. Bi and his three partners — ages 19, 22 and 30 — have joined a small but growing co-creation movement that uses the Internet to let consumers have a hand in making the products they buy. Web ventures have already popped up that allow shoppers to customize granola (MeAndGoji.com), jewelry (gemvara.com), chocolate (CreateMyChocolate.com), handbags (LaudiVidni.com) and clothing for girls ages 6 to 12 (FashionPlaytes.com). There are also online competitors selling design-your-own shirts, while Brooks Brothers is one major retailer that offers the service on its Web site. Click to continue »