Product Design: Throat Pillow.

Like Kickstarter, Airbnb and Uber, Throat Pillow also has the sharing economy mechanism, which encourages participation, from bottom to up. Compared to the traditional consumption, this platform will empower the crowds to have more interactions in the purchase. Specifically , each Throat Pillow will be customised based on customers' personal choices of the artworks. Afterwards, the artworks will be digital-printed on fabrics to make pillowcases. By providing extra interactive percussion system and pillow inners, those personalised pillowcases can be transformed into playful instruments in no time.

As suggested by Seth Godin, ideas that spread win. The strategy to spread an idea in such rapidly changing society is to find real audiences who are listening. For example, find "Otaku" for selling comic books. With more and more cheaper labor, faster machines and influential mass advertisement, playing safe cards to meet most people’s needs is risky now. A newly established startup doesn't need everyone. Instead, it just needs a thousand true fans. As for Throat Pillow, the real audiences will be beats lovers who can or cannot play percussion. Based on researches, it is relatively easy to master basic percussion in several days. I aim to provide a ‘toy’ for those musical professionals to play in relaxed circumstances like home; and an ‘instrument’ for those beginners to entertainment themselves.

In addition, those who just want a throw pillow might be my potential customers too. To encourage purchases from them, people can get a free interactive percussion system in the first-time buying. In other words, the extra function of playing percussion is sent out as a free gift. In this way, the entirely new product will be sent to customers' hands in a broader scale and also get a chance to be liked. When customers have gradually accepted the idea of playing percussive pillows, a new popular culture could be built. When people get bored about their instruments' look, they can remove the interactive system and order a new pillowcase (with or without an inner) from the website, and use the old pillows as ordinary domestic decorations. It’s that easy. However, the price of pillowcases is higher than that of our competitors. It’s the time that Throat Pillow starts to spread, gain influence and earn money. It’s also the crucial time that just-want-a-pillow person turns into a follower.