Making stuff is really hard. Exhibit A,
exhibit B, exhibit C, the screwdriver
that took us three years to make, and then the clear version of it that took
us another 2 years. And believe it or not, those are the success stories. Want
to see some failures? Well, YouTube Shopping sponsored this video today for
us to show off some of our failed products and to give you an opportunity
to buy one of our new Prismagic colored
collection of colored transparent screwdrivers for 20% off using the
YouTube shopping feature down below. But move fast because the promo is only on
for 5 days. This is going to be a lot of fun for the LT fans and probably [music]
even more fun for the hate watchers. Hi guys. Because we have tried to make
pretty much [music] everything from wallets to cashmere hoodies to DIY
acoustic paneling to even a fully tinker
friendly gaming mouse that got so far into development that we bought tens of
thousands of dollars worth of mouse IC's and then just never used them. Anyone
want to buy some mouse processors? Anyone?
Buler. >> Well, Lennis, all I got for you is a segue to our sponsor,
>> Delta Hub. They're heating things up with a hot new drop, the LTT edition
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down below.
[music] For those who haven't met them, this is
Tynan, Tom, and Kyle from the engineering team. And this is one of the
stupidest projects that we ever began work on and also did four iterations of.
In fairness to me, it was at the peak of the RGB craze and an RGB welcome mat for
the door of the discerning gamer [laughter] is not the dumbest RGB item idea that
I've ever come up with. However, as dumb as the idea was, I think the design
might be even worse. Kyle, you want to walk us through this? I feel like I have to frame the backstory of this before
explaining what it does. Lionus's exact instructions were I want to stand on it
and it lights up with RGB. That was all the instruction I got.
>> No, no, >> that was all the instruction I got. >> I wanted the battery life to be so good
that you didn't have to like deal with it very often. I wanted it to be smart
home connectable. I wanted the RGB to be addressable. And in a perfect world, I
wanted it to solar charge. What Lidus is
glossing over is the fact that these instructions came on consecutive
iterations. This prototype was the start
of our fail fast mentality because
Lionus needs something physical in order to roast or bring out his ideas to say
it [music] more um [laughter] nicely.
All I remember is that it had to be this thick so that we could put giant
batteries in it and it was going to cost
like $250. >> It had to be that tall because Hall
effect needs space to spring. But the second prototypes changed from I need to
stand on it to I need to approach it and it needs to light up.
>> Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. >> Yes, I did it because I had to then
re-engineer it to have LAR. >> I don't think there's any point talking
about this anymore than we already have. Clearly stupid. Glad it never got made.
Keeping with our theme of RGB items that everyone, absolutely everyone needs,
the staff of hydration. Okay, it doesn't look like much right now, but think of
the vision of this. Okay, an RGB water
bottle with wireless induction charging at the bottom. So, you just put it on
your coaster to charge it up. Okay, RGB lighting here and here. and and a
modular system where you could actually have the RGB power interface integrated
into the threads and you could create a dual male threaded middle piece. So you
could create a modular hydration staff
all somewhat insulated. If we could have
created such a product, I think we could have sold it pretty well. But it turns
out that due to patents and also it being kind of stupid, it was not
possible. Any other gaps you guys want to fill in here? >> This project just somehow keeps coming
back to haunt me. I more inherited this
this project from Kyle cuz he actually designed a [music] PCB for this project.
Originally, the PCB was supposed to be in the lid and it was supposed to
measure like the water level, right? >> Yeah. Now you actually so to give some
history of what Tom inherited originally
we're going to put the the actual RGB inside the lid and have it compatible
with all our water bottles but that was either too fire for liners or too fire
for patents and we had to change it. >> It was the latter. Moving on to another
colossal waste of engineering's time. Our customizable gaming mouse. Okay,
again in fairness to me the vision for this was pretty cool. replaceable
switches, user customizable firmware. I wanted a power outlet on board so you
could like add lighting or you could add a fan. No, no, you you got to remember
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I >> Yep. A power output. We wanted to build
like a modular kind of sled for it so
that you could put your own ergonomics on top of it that would allow you to
make it, you know, right-handed or southpaw or whatever you want it to be.
Did we throw around the idea of selling just the PCB as a kit and you could use
your own mouse that you like but had newer mouse sensors?
>> I think we determined that that was impossible and the idea was that we'd
use our IC and upgraded sensor [music]
to build boards that would go in your old favorite mouse.
>> Yeah. >> How close did we get on this? >> Well, we got close enough that we bought
about $100,000 worth of IC's cuz we saw that the market was uh about to go crazy
and then um Oh yeah, we were doing all this during the COVID crisis. There was
no silicon chips. So we knew that the lead time was going to be 52 weeks and
we had planned a 52 week development [music] cycle. So they were going to
coincide really good. So we put the
order in for the MCUs and uh the power
management IC's that we needed which we're trying to sell um to reclaim
some of the lost money. But in theory,
it would have worked really well had we released the product. Um, but now we're
just sitting on boxes of IC's.
>> What ultimately killed it? >> Time, molding, complexity. We were
planning on trying to do a bunch of different sizes of grips and
right-handed and southpaw with a bunch of customization. And yeah, it just
priorities as well. We had other priorities and then by [music] the time
it became relevant, other companies were doing the same thing. There's no question that the overlap with our
audience would have been great, but
timing in the market, timing of the production, anyone want to buy some
mouse parts? Our next one is a product that's actually finally coming, too. In
fact, we finally got our bit case, which uh Oh, yeah. No, it doesn't have the
same thing as the other one. This was removable at one point, kind of like our
precision screwdriver set. The point is it has a little keyring thing on the
back so you can put one of our magnetic cable management things on it and then you can magnetically stick your bits to
wherever it is that you want to put them. And we have new posy drive bits to
go inside them. But that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to
talk about failures. >> Ah yes.
>> Oh my lord. >> How about the our heaviest failure all
metal key cap? This one bounced around a fair bit too. It was both design and us.
At one point we were thinking about taking the zinc [music] housings that we
have and trying to cast them into this. >> For context, um there was a failed
production run from our first 100,000 screwdrivers [music]
of the zinc housings for the ratchet. We are the proud owners of all of that zinc
scrap metal. Now, turns out we could not make cast key caps out of them for
reasons. Would have been way more expensive and way harder to deal with.
This was even out of billet aluminum and it was still a nightmare. [music] and also very difficult to ship a giant
block of aluminum, >> especially without it being scuffed or
damaged in any way. And you know that anyone who's buying a desk ornament uh
is going to want it to be absolutely perfect. So what killed it? Shipping
difficulty and complete lack of an addressable market that it was
>> I mean we would have sold some. Now for another project that was in development
for literal [music] years. The kind of
DIYish acoustic panels, which in
fairness to me [music] is actually a pretty neat idea and one that I had
nothing to do with. Cool. Before we get
to the later stages of it though, why don't we start at the beginning? The
cool thing about it is that it was meant to be a flat pack that you would receive
like this of these outer segments that
would be put together with corner segments at various angles depending on
what kind of geometric shape you wanted to form it into. Then all you got to do
is head to Home Depot and just buy some kind of foam to put in it.
>> And you get to choose whatever is local cuz shipping stuff like that's expensive
>> and also just so wasteful. The other thing that makes it complicated is
making them aesthetically pleasing. [music] So, we wanted to sit in between the just DIY jigsawed piece of sauna pan
that's screwed into the wall and then the artisan freaking architectural
acoustic paneling that you can buy for your cathedral or whatever. That is
where the covers came in. And to talk about those, we're going to need Matthew [music] from the fashion team. Hey,
there he is. This was one of our first,
I think, collaborative projects between fashion and engineering.
>> It was definitely an adventure of a project. There's was a lot of design
constraints. Yeah, I guess they're constraints that challen challenges that
I was given for um this project, but
yeah, I think we basically wanted to also um sell a cover for the acoustic
panels that's easy to like remove and put on in case we have like different
stuff with like different colors, different graphics, so you can kind of easy for you guys to switch it around.
We also wanted it to not be wrinkly. We also wanted to not cover up the back of
this to make it easier to mount to the wall. We wanted manufacturing tolerances
that were like spoton, otherwise
>> entirely unreasonable. >> Yeah. Otherwise, it's not going to fit on perfectly.
>> We essentially nailed it down to three shapes just due to the geometry we're
working with. We had a hexagon, a diamond, [music] and then a triangle.
And that you could tessillate a full plane if you wanted to and get enough
customization that you could >> Come on. That's kind of cool, right?
[music] We were trying to use as much regground material as possible because
we didn't love the idea of just like shipping plastic all over the world,
even if we weren't shipping the foam that went with it, >> like screwdrivers. >> Well, no. I mean, that's but that's
something that has ongoing utility. This just I'd rather something like this was
made of wood if it could be. >> Yeah. >> And we did explore that possibility.
>> More expensive, less consistent, more likely to crack and break. Also,
humidity [music] is a thing and shipping lumber in certain countries is very
difficult. If we could have brought this to market at a reasonable price,
>> dude, this would have been sick. Just looking at all the failed children.
[laughter] >> It's five years of pentup pain that we're just bringing [music] back in.
>> I think it's time for us to welcome the rest of the fashion team. >> Bye.
>> Bye. >> Now it's time to revisit the trauma of
another CW department. The fashion team.
Welcome fashion team.
>> [laughter] >> You guys can say stuff if you want or we
can just jump right into the first fashion failure of the day.
>> Socks and sandals. >> Just sandals. >> Just sandals. Yeah.
>> Oh, well. Okay. Yes. We're making socks,
which you do know I would have worn with these if we'd made them.
>> Sure. >> Right. Okay. It is no secret that I became kind of known for the dad sandal
with socks. So obviously I had some thoughts on things that could be
improved. However, [music] we did run into some challenges trying to create a
sandal. >> Yeah, developing footwear is a big
investment upfront because you have to make molds. Then you have to make those
molds for each size. There's like interior and exterior. [music]
It's a huge upfront cost to get into
something for potentially one product. [music] >> Right. So, the very first thing you say
today is Lionus was too cheap and that's why we didn't make them.
>> It's another way to say that. Yeah. >> Anywh who, with the shoes, we got as far
as requesting some samples because I did have ideas about things that we could
fix. Uh the usual failure points are right here where the Velcro strap fails
over. The Velcro tends to be low quality. They can fail here. They can
fail here. In an ideal world, we might have collaborated with Ekko to do a
colorway or something. Matthew actually did up some designs for what something
like that might look like. There's a version that uses [music] like magnetic
fidlock buckles so that he doesn't have to keep ripping the velcro so they're
like silent. You know, >> these are another Matthew innovation.
Why don't we talk about our other attempts at a belt? >> First, we started with a vegan leather
belt. Yep. Then we did a cow leather belt.
>> That sucked, too. >> Then we tried a silicone belt, which is
this one, the only sample that we have left. And it >> sucks. [laughter]
So, we're kind of back at the drawing board. Both of the leather versions had
like a ceiling on top. And when Lionus wore it for like a week or two, it
started to crack, >> which is very common. Also happens on
the belt that you normally wear. And it's just not something we've been able
to solve for yet. >> This just occurred to me, and we've never really talked about this, but working at a real job, like for like an
actual real clothing company, I mean, we are, but I would imagine it doesn't come
up much that you're sort of like having regular meetings
with the customer kind of thing, right? Like is it a weird dynamic that we have
here? >> It's a different dynamic, but apparel is
always pretty personal. It always gets pulled into like what you like and what
you wear >> cuz I feel like such a sometimes when I'm like,
>> "No, >> this and this and this and also this."
>> No, no, it's >> I mean, you're not like there are people
that are very mean when they say it, so you're not mean when you say it.
>> Oh, okay. Cool. >> Yeah, constructive criticism is always appreciated.
>> Yeah. >> Why don't we constructively criticize why we never managed to make a wallet?
Matthew, this was your project. >> Oh, yes. Uh, these are little like
folder wallets. Um, >> have you been dailying this one?
>> Uh, no. That's my X's. >> You took it back. I mean, it looks well
used. >> Yeah. I >> You took it. >> We need it for the video, so I asked for
it back. [laughter] >> Really? >> Yeah. This is the one I daily. Um, yeah.
It's It's pretty cool. It's like supposed to be um like the Windows
folder uh Mac folder. >> I'm still hung up on that you got in touch with your ex to get this wallet
bag. >> Yeah, it's for the video, you know. Uh do we want to talk about why these
didn't happen? >> Uh sure we can. I I [clears throat] I
think after we came up with the idea, we found out that there was someone already
doing it, so we didn't want to seem like we were ripping somebody off.
>> Yeah, but I like our version better. >> Sometimes products fail because the team
can't find a practical way to bring them to market. Sometimes products fail
because they were a really stupid idea in the first place. This is this one on
me? I think so. >> I was on Matt leave when this happened. So, >> it was it was a minus idea,
>> right? Yeah. Okay. On the surface, okay, not that crazy. I had just started
regularly gaming on a PC handheld and it's not always practical to carry
around a backpack or like a sling with you. So, I had this idea of like, okay,
what if I had a hoodie that had a game console pocket? Now, initial idea was
like it could slide in back here or something, but then if you're like
riding the bus or sitting on an airplane and you have a game console in the small
ear back, I think most people would not like that. So, this I'm blaming Matthew
for came up with the idea of we could put the pocket on the front. Huh. Not
bad. >> Yeah, until you said. >> And then I Well, okay. Yeah, you kind of
ruined the punch line. [laughter]
>> But let's say if I was more of the feminine persuasion, I would have ended
up with an inverted nipple just now because it just punched me in the chest.
>> So yeah, why would you say this one never made it to market? >> Functionalitywise
wasn't very good. One of the other challenges we have with pocket being
placed in the midrift area is getting
the right spot on different body sizes.
And as you all know, most people have torso lengths that are different.
>> Some people are shorter, some people are longer, which means where the pocket
sits on their body can be good or bad, >> right? So, it could like end up punching
some people in the bottom of the rib and some people right in the nipple and some
people like in the [music] neck potentially if we don't get the pocket placement just right.
>> Yes. >> Let's pivot from the ones that I sucked at. >> I don't like where that's going.
[laughter] >> I know. >> It was a good idea. We wanted to make a
super premium hoodie. I think this was intended to be the very first luxe
product, right? >> I think so. >> It's a cashmere lined of some sort.
>> It's cotton cashmere blend, >> right? It manages to be so soft without
having that like oh too warm of like a
synthetic uh fleece kind of thing and like little details the golden zip the
little LTS on the drop cords. It was actually never intended for public
consumption because we thought the price would be just completely unpalatable. Uh
what would retail on this be? >> Oh, I can't remember. It
>> was like a couple hundred or something like that. >> Yeah, probably highunds. So, we had
intended to do it just for staff with like your your subscriber number, like
we've done internal products before, like a couple of times. Uh, your
subscriber number is how many subscribers the channel had on your start day. The point is, we couldn't get
the fit right. How many samples we end up doing in this? Eight.
>> This one's eight. Yeah. >> How does sampling typically work?
>> At an average company, you'd probably want to be doing two to three samples.
>> Mhm. And they do that for free or >> It depends on the vendor. Many vendors
will do it for free if you [music] work for them for a long time and your developments aren't super complicated.
Once you start sampling eight samples, they start to charge you.
>> Right. Right. >> And how much would a sample of something like this cost?
>> 300 probably. >> So, it's a funny thing. Um, I actually
end up wearing a lot of our samples in the longer term. You might have noticed
that my phone doesn't actually go into this pocket on my cargo shorts. That's
cuz this is an early sample of this color where the pockets taper for some
reason. You'd be amazed how much a little detail can change the way a
garment fits and feels. Like this one started with just the same block as I
think our stealth [music] hoodie way back in the day. >> Yeah, that makes sense.
>> But it never fit right because >> this is a heavier weight material. So,
it needs to have a looser fit to function properly. Back in 2022, we
didn't want that. So, it was never going to work with this fabric and that fit. I
think now with like super soft fit and the way we're moving, we could probably
do it. But >> do you think we could do this again? I mean, we've learned a lot. Like, we
wouldn't try to make it like this again. >> Yes. Oh, yeah. I know we could do it.
>> Let's talk about one that's more of a Tatiana project. This was What did we
call this? >> RGB woolen hoodie jacket.
>> We're so good at product naming. [snorts and laughter]
>> Marketing team takes it over. We have this long drawn out name that's very
technical and they're just like, "We're going to call it RGB hoodie." They're like, "Okay,
>> this thing is super cool. Way cooler
than you probably realize. It's like a like a wool outer layer and then it has
what do you what do you call it?" >> Yeah. Like reflective dots that are built in in order to give it that woolen
RGB rainbow effect. >> Yeah. It kind of looks like a trout.
>> Yeah. Like a rainbow trout. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like can you see it
at all in the A- roll? So depending on how the light catches it, it either just
looks like kind of a nice clean looking
jacket or it's like damn like it's Oh,
it's so cool. And we had a hat, too. And you will never buy one.
>> Exactly. The reason why is because unfortunately once you wash it, it
starts to peel away where you can actually see it come apart. So
unfortunately it has a terrible effect and uh the adhesive that they use is not
good. So, it's not something that we would develop until we can get a
supplier who's able to get us something that is machine washable.
>> Yeah. Never say never for this. We just need a mill that can do it a little
better. >> Yeah. Oh, I'd love to make this one. I
think this would be just killer. >> Yeah, I think so, too. >> Now, let's talk about a product that I
was really excited about until I saw the first sample of it. Uh, this product
came about by accident. I was showing Lionus a 3D render of a different design
and then I had like the outlines turned on so you can see I wanted to show the
different design details more clearly. He saw it as like cell shading and was
just like hey I want to cell shade [music] jacket
>> so that's what we tried to do with this. >> It's a nice jacket.
>> It is. >> Why did we kill it again? >> I think maybe cuz you didn't maybe the
cell shading effect wasn't as cell shade. >> Oh yeah. It doesn't look cell shady at
all. The arm holes also suck. So we would have to do some work on that.
We'll let you guys be the judge. Maybe we should resurrect this one cuz I think
Alamade could probably fix the arm holes in like a sample or two
>> and then we can buy new fabric. >> When I was looking at cell shading, I was also looking at different fabrics
that we could potentially use. So, what's cool about some of these knits is
that it actually will show the different colors as you move.
>> So, you would have that. >> That's cool. I want to do something with that. What's this for?
>> A lot of people will use it for sportsware in order to have that
increased vent. So maybe you'd want to have it as a panel in the back in order
to have increased breathability, but you could also use it to get that
cell-shaded effect because as you move, you're going to see a little bit more of
that color. >> Sometimes we set out to make a garment
and then we find a material for it. Other times we find a really cool
material and we're like, "Oh, we should use that." Why don't we talk about
backpacks? You all know the OG backpack.
This is the WAN variant. You all know the commuter backpack, but what about
mini OG backpack? >> Look at it from this angle. They look
both look the same size, >> right? From here. >> Yeah, you've skipped to why we didn't
bother making it. [laughter] There were a couple of innovations over
the original backpack. The total carry capacity is surprisingly similar, but
because we moved the water bottle holder to the outside, you end up with a a
smaller overall bag. It has kind of all the same features, same ID. You know,
obviously some of the pockets are a little bit smaller. Why did we
ultimately not do it? >> Once we had the commuter backpack, it
was hard for us to find a reason to have a bag that was both like larger and
carried everything and smaller and looked sleeker. It was kind of neither
here nor there. >> This is why the engineering team kind of
has it easy. you know, [laughter] screwdriver. You don't need to worry
about it being tumblerable. >> Yeah. Not not tumble dryable.
>> Yeah. Don't Don't do that. But what you should do is pick up one of our new
Prismagic transparent colored multi-bit ratcheting screwdrivers for 20% off
courtesy of YouTube at the link down below.
>> And you can get whatever the next company's offering after this segue to
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minimum purchase. If you guys enjoyed this video and you're looking for something else to watch, why not the
journey of bringing the screwdriver to life in the first place? Or since the
fashion team's here, do we have any videos that are more focused on fashion? Oh, you could go watch the time I tried
on counterfeit merch >> to really show you guys why what these
guys do matters. Because if you just slap a logo or a picture on some crap
product, it turns out it's not very