3 general reasons to commission and sell a design made from multipurpose parts:

• Target group. Multipurpose part design is mainly aimed at young, creative, active people who are building their first home and have children or are about to have children. People who are constantly in need for new products. You tap into the target group that made IKEA a billion dollar company. But you have the better offer for them. Because your furniture is interactive. IKEA suddenly looks old compared to you.
• Sustainable. The political and societal pressure on companies to move towards sustainability is growing in many areas of the world. Actors such as the EU are constantly introducing new laws that force companies to adopt sustainable and circular practices. Ikego enables you to be ahead in the game. Leapfrog several steps. Join an ecosystem of sustainable companies early on and outgrow the old world.
• Less overproduction and more business opportunities: Imagine you’ve made chairs that aren’t selling well. With Ikego you don’t have to throw them away or sell them at a loss. Because they are made from multipurpose parts that can be used for other things. Take them apart and use the parts to assemble other products that people want. Or sell the parts individually or as ‘parts packs’ to creative customers. There are more ways to profit from the fact that your production line spits out multipurpose parts than just selling one product.

3 reasons to pick a design from the Ikego model catalog or connect your commissioned model to the Ikego model catalog: 

• Product-Service-System to connect to for free. Ikego is basically a product-service-system. Every Ikego product consists of parts that have a digital twin. The parts have different use cases that create more possibilities and more value for your customers. You customers get products that are alive and grow over time – thanks to Ikego’s open innovation process, the list of use cases is constantly growing. You sell them a product that gets better and more useful over time! A much better deal for them, more reasons to buy from you.
• Marketing synergies. Ikego invests heavily in marketing. This brings attention to the Ikego system and the products available in it. You will benefit from it. Plus everyone in the network is also marketing the Ikego system alongside their products. This creates synergies. A chair manufacturer benefits from the marketing of a bag manufacturer and vice versa. Together you explain why your products are superior. Someone who has bought an Ikego bed will search for a matching “Ikego chair” and there you are. It may not be long before the ecosystem has a joint marketing budget that far exceeds that of a large multinational corporation.

• A soft LockIn. When companies trap you in their ecosystem, it is called the lock-in effect. If you have an iPhone, you can’t use the Google Play Store, and your iPhone doesn’t work very well with your Windows computer. You are supposed to buy matching Apple products. Once you are stepped into the Ikego system as a customer, you have incentives to get more involved. The more Ikego products, and therefore multipurpose parts, you have in your home, the more opportunities there are for you. It is a “soft” lock-in because customers can buy Ikego parts and products from other sellers too. But at the moment this group is quite small and the lock-in effect should really benefit you for a long time. 

Where is the risk?

• Low to no risk. If you engage with Ikego you get the chance to gain a lot without adding much additional risk. Imagine what could go wrong? Even if Ikego’s promises don’t work for you, you still have a regular product to sell, just like before. You have to make a good product either way. Ikego allows you to add a lot of sugar on top of a great product. 

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To get the full picture we recommend to also read how intellectual property works in Ikego.

Basically yes.

If you want to produce a model in larger quantities (100+ units), please contact the model designer in advance. You’ll find a link to the designer’s original post in the design info section of the model. You’ll find a contact address there.

If you are just a small workshop and want to make small quantities (up to 100 units) – perhaps you have been asked by a customer for a local make – please visit the designer’s original post too. There you’ll find a note if the designer allows local makes and if the designer wants to receive a donation for it. If a donation is requested, include the donation amount in the price you charge your client and forward it to the designer after you receive payment for your work.

The donation system for local makes is is currently based on trust. But please honour it. We’ll all win. And send us pictures of your products. We could list you here as a workshop/shop to order from. Let’s send more customers to you.

If you exceed the hundred units mark, you are out of the “local make” range. Please contact the designer then to negotiate a better deal.

Ikego parts are easy to make and well documented. The assembly of the models is in most cases easy as well. To a skilled builder they don’t present any problems. This allows customers to take a design they like to a local handyman. The handyman makes it for them and gets paid. A small part of the revenue is forwarded to the model designer as a donation. Ikego encourages customers to engage local handyman to produce local makes in order to grow the ecosystem.

But designers can choose to disable local makes. If a model has active IP protection, it is possible to block at least specific executions of a model – for example, an orange chair with round edges. All rights to make and sell this design/product can then go exclusively to one manufacturer. A monopoly is possible. 

However it should be noted that the tolerance methodology may still allow for other commercial makes of the same model if they look different enough – for example, the same chair but in black with sharp edges. This is common practice in the existing design world, not something specific to Ikego. Learn more here. 

So, as a potential local manufacturer of a model, you should always check if the designer allows local makes or if there are any restrictions in place. 

It’s simple. Make a product, put it on digital or physical shelves, then tell us about it via email. We’ll put you on the page.

Listing is free*

You can also contact us at an early stage. We are happy to hear your questions and ideas.

* Eventually in the future we will introduce paid premium listings or fees for adding your links. This is one of Ikego’s planned business models to ensure the system runs reliably and sustainably and gets better and better: affiliate marketing for shops.