Intimidated by her surroundings and fearful that she was out of her depth in the prestigious corridors of the Royal College of Art, Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh hid herself away in the school workshop with a vague idea of finding a new, fix-everything material.
One of her series of experiments as she pursued her master’s degree in product design was to combine bathroom sealant with wood-dust powder. It made balls that bounced when she dropped them.
“It was just a surprising moment. I made something that looked like wood and it bounced,” she said. “I just wanted to create something that looked interesting or behaved in an interesting way, which could then lead me somewhere else.”
Just over a decade later, those lab explorations have led to Sugru, a mouldable, setting silicone rubber that has been compared with Blu-Tack and Sellotape in terms of its significance.
The material can be shaped for 30 minutes after being taken from the small sealed packets it comes in, before it cures in the air into a strong, durable and waterproof substance that will stay stuck to almost any surface and can withstand extremes of temperature up to 150C.
The rise in popularity of Sugru, initially among the tech and “maker” community, has seen it used as a car engine sealant, in a school children’s project to send a camera into space, and to personalise ski poles for a north pole adventurer. The youngest member of the British Olympic fencing team, James Davis, used a foil personalised with Sugru in the 2012 games.
It has been a long road to fruition for Ni Dhulchaointigh, who left the RCA with a rough idea of wanting to create a “really, really functional version of Blu-Tack that would be permanent and have lots of benefits”. A summer show for graduates’ ideas showed her that the public also had an interest in what she was planning.
“I had in mind this culture of people feeling empowered to improve their stuff, to fix it and that is the most difficult thing and the most exciting thing,” she said.
An innovation unit within the university introduced her to her now business partner, technologist Roger Ashby. He in turn put her in contact with two silicone scientists.
“They said ‘Does that exist?’,” she said. “That is the same reaction that most people have with Sugru. It is a bit like other things but it just is different. It is like clay, but it is like rubber. It is like Blu-Tack, but it sets,” said Ni Dhulchaointigh.
The Irishwoman then spent the next two years testing out different formulations alone in a lab in Bethnal Green, east London. By 2007, she had working samples to be sent out to a 150-strong “community” who were interested in what was to come.
“It was a very long process, year after year, more or less on my own. I could see that they [the community] were finding it useful and I could see that it was really helpful. It tended to be people with an interest. I had a friend who is a carpenter and also a surfer, a cousin who is also a chef. She was adapting knives in the kitchen.”
In 2009, the company raised a much-needed £100,000 in funding and worked to launch by Christmas. Sachets of Sugru – the name comes from the Irish for “play” – were sent to journalists with the catchline “Hack things better”. A video of Sugru in action went viral and the first 1,000 5g packets were sold in six hours to buyers in 21 countries.
“Can you imagine what that was like? After six years of nobody knowing what we were doing and then one day the internet went mental for it,” said Ni Dhulchaointigh.
After relaunching in June 2010 – when the supply problems that came with huge immediate demand were resolved – the Sugru “community” sent in pictures of what they had used the new material for, a vital feature of the development of the company.
“It was about asking people to share and tell their story so people were sharing pictures from the first batch,” said Ni Dhulchaointigh.
One user recently sent in pictures of the new Google Glass attached to his prescription lenses with Sugru, while another uses it with a magnet to set up a remote camera flash in the belly of a ship. “If we can help make people in their everyday life think more innovatively themselves, then that is going to make a massive difference. Sometimes it is the simplest things which make a difference.”
Now with 30 staff, FormFormForm – the company behind Sugru – expects to go into profit in the second quarter of this year. Sales for 2013 were £1.8m through both online purchases and retailers.
Plaudits have been quick to come in. In the 50 Best Inventions of 2010, Time magazine listed Sugru as No 22 out of 50. The iPad was listed at 34.
Retailers in the US are now also being supplied, while a new line has just been launched that includes magnets – in many cases being used to connect satnavs in cars. The first 1,000 packets sold out in four hours after launch.
“I think we are not sure where our future is – whether it is more a commodity like duct tape or more like Lego – a high-value brand, cool company, global. That remains to be seen,” said Ni Dhulchaointigh.
Remember hi-fi audio? Ageing rocker Neil Young does – and he wants it back. Last week he took to the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter promoting the PonoPlayer, a $300 (£215) prism-shaped digital music player, which he promised would give super-high audio quality playback. Within one day the $1m funding target had been beaten; by 14 March it had gone through $3m, with 9,000 buyers.
Apple has updated its iPhone software, adding support for its car integration system CarPlay, which will let you plug your phone into your car and control apps such as Spotify, maps and its voice assistant Siri. That is, as long as your car is a Ferrari, or some models of Mercedes or Volvo due out later this year.
Google set tongues wagging by buying Green Throttle Games, the unsuccessful manufacturer of a gaming controller for Android apps, which seems to have sold a few thousand at best. The speculation is that Google is working on its own Android-based games console to rival Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One, or perhaps its own TV.
Google faces a class-action lawsuit over children making in-app purchases, like those Apple suffered two years ago. A New York mother is suing the company over $66 of unauthorised purchases by her child of virtual currency in an Android game. Apple settled its suit for $100m and was fined another $32.5m by the US federal trade commission; that $66 could turn out to be the most expensive purchase ever made on a Google device.
Amazon’s gaming controller appeared on the internet courtesy of a Brazilian regulatory agency, showing that the retailer is working on an Xbox-like controller for a possible Android-based gaming console, just like Google. Current speculation puts Amazon’s living room assault packed with the company’s streaming video service and app store to challenge the Apple TV as well as the PS4.
