I’m the Inventor of Buckyballs Craig Zucker and This Is How I Work
Serial entrepreneur Craig Zucker is best known for creating Buckyballs , the most famous brand of rare earth magnet toys that users can fold into geometric shapes or stir like a modular metal ball to relieve stress.
Buckyballs are a fickle gadget in front of the spinner that has made it possible for many adults to have lengthy conference calls. They’re definitely not for kids – swallowing two Buckyballs is like slowly shooting yourself from the inside . The security scare led to a lengthy legal battle with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, and Buckyballs closed in 2012. But in the end, the US government loosened its rules on magnetic toys, and Zucker returned with a Buckyball sequel called Speks .
We spoke to Craig about the history of his controversial toys, how he runs a remote team, and what it’s like to work in an office full of little magnets.
Location: Brooklyn Current Workplace: Head Speks One word that best describes how you work: Actively up to date mobile device: iPhone 7 Current computer: MacBook Air
First of all, tell us a little about your past and how you got where you are now.
I can tell you that as a kid, I never dreamed of selling table toys – or most of the other things I’ve worked on over the years. I’m just a kid from Cleveland who moved to New York after college in Miami, Ohio and then jumped at just about every opportunity or odd inspiration that came my way. I had several entrepreneurial ventures in my time, one of which was bottling, branding and selling New York City tap water. You can imagine how that turned out … (But what can I say? We have a great crane that doesn’t have to be from Fiji.)
After several such endeavors, I joined another guy to create Buckyballs, a rare earth magnet tabletop toy, and damn it, was there anything to watch Buckyballs take off. All our efforts and growth have been organic. There was no strategic marketing firm or PR team behind it. It was truly incredible – people clung to our balls, and we just exploded. We did a little work on this and then ran into some major regulatory issues at the federal level. We fought hard and stood for a long time, but in the end we had to close the business at the peak of $ 25 million a year in sales.
Four years later, the judgment against the Buckyballs was overturned. Together with a former competitor (the guy behind Zen Magnets), I launched a new evolution of the rare earth magnet desk toy: Speks. Speks are a set of magnets smaller than Buckyballs that are 100% safe to use, no matter how you cut them.
Tell us about a recent work day.
Every day there is something new. I have a small team and we solve about 30 different things a day. Lately, my days began with morning yoga sessions with the team, usually followed by a meeting at a coffee shop before heading to our shared office in Brooklyn. Speks still operates more or less like a startup, and I have so many moving parts right now that I constantly send emails or phone calls to distributors or members of my remote team.
What apps, gadgets or tools can’t you live without?
Slack, Excel, Upwork , my Popsocket , yoga mat
What are your favorite toys?
A tennis ball to play with my Australian, Theo.
How is your workplace arranged?
We are in a coworking space in Williamsburg. Spex is everywhere because we take photos and videos ourselves (oh please share our new time-lapsevideo … we’re very proud of it). I bring my dog for a week and it hangs out under my table. My MacBook is installed wherever there are no products scattered around. Delivery boxes from Thailand appear daily and regularly.
What’s your best time-saver or life hack?
Meditation, hands down.
Who are the people who help you achieve results, and how do you rely on them?
As I said, I have a small team, so we must all be accountable to each other and work well together. Our Slack channel is a real star player. More than half of the team members work remotely outside of New York, so we’re all connected. We are a close-knit team; our web manager will suggest email ideas, our operations manager can tell us if something we’re posting is funny or just plain weird, and our designer, well, she designs a lot. Speks is designed to help adults cheer up, reduce stress and have fun, so that it affects the way we work.
How do you keep track of what you need to do?
I still accept proposals on this matter. There are so many Slack channels, email addresses, even chalkboard scribbles that have my to-do lists. I’m pretty good at contributing something to my Google calendar, but I’m not perfect (apologize to everyone who is still waiting for a call or email from me).
What do you enjoy doing the most and how do you deal with it?
Probably at trade shows or on Fox and Friends talking about government regulation. I’m more of an unspoken brand and design, so any forced sales takes me a little out of my comfort zone. I love the design process, but talking to Steve Doosey, managing 100 sales representatives and 3,000 retail accounts is something we still need help with. Does anyone out there want to talk?
How do you replenish? What do you do when you want to forget about work?
I don’t mind spending my entire weekend walking my dog in Brooklyn and watching Netflix. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget about work, but at least I can put my phone down for a few hours a day.
What’s your favorite side project?
I’m actually working on launching a meditation product right now. It’s still in its early stages and I can’t say too much about it yet, but I try to spend a little time on it every morning and I hope to launch it sometime next year.
What are you reading now or what do you recommend?
Anything Chuck Klosterman. I also met Ayn Rand and George Orwell during Buckyballs v. The Man days “.