Turn down an industrial drive in Solon, pull into the complex and park your car in front of the squat brick building. It’s all pretty unremarkable until you open the door, hear the rock music blaring, smell the coffee brewing at the Playaway Café and see the jeans-clad young people (the average age is 28) appearing to actually enjoy their jobs.
It’s surely all very cool. But it’s more than that; it’s a culture of take-charge creativity nurtured by founders Mitch Kroll, Blake Squires and Christopher Celeste, who call their company Findaway World and refer to their 120 employees as Findawayers. Free-spirited people may wear flip-flops to work — so long as that same independent thinking is put to good use at their jobs.
It’s a fitting strategy for a company whose founders never lost faith in their product, despite years of losing money. That started to turn around when Findaway finally found its perfect customer.
The product — the result of a classic brainstorming session with large sheets of white paper — is Playaway, a digital audiobook that its creators describe as “the easiest way to listen to a book.” Each unit weighs 2 ounces, fits in a pocket and comes with earbuds and batteries. And because each Playaway contains only a single book, there is no downloading. You simply press “play.”
Squires knows what you may be thinking: “The concept of locking digital content into a device is a little counterintuitive.”
In this digital age, it seems as if the thing to do is buy a Kindle or an iPod and download songs or books, right? Who would pay $40 for a Playaway that can only contain one book?
That kind of thinking is based on the assumption that all of the United States embraces new technology quickly and that everybody has computers capable of downloading books and songs. “Not everybody owns an iPod,” Squires says with a smile and slight shake of his head. What’s more, some people just don’t want to mess with it all — and never will. “Physical forms are here to stay, and they’re never going to go away.”
When Playaways first came out in 2005, the media buzz was huge. They made O, The Oprah Magazine’s O List in December 2006. The New York Times wrote in January 2007 that Playaways are “most notable for what they don’t have … USB cables, CDs to rip or burn, downloads, online stores.” And the Chicago Sun-Times noted in January 2006 that they were “just plain cute.”
But the Playaway was not a success — not by a long shot. Squires, Kroll and their investors lost money for 39 consecutive months. “We were a great product in search of a great market,” Kroll explains. But they never lost faith.
They just kept trying to find a way.
In July 2006, a Playaway salesperson received a call from the U.S. Army’s head librarian. She had seen the product at a Public Library Association trade show a few months back and was interested. The salesperson sent her samples, including The Da Vinci Code. In August, she ordered a few hundred units.
The feedback from the field was immediate. Soldiers loved them. “I like the fact that while I am here in Iraq I can have some entertainment that fits in any of my numerous pockets and gear,” one serviceman wrote. “They are an incredible morale multiplier,” wrote another.
In April 2007, the Army ordered more — a lot more. They are now in their second year of a “major eight-figure” contract with Playaway through which nearly a half million units have been shipped to 11 countries.
More interest followed. “Our business took a shift,” Squires says.
Actually, it took a hairpin turn. Whereas Playaways were once sold at 1,400 retail locations, including Borders and Barnes & Noble, today the only retailers that carry them are 40 or so airport stores. A full 99 percent of Playaways are sold to institutions, including schools, libraries, the military and hospitals. “Our strength,” laughs Squires, “is not retail.”
Still, any new product — no matter how incredibly easy to use — faces some resistance. The South Plainfield Public Library in New Jersey has carried Playaways for about three years, and many customers rave about them. “It’s a lot easier to carry than a CD player. They seem to really like how they can just put it in their pocket,” says Danielle Aronowitz, a student at Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information who works at the library.
But books on CD are still being borrowed in greater volume. “The only explanation I can think of is that people are just more familiar with CDs than Playaways,” Aronowitz says.
That changes a little bit every day. Now available in 22,000 libraries, Playaways continue to become more familiar. And the company has become more successful. In January 2008, it finally reached the tipping point of making money. Since then, it has been profitable for 20 consecutive months. Another milestone was reached in July 2008, when the 1 millionth Playaway — a title on how to learn Arabic ordered by the military — was sold. A marching band stormed in the building, balloons dropped from the ceiling and Champagne was served to all the Findawayers.
Today, Playaway offers 8,000 titles, including books, exercise instruction, music and military training. Hundreds more are added each month. The company is in the process of developing a product based on the same concept that would play movies, though Squires isn’t ready to elaborate yet.
Will digital downloads ever render Playaways obsolete? Squire and Kroll think they have “plenty of headroom” to succeed before that happens — if it ever does. “Audiobooks are big files, hard to download,” Squires says. “It’s a hard process.
“We have created the best solution,” he continues. “More is not always better.”
Kid Tested
My daughter is 5, way too young for an iPod. Still, it seems like every kid around has some sort of device that she thinks is cool, whether it’s a phone, video game or music player. That’s why the Playaway Kidz Bop to Go caught my eye. With 20 kid-friendly songs and a price of $34.99, it was the perfect way to let her feel like a big kid without running the risk of her rapping questionable lyrics around the house. She, of course, loves it. Sitting on the swing set, she’ll let a friend listen to one earbud while she has the other. They’ll sing a while, then run off to play, acting very cool but — thankfully — still very much like 5-year-olds.
Playaways can be ordered at playaway.com.