OrigAudio in Costa Mesa has a vintage Southern California tech startup story: humble beginnings shipping products from a garage to a spot among the county’s fastest-growing companies.
There’s no receptionist behind the front desk at its office, which seems more skate park than place of business. Indeed, there’s no front desk at the two-story loft.
Cofounders Jason Lucash and Mike Szymczak sport khaki shorts, T-shirts, trucker caps and sandals to work. A 100-pound golden retriever-German shepherd, named Teddy, barks incessantly.
OrigAudio boomed onto the scene in 2009 with its debut product, the Fold n’ Play speaker, priced at about $16, made from recyclable materials and powered through an iPhone. Lucash and Szymczak crafted the origami-inspired idea on an overseas business trip during their four-year stints at Alameda-based backpack maker JanSport.
Carrying bulky portable speakers on flights around the world wasn’t practical, so they married their enthusiasm for music with their love of Chinese takeout food and the boxes it comes in. They soon found that old newspapers, phone books and pizza boxes worked out better as housing for speakers.
They took that idea to manufacturers in China and struck a deal.
“We’re in about 5,000 stores now,” Lucash said. “It’s good to be different.”
OrigAudio was one of five companies honored at the Business Journal’s 12th annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards luncheon March 20 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.
Time Magazine
OrigAudio was 3 months old and selling about 10 foldable speakers a day when Time Magazine put its Fold n’ Play on its annual list of the 50 best inventions of 2009.
“We sold 1,000 speakers that day,” said Lucash, who travels to colleges and universities around the world to talk about entrepreneurship.
Lucash and Szymczak were still working full time at JanSport. The company went through its entire inventory within three days and finished the year with some 30,000 units sold.
“That’s when we put in our two weeks at JanSport and left,” Lucash said.
OrigAudio’s next product, Rock-It, debuted at the International Consumer Electronics Show in 2010, when it captured just as much buzz as the Fold n’ Play.
The Rock-It can plug into a media player, such as an iPod, and transforms just about any object it attaches to into a speaker through sound vibrations.
The duo soon appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank and won, rising above other entrepreneurs to land a $150,000 equity stake from Canadian millionaire Robert Herjavec.
The founders decided to pass on the investment and keep complete ownership.
OrigAudio was valued at about $1 million at the time. It’s worth $8 million now, according to Lucash.
“It was probably the best decision I ever made,” he said.
The company has since launched eight more products, including the Doodle, which allows consumers to design graphics on their own speakers.
Custom orders for large corporations, such as Apple, Oracle and Coca-Cola, now generate half of OrigAudio’s annual revenue of more than $3.5 million.
Its 714.2% sales jump in the 12 months through June, compared to the same period two years earlier, landed the company in the No. 9 spot on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies last year.
Publicity
OrigAudio has been featured on TV shows, news programs, countless magazine covers, and dozens of radio spots without a single dollar devoted to marketing. It helps that the company is run by former marketing pros with a penchant for social networks and online advertising. Some of its quirky and playful spots on YouTube have gone viral, helping the company attract more than a million views on the site.
“We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take our work seriously,” Lucash said.
The company relies on a roster of OC companies for printing and design work.
It champions other small businesses and is involved in three nonprofits: Music National Service, which supports and expands the use of music to address civic and social needs; Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which aims to bring entrepreneurship education to low-income students; and Chemo Duck, part of Gabe’s Chemo Duck Program, that supports children and families living with cancer.
OrigAudio gives a percentage of each product sold to the groups.
