History
The Duck Bill Money Clip began as an idea more than a half-dozen years ago with the loss of a money clip and the realization that a good money clip is hard to find.
Generally, money clips are poorly designed. Stuffed full a few times, they never again securely hold a few, slim bills. Many money clips are more nonfunctional jewelry than a permanent, solution to a daily design problem.
So, I watched people to see how they “carried their dough.” That is, their cash and plastic. From rubber bands to binder clips to banker clasps to nothing at all, it was clear that someone needed to come up with a solution.
The first big fan of this new money clip design became my business partner. I sat at breakfast with him one morning in University Park, Texas, and said, “OK, Steve, show me how you carry your dough.” From one pocket he pulled a silver money clip holding his cash, and from the other, a metal credit card gadget. The dissatisfied look on his face told the story. “Please fix this situation!” Steve told me he was having to take the money clip back to the jeweler every few months to have it bent back into shape. And carrying two “holders” instead of one was an obvious problem.
Steve agreed to test a prototype on a week-long business trip. We met again upon his return, and I knew the Duck Bill Money Clip had been successful when he said simply, “I’m in.”
We created Duck Bill Design and pressed ahead.
It became a classic case of kitchen table entrepreneurship. The early prototypes were not pretty, but worked really well. I gave away many dozens to friends and “guinea pigs” who agreed to see if it worked for them. Often, I gave away the very one I was using at the time, right out of my pocket. The positive comments from these early adopters proved that function was, indeed, trumping form.
Where the Duck Bill Money Clip concept really started coming together was in the Starbucks at Bee Cave and 71 in Austin, Texas. I was looking at a prototype, contemplating next steps and thinking about the final form when the whole Duck Bill Money Clip concept just happened. It was a classic Eureka! moment. “Hey, it LOOKS like a duck’s bill. Nostrils, an upturned upper bill… That was it! Everything fell into place after that.
More tinkering in a Dallas metalworking shop, and we had a model that worked AND looked the part.
We got lucky with great manufacturing capability thanks to Alan, Doug and their group. They not only got the Duck Bill Money Clip to where it is today, but took the metal mint box, mocked up as a packaging idea on Christmas Day, 2006, and turned it into the embossed, EVA-lined packaging in which the Duck Bill Money Clip is delivered today.
We put the Duck Bill Design site on the web on 11/1/07. The first advertising hit the market on 11/30/07.
I’d say the rest is history except that the history is really from here forward. I hope you’ll be a part of it as Duck Bill Design grows and offers you products that meet the criteria.
Cool. Simple. Works.
Good luck!
Tony Cornett
President & Chief Designer
