…in 2009, she took the social media route, sending samples to dozens of technology bloggers, in the belief that if they saw its potential role in repairing information technology equipment, they’d promote it. The strategy worked. “It went viral,” she said. When the company introduced its website in December 2009, all 1,000 packages, which took two months to make by hand, sold out within six hours. An additional 2,000 were sold on back order. “It was incredible; it changed everything.”
Suddenly, “investors were reading about us all over the Internet, and they started coming to us asking how they could help,” she said. Time magazine listed Sugru, alongside the iPad, as one of the top 50 inventions of 2010.
Sales topped $5.5 million in 2015, up from $3.4 million in 2014 and $250,000 in its first year in 2010. Ms. Ni Dhulchaointigh expects sales to exceed $10 million this year and $60 million by 2020.
It is now sold online to more than 160 countries and through 19 brick-and-mortar retailers in 6,050 stores in four countries. In the United States, 10 retailers carry the product in 4,500 stores.
…Sugru has raised about $12 million from investors and another round is expected this year.
