一夜暴富的典範:來源於橡皮筋遊戲靈感的少兒編織機

The hottest tween frenzy this summer isn't a boy band or an excessively priced American Girl doll accessory. It's, well, weaving.
今年夏天最熱門的既不是哪一支男子樂團，也不是價格昂貴的美國娃娃玩具，而是編織。

Nine-year-old girls across the U.S. have apparently fallen head over heels for a centuries-old craft form, threading together colorful bracelets with the aid of a makeshift loom. Okay, this time, rubber bands are involved. Lots of them.
全美國九歲的小女孩們都被一種幾個世紀以前的工藝所深深吸引。她們在一臺臨時編織機的幫助下編織著七彩的手鍊。只是這一次她們要用的是橡皮筋，很多很多的橡皮筋。

Michaels Stores, the huge, private arts-and-crafts retailer, began stocking the $17 Rainbow Loom in the first week of August. The kit is now selling ten times better than the chain's next kids bestseller, says Philo Pappas, Michaels' Executive Vice President of Category Management.
從八月份的第一週開始，手工藝品零售商Michaels Stores便開始引進17美元的彩虹編織機（Rainbow Loom）。如今，Michaels品類管理高階副總裁費羅•帕帕斯稱，這款產品的熱銷程度是該連鎖店第二暢銷產品的十倍。

Already, a million or so of the rubber-band hand looms have sold through various outlets, according to Cheong-Choon Ng, the product's 45-year-old inventor, who until recently was a senior crash-test engineer for Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY), in Detroit.
據該產品45歲的發明者吳昌俊（音譯）透露，這款橡皮筋手織機在多家零售店已經賣出了100萬件左右。不久之前，吳昌俊還是底特律日產汽車公司（Nissan Motor Co.）的一名資深碰撞試驗工程師。

Three years ago, Ng's two daughters—Teresa, then 12, and Michelle, then 9—were sitting in the family den making bracelets from rubber bands. The process reminded Ng, who grew up in Malaysia, of making jump ropes from rubber bands as a child. Hoping to impress his kids with his bracelet-weaving skills, he grabbed a few tiny elastic bands and tried to mesh them into a pattern. They were too small for his fingers, however.
三年前，吳昌俊的兩個女兒——12歲的特蕾莎和9歲的米歇爾——正在家裡的小房間用橡皮筋做手鍊。這個畫面讓馬來西亞長大的吳昌俊想起了用橡皮筋做跳繩的場景。吳昌俊希望能用編手鍊的水平來打動孩子們，於是他抓起一些橡皮筋，努力想把它們編織成圖案。結果他的手太大，而橡皮筋又太小。

So the engineer went to his garage and cobbled together a primitive loom—an old wooden board lined with rows of pushpins. With that, he began looping rubber bands into bracelets. At first his daughters weren't impressed. But once they saw him weaving intricate patterns in breakneck speed, they changed their mind.
於是這位工程師來到自己的車庫，拼裝出了一臺樣式古老的織機——其實就是一塊舊木板上面釘了幾排圖釘。憑藉這個簡單的工具，他開始把橡皮筋纏成手鍊。最初，他的兩個女兒並不感興趣。但後來，她們看到他飛快地織出複雜的花紋，她們改變了之前的看法。

It was Teresa who saw the potential for transforming this into a business, when other kids in their Novi, Mich., neighborhood began obsessively playing with the looms Dad was assembling. That was when Ng decided to take a leap of faith—guilt-ridden though it was—staking the $10, 000 he managed to save for his daughters' college fund on building a marketable product.
特蕾莎發現了將這個小東西變成商機的可行性。當時她們鄰居家的孩子們都開始迷戀爸爸組裝的織機。就是在那時候，吳昌俊信心大增——雖然有一點負罪感——他決定把攢出來供女兒上大學的10,000美元拿出來，打造一款可以上市銷售的產品。He spent six months refining the design. (The kit that's in shops today is the 28th iteration.) Then he set about finding suppliers in Southern China, getting their first shipment in June 2011. By then, the rubber bands had already arrived. He remembers standing with his wife, staring fearfully at the giant crate in their garage: it weighed 2, 000 pounds, as much as a small car.
他花了六個月時間改進設計。（目前店鋪內銷售的是第28代。）然後他開始在中國南方省份尋找供應商，並於2011年6月拿到了第一批貨。當時，橡皮筋早已到貨。他還記得當時與妻子站在車庫裡，忐忑不安地看著那個巨大的板條箱：箱子有2,000磅重，相當於一輛小汽車的重量。

Sales were glacially slow at first. He went to trade shows and children's camps to show off the plastic loom. When Ng went to pitch store managers in person, he was often asked to leave.
最初的銷售非常緩慢。他去參加貿易展和兒童夏令營，推銷自己的塑料編織機。那時，吳昌俊親自去商店推銷，但卻經常被店鋪經理轟走。

That changed after a single store in The Learning Express Toys chain picked up Ng's invention in July 2012. The shop, in Alpharetta, Georgia, offered bracelet-making classes to show off what could be done with the inexpensive loom. "Suddenly, they were calling us, saying they sold out 24 products in one week, " says Ng. "Then they sold out 96 pieces within a week." Then, when kids started taking their kits to school, good old network effects kicked in.
2012年7月，他終於迎來了轉折點。當時The Learning Express Toys連鎖店的一家店鋪看中了吳昌俊的發明。這家位於喬治亞州阿爾勒特的店鋪專門推出了手鏈編織課，介紹這款廉價織機的功能。吳昌俊說：“突然，他們給我打電話說，一週賣了24件。後來，一週賣了96件。”接下來，孩子們開始帶著織機來到學校，於是網路效應開始發揮作用。

By October, Ng realized that something big was happening. In the run up to Christmas, demand soared. "Lots of orders were coming and we were trying to get help left right and center," says Ng, who was still assembling the kits at home with the help of his family.
到了十月份，吳昌俊預感到即將有大事發生。隨著聖誕節的來臨，產品需求激增。吳昌俊說：“大批訂單蜂擁而至，我們只能盡力找人幫忙。”說話的時候，他正在家人的幫助下，忙著組裝產品。

He'd taken a three-month sabbatical from Nissan, but by then it was clear he was never going back.
他從日產公司請了三個月的假，但很明顯，他已經不可能回去了。

Newfound wealth hasn't stopped him from working around the clock, he says, a bit ruefully. "My daughters sometime miss the old days when I spent lots of time with them." Ng still drives his 12-year-old SUV and his wife regularly clips coupons. All of their profits, meanwhile, get reinvested into the business as the family searches for the next killer rubber-band app.
他有點傷心地表示，新得到的財富並沒有改變他日以繼夜工作的狀態。“我的女兒們有時候會懷念以前的日子，那時候我有很多時間陪她們。”吳昌俊仍開著那輛陪了他12年的SUV，他的太太依然使用優惠券。他們的所有利潤都投入到公司當中，全家正在尋找下一個殺手級的橡皮筋產品。

Maybe maps, Ng says. Again, it was his daughter Teresa who showed him the way—after making a colorful elastic map of the island nation of Haiti.
或許是地圖，吳昌俊說道。這一次還是特蕾莎給了他靈感——特蕾莎用五顏六色的橡皮筋做了一幅島國海地的地圖。

Hey, it might work. Map-making, after all, is an even older craft than weaving.
這或許真的可行。畢竟，製作地圖是比編織更古老的一門手藝。