New startup Infectious wants to satisfy that urge that we all undoubtedly have to spice up our car a little. Make it unique. Express our personality. Etc. Founder Tim Roberts, who was part of the founding Twitter team, says that your car is the most visible social product you own, but it is also the least expressive.
Infectious sells specially designed vinyl stickers that can survive up to two years through car washes, the desert sun and Canadian winters, no problem. And when you want to take the stickers off because your friends won’t go near your car (or you need to sell it), you just blow a hair dryer on it for a few seconds and start peeling – your paint job won’t be affected. This is the same stuff they use to put advertisments on taxies and busses.
You can purchase one small sticker (see TechCrunch writer Mark Hendrickson applying one to his car in the video below) or get stickers that cover the entire car. All of the designs are done by artists, who are paid for their work in exchange for granting exclusive licensing rights to print on vinyl. The artists retains all other rights. Eventually, Roberts says, users will likely have the ability to upload their own art and turn it into a product that they and/or others can buy.
Infectious stickers don’t really compete with bumper stickers. It’s for people who may hire and artist to design art for a car and then get a custom paint job. These projects can easily run into the thousands of dollars, and aren’t reversible, so few people do it. Infectious wants to broaden that market to people who may do this on a whim, and then remove or change it later.
The company raised a small round of funding last year from True Ventures. They are entering private beta today and plan to open up to all some time this summer. If you’d like to get in now, the first 100 people to email techcrunch@infectious.com will be given beta accounts and a 20% discount on all stickers.
Here are two videos. The first is Roberts showing us his car with Infectious stickers. The second is our Mark Hendrickson bravely applying one of these to his own almost new Mazda (thanks to Loren Feldman for doing the video work).
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HENDRICKSON!!!! HAVE YOU GOT THAT INFECTIOUS STICKER UP ON YOUR CAR YET???
Oh the humanity.
hah
@1 priceless. http://www.1938...arrington-show/
this looks to be a good thing and yet a bad thing at the same time… however the concept is something of an untapped market…
Just in time for Fast & Furious 4
Mark you are so hot
Oh. My. Goodness.
Paging Loren Feldman. Please weigh in on this.
Please.
how do you keep people from stealing your artwork?
This would be really cool as a Threadless-esque site, where artists submit their designs and a set of selected designs gets printed each week.
I love Stickers and I love Startups but nothing says Dingleberry more than a S4 with Anime on Acid sticker on the hood!
I think there should be a strict code when it comes to cars that have some kind of pedigree – Miata’s, Elements and Mini’s can have goofy stickers and fuzzy dashes – but cars that require you to wake up to drive need to be shown some respect.
Other than that – good luck with your venture!
Cheers – Eric
Make a small techcrunch logo sticker and I’ll put it on my car.
Woah – People think this looks good? Yuck.
Infectious? God I hope not.
Any more ways to waste money on things one doesn’t need?
Haha… a bit tacky for a car. People who drive these cars should get ticketed for UGLINESS.
The art ain’t bad. Maybe smaller stickers for mp3s/laptops/phones?
Like that old chicken decal that was on the hood of the defunct Pontiac Trans Am or flame decals from the 1950’s? What’s old is new again. But maybe perfect for the 16-25 year old crowd. Match with 20″ rims, blacked out windows and a set of truck nutz and be good to go.
I’m going to guess that all of the negative comments on here come from guys who think that wearing a blue dress shirt and flipflops on casual Fridays is a way to show your funky side.
Customization is where its at people!
Zazzle need acquire this company now!
@17 What?
The folks that decorate their cars are either hippies with bumper stickers or those that have the endless versions of Calvin (of Hobbes fame) pi$$ing on something.
There’s a whole lot of other people besides the blue dress shirt crowd.
@19 Up until now.. bumper stickers, fuzzy dice, and “no fear” decals have been the only ways to express yourself on your car. That is, obviously, changing.
If you want to see where the future is… go to a low rider show… look at what is happening with sneakers… t-shirts… or anything coming out of Japanese youth culture.
Don’t worry, tho, I’m sure Tim will add NFL and college logos soon.. then you’ll have something to put on your bangin’ ride. If I offended you with the blue-shirt statement – I apologize. Baseball caps are funky too.
(sorry, I couldn’t help myself)
Despite the promise that it won’t affect the car’s paint, I think many people – me included – will find this interesting but will not purchase out of concerns that when they try to sell their car they then find that removing the sticker does in fact damage the car’s finish. A potential loss of significant resale value for a short-term cosmetic enhancement. Some will go for it but most will not.
Laguna doesn’t appear to be impressed with Green Bandana Funk and I trust her judgement.
Just looks like a ripoff of buildasign.com to me
that makes cars look tacky, i mean Really tacky.
ibFastandFurious quotes…
ok, fine.
“Torretto! Feds came into my house! Disrespect famiry!”
Will they give cars for free?
@1 LOL ROFL OMGBBQ
@20 Ron Kurti
Japanese youth culture aside – I challenge you to find me a picture of a dube smoking tapeworm on the hood of a 62 Impala
. But you are right there is something to be said about being able to customize your ride.
It would be cool to see how the stickers work and what size they come in – perhaps people will use sponsorship on their car to offset the rising cost of gas.
Cheers – Eric
Terrible idea to leave these on for more than a few weeks/months. Paint on cars fades over time and if you cover up a spot for a year and then take off the sticker you will see a really ugly silhouette.
@28
re: sponsorships.. In Israel, where gas prices have always been as nuts as they are getting here… a lot of corporations lend cars to their employees… and they have the company’s logo decal on them.
Couldn’t find a worm, but I bet the clown on this Impala has a dube somewhere.
http://www.supe.../02/latoon5.jpg
I started and sold a company back in 2000 called MyFreeCar.com
We wrapped cars all over the country for Jamba Juice, Yahoo, Taco Bell, Doritos, Movies, etc, etc and paid people $350 a month to wrap their cars and be brand ambassadors. Wrapped thousands of cars. It was a great feeling to be able to hand over a check every month to single parents and college students who were having a hard time getting by… and all they had to do was drive their normal daily pattern. Over 2M people signed up to participate…
Design: Just like a billboard, car graphic designs can be pretty tacky unless it has great creative in coordination with its surroundings. Special attention needs to be given to the base color of the car and the character of the lines of the car… if not coordinated… chances are the designs will not look good. Ask my wife why all of our vehicles have been black and white… best neutral base colors.. just in case I ever decide to wrap again!
Application: This is where it gets really tricky. It is not as simple as it looks and the larger the graphic, the harder it gets. Air bubbles are common and to get rid of them you usually need to use a razor or pin and then try to squeze them out. 50-60% of the cost of wrapping a car is to hire a professional installer and they are worth it.
Risk to Car: If the paint is in good shape, the only real risk to the car is from using razors to cut / trim the design once it is on the car. This shouldn’t be a huge problem because these are just pre-cut graphics. To avoid potential problems just leave the car in the sun for a couple hours or heat up with a hair dryer before you get started and it will peal right off.
Business Model: There certainly is a market for this with individuals who want to be expressive… but the real money will come from small and medium size businesses that want an easy way to advertise on their fleets and small independents like real estate professionals, etc. The nice thing is that the printing technology and quality has advanced while the prices keep coming down. Only print what you sell. Margins per lm will be great. All Automated. Library of template designs, etc. This can also be used for do-it-yourself store window designs, floor graphics, etc, etc.
Best of luck!
KAP
@30
Close enough to stand corrected and I don’t doubt there are few heaters on the seats of that one! Nice find.
Cheers – Eric
I Like it !!
from the styles it looks like these guys are targeting soccer moms not car guys…too cutesy.
And in regards to: “Infectious stickers don’t really compete with bumper stickers. It’s for people who may hire and artist to design art for a car and then get a custom paint job”
If someone is spending the money to get a custom paintjob, I’ll venture a guess and say that chances are its for a show car. So those people won’t really be looking to save the money to do it half assed, because half the appeal of the custom paint job/air brushed art is that its very hard to do, so they get extra points at car shows.
And its not like this is something new, you could always buy a vinyl kit on eBay for something like 40 bucks. But usually the only people doing it are 16 year old kids who want their mom’s corolla to look like fast and the furious
Look good.. if it comes off. I have vinyl artwork on the side of my car, which is basically perminant.
If I’d had this option, I definitely would have used Infectious instead.
Close enough to stand corrected and I don’t doubt there are few heaters on the seats of that one! Nice find.
from the styles it looks like these guys are targeting soccer moms not car guys…too cutesy.
Terrible idea to leave these on for more than a few weeks/months. Paint on cars fades over time and if you cover up a spot for a year and then take off the sticker you will see a really ugly silhouette.
from the styles it looks like these guys are targeting soccer moms not car guys…too cutesy.
And its not like this is something new, you could always buy a vinyl kit on eBay for something like 40 bucks. But usually the only people doing it are 16 year old kids who want their mom’s corolla to look like fast and the furious
Laguna doesn’t appear to be impressed with Green Bandana Funk and I trust her judgement.
A driver got beaten up for putting putting puerto rican logo on car. Back in 80s, 90s, 2001, 2003. I saw teenagers, white drivers, contruction workers smash puerto rican logo car. It happen in NYC.
They took off flag out.
Not good idea for NY….
mark why does ‘tramp stamp’ come to mind when i look at the back of your car now?
if they need some tight abstract urban artwork checkout http://jasonjenkinslive.com
Creating a new product that turns cars into moving pieces of art. they promise and thats what exactly they do!! Great piece of work on car..
“Customization is where its at people!”
Perhaps, but the way I drive, I’d just as soon prefer that my car stays as blend-into-the-crowd anonymous as possible…
@4
HENDRICKSON!!!! “is that post up yet!!!” ……too funny, that was Priceless..
-I don’t support making fun of people, but I guess every now and then you got to laugh at your self, and that was super funny… (in a nice way)
Anyway back on topic, “I want a TechCrunch.com Infectious sticker for my car, so people know I go to TechCrunch” -if you make it I will wear it…
Come on’ TechCruch let’s make some of these babies and put them out it the wild… and the we can put a little video on seesmic of it on our car.
-feel free to hire me as VP of Marketing….
i like it. good idea. why should everyone have the same looking car?
hey all…
obviously everyone will have an opinion on what they like and what they do not regarding art on cars. this project breaks some pretty big social norms and some people will love it and some will hate it (as demonstrated by comments right here). but i’d rather have a product that provoked passionate reactions amongst people, than a lack of interest.
our initial catalog was designed by about 12 pretty famous illustrators, urban artists and graffiti artists. I think it is pretty far from soccer mom. we’ve got a interesting start… but we’re excited to hear feedback and evolve the catalog once live.
the kits we sell are made of such that the user can lay them out on their own car, setting them up to match the lines and shape of the car. we did a ton of user research on the self install process to determine a max size of any individual piece someone can handle. we are also using a specialized material, which allows for easy air bubble release (meaning popping air bubbles is rare).
there is certainly a large b2b market – but it is one that is already being served in various capacities. we’re out to tap into a market we believe isn’t currently being served: that of personal expression.