#HTE

Aerospace Engineer Kills It on Kickstarter With…an Ergonomic Pizza Slicer?

Design entrepreneurs: Here’s more evidence that you can redesign even a humdrum object with better ergonomics, and if it happens to intersect with a hot category–EDC, DIY, home cooking–and you market it correctly, you can have a hit on your hands.

Michael Chou is an aerospace engineer that we covered in 2014, when he designed a more ergonomic ice cream scoop. Called the Midnight Scoop, it was a huge hit on Kickstarter, and he stopped aerospacing and started running Midnight Kitchen Tools to produce and sell them full-time.

Now Chou’s back with the Midnight Slice, a pizza slicer that’s received his ergonomic attention:

It’s true that standard pizza slicers require you to bend your wrist into an uncomfortable position, and that Chou’s design is a clear ergonomic improvement–but I thought, how many people regularly use a pizza slicer?

Apparently a lot. At press time Chou was close to $100,000 in pledges, and there’s still 24 days left in the campaign. (Apparently there are maniacs out there who even use pizza slicers in lieu of kitchen knives, according to comments on the campaign page.) Chou might not crank out fresh designs every year–the Midnight Slice is just his second design–but he’s batting a thousand.