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Crowdfunding Smash: A $50, 10x13 Steel Plate Lands $1 Million and Counting

The latest crowdfunding smash on Kickstarter may also be the simplest object ever sold on the platform. The Misen Oven Plate is just a 10" x 13.5", 6mm-thick piece of steel with rounded corners. And it just shot past the $1-million mark.

Cooking utensil company Misen says that your average oven fluctuates wildly in temperature, exposing its contents to a rollercoaster of temperatures that can yield inconsistent results.

So, Misen says, they’ve borrowed a trick from pro chefs to even out the temperature, which is to merely add a steel plate below (and/or above) the dish being cooked.

I don’t doubt (much) that the plate might be useful; it’s just sobering, as someone trained in industrial design, to see a product with almost no design applied to it achieve such wild success. The campaign was seeking just $25,000, and they’re now 4,000%-plus funded, with 27 days left to pledge.

The plates run 50 bucks a pop, or 80 for a pair.