© University of Rochester 1996-2012
Imagination, energy, and a gooey toy are helping Aaron Muderick ’98 find success with a decidedly different view of business.
“The business model is to in general make people happy, so that I can feel like I’m doing something good in the world,” says the president of Crazy Aaron’s Puttyworld.
Sound crazy? Not really. Crazy Aaron’s main product, “Thinking Putty,” has been twisted, squashed, stretched, rolled, bounced, ripped, and shattered in over 30 countries. Muderick won’t state the company’s exact value, but says it’s “in the seven-figure mark.”
Thinking Putty was born in 1998 when Muderick, who majored in computer science at Rochester, was working as a software engineer.
“I can admit now that I was more interested in accumulating desk toys than I was in actually doing software engineering,” he says. One of his toys was a big ball of Silly Putty, the elastic blob of silicone that has been marketed as a toy since its development as a potential substitute for rubber during World War II. Muderick fiddled with Silly Putty while his programs compiled.
Playful coworkers broke off little pieces of the ball for themselves, until Muderick brought his friends together to order 100 pounds of the stuff. As the toy’s popularity grew in the office, Muderick came up with the idea to make his own kind of putty toy. He researched the chemical properties of silicon-based putties, and of the putty toys on the market. Aiming for the kind of nontoxic product that would appeal to adults, Muderick soon was turning out batches of his own type of putty in his parents’ basement. The new toy took his office by storm.
“I had a box under my desk with the different colors I would manufacture in small batches,” Muderick says. Other employees came to him for pounds of putty in the colors they desired. “I would take out a scale and I would weigh it out, and go back to work.” He made his first profitable sale on Dec. 6, 1998.
As he watched Muderick dispensing his putty, the inventor’s project manager jokingly called him “crazy Aaron,” and drew a cartoon of him on a note. Muderick took the name for his company and the sketch as its logo.
Business grew, until the successful software engineer realized it was time to leave the corporate world. In 2002, Muderick and his wife, Elizabeth, left their full-time jobs to run the company, which is located in their home outside of Philadelphia.
Today, Crazy Aaron’s offers nearly 30 colors and types of Thinking Putty, according to the company’s Web site. Muderick created them all.
“I try to come up with in my mind what would be really, really awesome, then pare back based on the laws of physics,” he says. The company even makes “Super Magnetic” Thinking Putty, a version that’s infused with magnetic particles. Placed near a powerful magnet, the toy stretches toward the magnet.
Crazy Aaron’s markets Thinking Putty as an office toy, as promotional merchandise, and as a stress reducer. The putty is produced at a Philadelphia-area sheltered workshop, where 90 people with special needs manufacture, package, and ship the toy.
As his company has become successful, Muderick has shared some of the lessons he’s learned with other entrepreneurs. About two years ago, Jesse Weisz ’99, conceived of starting a tour company that would guide teachers on visits to foreign lands and provide them instructional materials that they could use back in their classrooms. Weisz turned to Muderick for the business expertise to make the project work.
“I respect his expertise, and the breadth of his knowledge is really impressive,” Weisz says of his friend. “He just knows about how a lot of things work.”
Muderick joined the project, and the two eventually formed the nonprofit Global Exploration for Educators Organization. Last summer, the all-volunteer organization ran two-week educational tours to Peru and India for 47 teachers. Weisz, who also runs his own consulting firm full time, is the organization’s president, and Muderick is its treasurer. The company operates out of Crazy Aaron’s offices.
In his spare time, Muderick enjoys his time with his wife and their two small children, and also restores old cameras, explores caves, and follows his many other interests. And while he sees potential future markets for his invention, including possibilities in the mental health and dental fields, when he speaks of Thinking Putty, he often returns to his original goal.
“I really feel like I’m putting some smiles on people,” he says.
Mike Costanza ’89 (MA) is a Rochester-based freelance writer
© University of Rochester 1996-2012