The Curious Case of Common Craft

What would you think if you heard the phrase “You’ve got some explaining to do!” ? Something like “Oh, no #%#&!” maybe...Well not for Lee LeFever and his wife Sachi, owners of the Seattle based company called Common Craft. They thought “What a great business idea!”.
Common Craft was founded in 2003 as a consulting company, but in 2007 the LeFever couple began making videos explaining certain tools and trends emerging online, like RSS, wikis, and social bookmarking “in plain English”. They tried using white boards and other methods, but the result was boring and disappointing - until Sachi thought to put the white board on the ground, cut out some simple cartoon figures and use a stop motion method of animation. The Common Craft Show was born. The unique paper-and-whiteboard format quickly attracted the attention of bloggers, as well as innovative businesses. Today, their voice is been heard by millions of people around the world, making strange new applications feel easy to use and offering some of the clearest explanations of how the Internet is changing.

The company is activated in the field of e-learning and e-training. As stated on their website, they place themselves in the business of “Explanation”. They visualize their lessons in a simple and fun way, that addresses everyone from a curious 6-year old to a preoccupied CEO…The company’s business model (see table for more details) was built upon this inspirational and innovative style of giving lessons and then expanded by having quick response times to market changes and identifying opportunities. All of Common Craft content can be freely shared on-line. The company’s revenue stream is based on the licensing of their high-quality, downloadable versions of the explanatory videos to individuals or corporations. The website and the videos are ad-free. Lee and Sachi are the only employees in their business and they want to keep it that way. They also have time to travel all over the world…and blog about it!