Latest news with #DorrianPorter
Fast Company
27-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
This company had its best quarter ever. Then Trump's tariffs hit
Some small American businesses saw the tariffs much differently. Vestaboard, a five-year-old California startup that makes customizable split-flap displays, looked at the tariffs and decided it had to radically change its business plans. Production of its flagship device, which is manufactured in China and retails for $3,500, was paused, and the company put an indefinite halt on a major R&D effort for a lower-cost product it was banking on to diversify its market. Instead of pursuing an ambitious project, Vestaboard's CEO and founder Dorrian Porter found his 25-person company scrambling to figure out whether it would have to find another country—and a whole new chain of suppliers and factories—where it could get its products built. 'My main thought was, how do I eliminate every risk that's within our control as a business,' Porter says. 'We knew we had to change manufacturers. I couldn't really eliminate that if we wanted to keep making Vestaboard.' But abandoning the R&D effort—a project that aimed to turn Vestaboard's train station-inspired fixed width display boards into a modular system of magnetic 'bits'—still stung. After Trump's Liberation Day pomp, Porter began to think about how he could still keep his company growing. Vestaboard had just come off its biggest quarter ever, with $3.3 million in sales, but the chaotic rollout of Trump's tariffs made Q2 and beyond almost impossible to predict. For a startup like Vestaboard, which is backed by $15 million from about 200 customers-turned-investors, bracing for an economic storm could only last so long.
The Verge
23-05-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Vestaboard's Note is a smaller, cheaper version of its hypnotic split-flap display
The original Vestaboard revived and modernized the split-flap mechanical displays that were once a mainstay of airports and train stations around the world, but at $3,499 it put a steep price on nostalgia. Its creators are back with a new version called the Vestaboard Note that's much smaller and more affordable. It's available for preorder now, starting at $899 – discounted from $1,299 – with deliveries expected to begin in December 2025. The company had spent over a year developing a new version of the Vestaboard called the Smart Bits that was 'a completely new way to experience Vestaboard's patented character units' that also 'pushed the limits of design, engineering, and manufacturing,' according to the company's founder and CEO, Dorrian Porter. But, when faced with economic uncertainty as a result of President Trump's tariffs on Chinese-made goods, the company pivoted and instead created the Note. Functionally, the Note is nearly identical to the original Vestaboard. But instead of using 132 split-flap mechanisms, which the company calls Bits, the Note only features 45. Each can display 64 alphanumeric characters plus other symbols like punctuation, solid colors, and a newly added red heart. The display measures 24.5 inches wide, or 28.4 inches with an optional bezel frame that adds $169 to the full retail pricing. Messages, patterns, and images can be created using a web interface or a free accompanying mobile app for iOS and Android. They're sent to the Note over Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable. In addition to a library of existing designs and inspirational quotes, the app allows messages to be scheduled, sent to other Vestaboard users you're friends with, or even silenced during certain hours of the day. As hypnotic as the sound of over 2,800 spinning flaps may be, you probably don't want the Vestaboard Note waking you up in the middle of the night.
