As people get more and more used to paying for small transactions with credit cards, one group in particular seems to be losing out—baristas. At least that’s what Ryder Kessler noticed in 2008 while using plastic at a favorite coffee shop with a noticeably empty tip jar. A (miserable) barista explained that the rise of credit card payments had meant the decline of cash tips. “That struck me as a huge problem for everyone involved,” Kessler says. “The employees were working just as hard and making less money, the store was losing out on incentives for good service, and customers like me who liked the convenience of paying with plastic had no way to tip. I thought that the simplicity of a cash tip jar—just drop your dollar bill in—should have a credit card equivalent. That’s how the idea for DipJar was born.”
DipJar is exactly what it sounds like, a small aluminum jar with a built-in credit card reader that deducts one dollar per swipe. But realizing the simple device has taken several years. After graduating from Columbia University with a master’s in English, Kessler let the idea for DipJar germinate in the back of his mind for a few years as he took jobs at start-ups and gleaned knowledge in how to build companies and ship products. Only then did he set about bringing his idea to production. Skimming websites, Kessler found the portfolio of Simon Enever, an industrial designer based in New York whose work matched the mental image Kessler had for the product. [Ed. Note: We’ve covered Enever’s work before, most recently in an in-depth case study about designing a better toothbrush.] Together, they worked through various ideas for the design until they felt confident putting it into production.
The design evolution, from sketch to the first-generation unit now being tested in the field.
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