The Pirates of Pimoroni are one year old today. In my own plundering of their twitter feed I can say that - In their first year they've shipped a staggering 60,000 Pibows going to 60 different countries. To make those they've cut half a million layers (9 slices x 60,000 Pibows for those fact checkers out there) from 14 tonnes of acrylic, packed a mind numbing 250,000 nuts and wrapped the latest 40,000 of them in very handsome retail packaging.
We first met Pimoroni at EMF camp on the first of September last year. Having already seen a few examples of the tasty little case in the wild I was very excited to see one close up. Paul handed me a case and I quickly squirreled it away to appreciate it when I had a quiet moment - not happy with this Paul presented me with another one to open right away and build in front of the small group gathered around. The packaging was laser cut from cardboard and really very lovely - inside was a sheet of A4 with Ikea style instructions and I remember being particularly impressed with the little purple off cut spanner thing.
Paul had a small number of Pibows with him, which he allowed me to sell for him to attract people to my other wares! He then disappeared to enjoy the camp whilst I manned my market stall in the Nottinghack tent, where after a flurry of activity I was once more without Pibows. Paul appeared later with coffee, for which I am eternally grateful. He left with a few bits and bobs, which I believe became the prototype for the Picade. Paul also gained an Adafruit Raspberry Pi Patch from us, he did attempt to purchase it but it would have been a bit off since he designed the logo!
I don't think I've shared this photo before, because if you look closely there is a big booger on Paul's left nostril.
Since then we've seen the explosion of Pimoroni - a staggering 4% of all Raspberry Pis are thought to be clad in one of the variants of the Pibow. With one of them even making the cover or Wired Magazine in the UK.
I have to say that setting up next to them at the UK Maker Faire was somewhat intimidating - with their wall of stock and massive success in their sails (sic) - but ever the gentlemen they were great neighbors and even sent us back with some stock at a great rate!
I think that's part of the success of Pimoroni, they've got great products and have worked exceptionally hard (if you have a laser cutter try manning it constantly for a few days!) but they've always been good to those around them.
What's next for Pimoroni then? Well I don't know, they won't tell me, but it involves a pick and place and a wave soldering machine... watch this space.