summer 2012

LEFT: A LOOK AT QUIYK'S PRODUCTION PROCESS. RIGHT: ERIC WAHL, NADAV SWARTTZ, AND MATT LOWE. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF QUIYK.COM)asked this before, when would you considerwas the official “founding” of Quiyk? Howlong would you say you’ve been in operationfor?Matt: Well we’ve “technically” beenin business since November when welaunched at the World Cup in NYC. ButEric and I have had a business license forQuiyk since the beginning of our sophomoreyear, or end of the summer afterfreshman year.Abbie: The World Cup was when youbasically revealed your snitch uniform andyour Emerson College quidditch uniforms.What kind of reaction was there from thequidditch community? Have you had otherteams approach you about making theiruniforms too?Matt: We have, and we’re still currentlyin contact with teams about uniforms. Thebiggest hurdle is a team being able to afforduniforms. We’re doing our very bestto price things at a level where teams canafford them, but customizing small runs ofproduct isn’t cheap (especially in the US),so we’re continuing to try to find a happymedium. We’ve found some new ways thatwe think are going to work well and weplan to release that at the end of the summerin time to prep for the fall season.Abbie: Very exciting! Could you talkabout the entrepreneurship award you receivedfrom Emerson recently? (The EmersonExperience in Entrepreneurship, or E3,program holds an Expo at the end of theyear to highlight student projects.)Nadav: We were lucky enough to win theE3 Expo this year. There were a bunch ofawesome startups so we were really happyto be able to win since the competition wasso tough. We ended up winning the prizethat E3 gave out as well as a lot of localpress, which was great.Abbie: What kinds of effects do youthink winning the E3 Expo will have onthe company?Nadav: Well I think first of all, it givesus great credibility to be able to say we wonthis kind of competition. And then theprize money will help us launch a few newefforts that we’re excited about. And thepress has been awesome. The press has beengreat to us and they’re very excited aboutwhat we’re doing and we’re grateful for it.Abbie: That’s great—congratulations bythe way!Nadav: Thank you!Matt: [The E3 program] was also a greatlearning experience. We learned a lot andhope to take the lessons we learned into thereal world to further Quiyk.Abbie: Okay, I know I’ve taken up moretime than I promised, but one final questionfor you all (and I’m cheating becauseit’s a two-parter): What kind of an effecthas starting this company had on each ofyou, and where do you see it going in thenext few years?Matt: First and foremost: It’s just fun. It’sfun to be doing this with my best friends;it’s fun to create, to think differently, to dosomething new. It’s fun to do this for thequidditch community, to help bring themrecognition, and to rethink athletic apparelfor an alternative sport such as quidditch.Owning and running a business is fun, andbeing able to do what you want to do andsee people embrace what you’ve created andsupport your product is pretty amazing.Eric: For me, along spending time withfriends, it’s been an incredible learning experience.We’ve done a lot of things thatcannot be replicated in the classroom.Nadav: I want to echo pretty much everythingthey both said, and just add thatI’ve always known I’ve wanted to run abusiness in one form or another, and havingthe chance to be part of that is simplyawesome. There’s nothing like it and mostimportantly, like Matt said, it’s just a lot offun.Eric: The fact that we have developedthis from the ground up means we havebeen responsible for every aspect of growth.From marketing, to accounting, to sales.Matt: Word. It’s cool to know that we’reresponsible for every aspect of this company,and everything that Quiyk has doneso far has been by us (and the support ofthe quidditch community). As far as wherewe see it going...we wholeheartedly plan tocontinue this for as long as we can. Obviouslythe future is going to call for expansion,but we definitely want to take this asfar as we can while we are still in collegeand beyond.Nadav: Also, I think we need to give theIQA a huge shout out because they’ve beenreally helpful for us and have given us lotsof opportunities.Matt: Definitely.Keep your eyes peeled for more news andnew gear from Quiyk in the future. To buytheir apparel or to learn more about Quiyk,go to www.quiyk.com. nAbbie Rickard is a former chaser for Emerson College, where she graduated in December 2010. She now lives in the Bay Area where she works at astart-up (duh) and is starting to become acclimated with the Best Coast quidditch scene.Quidditch Quarterly • Summer 2012 51