The Origins of Skynova
In 2009, Skynova’s founders were on separate paths, following different career trajectories. Ken
Tomita was a self-employed designer and builder of contemporary Japanese-inspired furniture. Joe
Mansfield was running a small e-commerce business making and selling laser-engraved notebooks
online. They met when Ken moved from his tumbledown workshop to a slightly less decrepit space
situated directly across the street from Joe’s house.
As makers and small business owners, Ken and Joe shared a common bond. In their late twenties, they were just
as happy to talk about potential projects as they were to finish current ones. They discussed their dream projects
over extended lunches, and when the weather permitted, tossed an old football back and forth across the street.
Elsewhere in the world, the iPhone 3GS was released.
Following the unveiling, Joe told Ken that he thought there was major potential in making and selling a phone
case composed of natural materials that focused on a high level of craft while being accessible to a large consumer
audience. He was so convinced that he made many serious pitches to milling shops around Portland, only to be
rejected by every last one. The product would be too complex, too small, too hard to machine. Instead of taking
that as a sign, they had a brilliant idea: They’d just do it themselves, investing everything they had in equipment
they knew nothing about. What did they have to lose?
Don’t Look Down
In lieu of thinking ahead, of business plans and metrics, they opted for hitting the ground running. The central
focus was simply on making the thing, what-if’s be damned.
To make their case available on a large enough scale, they’d have to employ a CNC mill (a computer-controlled
tool capable of reproducing finely detailed cuts). While they knew it could do intricate work, what they didn’t know
was how to operate one. But, in keeping with their the-hell-with-it attitude, Ken took out a loan and bought a CNC
mill outright, christening it “Rusty”. They figured they’d just learn it as they went along.
An industrial CNC mill is a serious piece of machinery. Rusty is about the size of a small Airstream trailer, and its
instruction manual spans two-hundred mind-boggling pages that initially proved to be more mystery than anything
else. In need of help, they hired two new hands: Their friend and CNC-master, Rizzo, to walk them through the
ins and outs of the new tool; and Ken’s younger brother Yuji, a wiz-kid programmer.
For the next nine months, Rizzo mentored Yuji on the mill, Ken took the lead with fabrication, and
Joe pursued all possible marketing avenues while figuring out how his laser cutter could expedite the
manufacturing process. This time was fraught with difficulty. The mill was as much Pandora’s Box as helpful gizmo and the
case itself was an enigma due to the rounded geometry of the iPhone 3GS. Still, having gone all-in, there
was no choice but to forge ahead.