Inspiring story of a young Irish designer who made a self-setting rubbery material that can be used by anyone to augment a wide variety of objects. It took YEARS of persistence and learning new skills to achieve her vision of creativity and the power of making!

I'm inspired by her persistence, too:

We ran out of funding in 2008 because it had taken longer to develop the materials than we thought and the business model looked like it wasn’t going to work. That was kinda crap because I had spent more than four years on this project and it was uncertain whether or not it was going to happen. Then I got a really good piece of advice from a friend of mine—actually, it was the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten and I tell it to everyone. It is, “Start small and make it good.” That’s what I decided to do.

With the help of my friends, I gained the confidence I needed. They convinced me that if we put sugru online, we could do something really cool with it. They helped me believe that we could grow the brand ourselves without the help of a big company or distribution. That sounds obvious, but think back to 2008: Twitter was starting be something and Maker Faire was growing, but Kickstarter hadn’t even launched yet. People were just starting to talk about making in that kind of way.

I still like this advice: "Start small and make it good."

Her advice for young people is great.

If you could give a piece of advice to a young person starting out, what would you tell them?

Spend time getting to know yourself and explore the things you’re interested in. You could be passionate about 100 things, but that’s a great problem to have. Learn about what gets you excited and fires you up. Then, find a sense of purpose because if you can find that, it won’t feel like work—this interview is going to be really cheesy.