Grand Rapids, Mich.-based manufacturer OXX has launched a campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to bring a more rugged coffee machine to the market. If the company meets its $50,000 fund-raising goal by the end of 2014, OXX will begin mass production on the CoffeeBoxx, a lightweight yet durable coffee brewer built to survive the rough conditions of construction sites.
"The inspiration for CoffeeBoxx came when I started noticing construction crews in our neighborhood using beaten-up coffeemakers on jobsites," says OXX CEO and founder Jim Doan. At the time, Doan was a design manager at Whirlpool, and he didn't think the idea would be a good fit for the home-focused brand. So, he decided to build it himself.