I’ll be talking a little bit about the Blendtec company history in this article. My plan is to write a basic overview of how it was started and what they’ve been able to accomplish over the years. This will give you some insight about them, especially if you have no idea what the company has been doing . I’ll start by telling you that Blendtec was founded in 1975 by Tom Dickson, an inventor that is still inventing products at the company to this day. Apparently Tom loved sticking large motors into small machines. When he was first starting out he wanted to test the power of his blenders. You’d likely never guess how he chose to do that. He stuck 2×2 boards of wood into them and ground them up!
It’s important to note that Tom Dickson also happens to be the host of the very popular viral marketing campaign on YouTube called “Will It Blend?“. Which is a collection of short episodes where the Blendtec blenders are put to a wide variety of tests; grinding popular items such as the latest iPhones or iPads for instance. It’s been extremely successful for them and Tom Dickson has stated they’ve seen a boost in consumer sales, which they attribute directly to the videos.
I’ve mentioned this before but Blendtec is another company that is forward-thinking and modern in their execution. In fact, I believe Blendtec is currently making more advancements in blender technology than any other blender company. They’ve really been pushing technology into their blenders, including touch-sensitive interfaces and more. It’s getting to the point where I’d call them “smart blenders”, especially with them having automatic controls on-board. You can now add ingredients, press a button, and the blenders intelligently handle the blending process. I can only imagine what type of features will be coming in the future. Being able to start your blender from a smartphone app? It may sound crazy but if any company was going to offer that, it’d likely be Blendtec. Other companies can’t stand still while their competitors are constantly advancing their machines to be more convenient.
The company has been around for awhile, but it’s only been the past few years that their products have really become mainstream. It could be due in part to their “Will it Blend?” viral campaign or just from there being more people looking into new ways of being healthier. Blendtec offers a good variety of blender types and accessories, many of which have been patented. Which is something Blendtec has had to defend in the past. They sued their competitor Vitamix in 2006 for infringing on their Wild Side jar container. The design was almost an exact copy so they felt they had to protect their invention. Blendtec ended up winning that legal battle against Vitamix to the tune of $24 million dollars. While Vitamix is also a great company, it’s unfortunate when intellectual properties are threatened. Innovation is a reason people choose certain products over others. Now we look towards the future, the company is constantly trying new ideas and I’m anxiously awaiting to see what products come out.
