Society & Culture
Chances are you've seen an emoji pillow before, but did you ever wonder who came up with the idea? Roberto Hoyos is that person. Before emojis even became a thing, Roberto's company Throwboy was making a pillow version of your favorite emoji.Everything was going great for Roberto's emoji pillows until he found himself competing with cheap, low-quality knock offs that were seemingly everywhere. What followed was a period of hurt and lessons learned for Roberto.In this episode of the Ignite Seattle Podcast, I speak with Roberto about his talk "Retiring My Best Idea - Emoji Pillows." We talk about why he gave up on emoji pillows, what it's like to be a man that sews for a living, and whether there are any perks to being the guy that came up with emoji pillows.