Meet Sean Kim – Founder of WOOJ
FEATURED SPEAKER: SEAN KIM
At this year’s Maker Faire Miami, we’re thrilled to welcome Sean Kim, the founder of Wooj, as one of our featured ‘Maker Talks’ speakers. If you’ve ever dreamed of building your own product from the ground up—or doing it all under one roof—you’ll want to hear Sean’s story.
From Brooklyn, With Light (and Sweat)
Wooj is a Brooklyn-based studio known for its beautiful wavy 3D-printed lamps that feel like they were pulled from a designer’s dream—and built with a dash of engineering wizardry. But behind the sleek aesthetics and modern curves is a *tiny* team doing the work of many. Wooj doesn’t just design their products—they manufacture, assemble, and ship every piece straight from their studio. Yes, *every single piece.* The company utilizes a combination of robotics and craft manufacturing techniques to create products at a low cost without exploitative labor. Sean loves 3D printing because it empowers ideas to become physical products in a matter of hours instead of weeks, and eliminates the need for mass production for factories. His Wavy Lamp has become a social media hit.
“We built the whole thing ourselves.”
Sean’s talk, “The Joys and Horrors of Trying To Build The Whole Thing At Once,” is part love letter, part warning, and completely real. It’s about the beauty of designing and building in-house—from custom tools to hands-on prototyping—and the chaos that comes with doing it all at the same time. As Sean puts it, “…there’s deep joy in creative control, but also a creeping horror in the endless to-do lists and never-quite-enough hours in the day.” But it’s this passion and focus on intentional design that led to the success of his products as they found their way from his home studio to the shelves of the MOMA Design Store.
Whether you’re an aspiring maker, a solo entrepreneur, or just someone curious about the behind-the-scenes reality of small-scale manufacturing, Sean’s talk offers a rare peek into the hustle, humor, and heart of running a design studio that chooses to keep things small and scrappy. It also starts the conversation on new models for design, manufacturing, and retail in a time where we find all of these industries rapidly changing.
Why you don’t want to miss this:
– Learn how Wooj scaled their operation while staying hands-on and local
– Get the inside scoop on 3D printing, design iteration, and shipping logistics
– Hear real talk about burnout, balance, and the battle between ambition and capacity
Join us at Maker Faire Miami to hear from Sean and many other incredible makers who are redefining what it means to create, build, and share in today’s world.
Hear his talk live at Maker Faire Miami
Saturday May 3rd, 2025 at 2:00pm
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden – Corbin Building
Tickets and info: miami.makerfaire.com
About WOOJ –
Wooj makes home goods that are built by robots and people in Brooklyn, NY.
At Wooj, we believe that beautiful, fun, enriching things make the world a more interesting place to live in. We seek to create these things and make them available to as many people as possible, utilizing methods that are as harm-reducing as we can manage.
Maker Link: https://miami.makerfaire.com/maker/entry/1526/
Learn More at https://wooj.design/
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