About The Brik: Started by a Lost Dorm Key
The Brik is a metal wallet that keeps your cards, ID, cash, keys, and a rechargeable tracking card together in one compact everyday carry. It holds 1 ID in a quick-access front slot and 7-8 cards in an RFID-protected compartment, attaches your keys to an integrated keyring, and can be found from your phone when it goes missing. It's machined from anodized aluminum and sells for $69.99.
The $160 dorm key
The Brik started at Iowa State University, where founder Asray Gopa lost his dorm key and got charged $160 for the replacement. The problem wasn't carelessness, it was carrying three separate things: a wallet somewhere in a backpack, an ID loose in a phone case, and keys on a bare lanyard.
The first prototype was cut from cardboard in his dorm room: one place for the ID, the cards, the cash, and the key that had just cost him $160. More than 900 people bought the original plastic Brik that grew out of that prototype.
Four years later: the Metal Brik
Today's Brik keeps the same layout that worked in cardboard, machined from solid anodized aluminum: ID in front, cards in the middle, cash in the back, keys on the integrated keyring. And because the original problem was losing things, every Metal Brik now ships with a rechargeable tracking card, so the wallet itself can be rung and located from your phone.
Asray graduated from Iowa State with a degree in Computer Science and runs The Brik from Ames, Iowa, alongside other startup ventures, hackathons, and entrepreneurial competitions.
Story time, from the founder
Asray tells the whole thing on camera: the lost key, the fee, and the wallet that came out of it.