Page 37 - CTI84_EN

C

Making the most of each country’s strengths his own understanding too about a product’s country
of origin. He believes that the country of origin of a
Taking user feedback and pain points as a Melbourne, known as the coffee capital of the world, product by itself is largely irrelevant in the grand
source of innovation is the starting place of OPTION-O. The team members’ life scheme of things. What they want to focus on doing
experience in Australia allows them to form a better under- instead is to manufacture excellent products to help
2 years of constant development
standing of good coffee experience as they are already their customers make better coffee, and that goal is
coffee enthusiasts. Coupled with the feedback from local irrespective of where they are located, whether in
Development of a new product often involves the users, the team gain a better understanding of the require- Melbourne, China, or any other country. By the end
process of multiple iterations, trial and error, as well ments of a high-quality grinder. of February 2022, more than 2,000 people are discuss-
as further refinement through end user feedback. As Later, due to the demand of product manufactur- ing OPTION-O’s products on forums, and recent dis-
coffee enthusiasts, OPTION-O started out with some ing, Brook had returned to China as there are mature cussions have been more focused on the usage expe-
ideas based on the common pain points typically en- industry supply chain and factories in the southern rience of the products themselves. On crowdfunding
countered by home users. The ideas were then con- Chinese city of Shenzhen, as well as well-built net- platforms like Kickstarter, many products have also
ceptualized into a prototype product as a proof of works of international logistics. In 2021, OPTION-O started using OPTION-O’s products as a benchmark to
concept, before being finally put into production. entered the Chinese market and launched its products attract more buyers, once again proving the country
However, this is not the end of the journey. From 2016 on the e-commerce platforms, Taobao and Tmall. of origin of a product does not matter that much.
to 2018, the OPTION-O team went through the process “Back to coffee itself, I believe that if a coffee
of grinder development and product testing in the Addressing the doubts is of high quality, people all over the world, no mat-
background. There were many challenges in the pro- ter where they are, will find it tasty too, just like
cess. However, the more difficult challenge unexpect- In 2019, co-founder Hayden responded to a series Geisha Coffee. Similarly, a well-built coffee grinder
edly came from outside of designing the grinder. A of questions about the product on the coffee forums will perform a good job irrespective of the country
highly function-focused product such as OPTION-O’s KAFFEE-NETZ.de and Home-Barista.com, including a of the origin.” Brook said. By now, markets in more
requires a high degree of coordination between design negative discussion about the “Made in China” label. than 9 countries have chosen OPTION-O’s products
and production, which meant the production require- In 2022, Brook addressed the issue again, giving and multiple local distributors have been appointed
ment also needs to work well within suppliers’ exist- a similar response as Hayden in 2019, “It’s not that to facilitate a direct local customer service. In China,
ing process. They often had in-depth and repeated China can’t make good stuff, it just depends on who’s some specialty cafes had also set up grinder-focused
discussions with suppliers due to their tight require- executing it.” After 3 years, we can verify that the experience activities surrounding the LAGOM grind-
ment for part quality (low tolerance) but also low “Made in China” label is not that important. Brook has er series.
production volume in the beginning.
After the prototyping process was completed,
they first sent it to coffee enthusiasts to get actual
user experience and then made further improvements
from there. LAGOM P64 is the first product launched
by OPTION-O from the ground up, and is also one that
Brook, considers to be the most cost-effective and
successful. Before LAGOM P64 was launched, the team
had also made other attempts, with hand grinder REMI
being one of them. Although the market for electric
grinders is bigger compared to the hand grinder mar-
ket, a hand grinder can still be a compelling option
and is more convenient in certain cases of application
such as for low-duty home use or camping. REMI is
also designed with the same standards used to create
the LAGOM series, aiming to achieve a balance be-
tween price and quality.
After LAGOM P64 was recognized by the market,
OPTION-O continued to launch LAGOM Mini, LAGOM
P100, and updated REMI, to meet consumer needs of
different segments often based upon user feedback. At
the same time, the company also did some co-branding
activities to increase its outreach to potential users.

36 37