The co-founders of Jaswig aren’t just co-workers, they’re also a group of friends. They have been traveling together for the last couple of years. During their travels they have been brainstorming about possible ideas and products. The result of all this was the creation of Jaswig. In the beginning they were able fund the company themselves. They were with a group of 8 people at the start so every one of them only had to put down a relatively small amount of money to get things started. Later they started a crowd funding campaign and earned more then 70,000 $. But the extra publicity that came with the crowd funding campaign was far more valuable.

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Jaswig could be best described as a group of young entrepreneurs that want to business in a different way. The company itself wants to support the on-going change that is currently happening in the general work environment.

Simplicity, Community and Responsibility.

Business Model

Jaswig sells height-adjustable desks. They are the ones who designed desk, but they don’t handle the production of the desks. By designing a model that can be produced through CNC-technology, they are able to outsource their production to anywhere they want. CNC-technology is used all around the globe so they are able to produce where they sell, this way logistical costs are kept low. Another benefit from their local production strategy is that they are able to incorporate this philosophy into their marketing.

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They are targeting the homeworker market by selling their desks online. It’s still the companies that those homeworkers work that have to pay for the desk, but they have to convince the employees first so that they can communicate the demand for a standing desk to their companies. It’s also interesting that they do not use a middleman to distribute their products, everything is sold online through their web shop. By producing locally they can have it delivered by the producer without using a distributor.

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There are several USP’s that help Jaswig sell their desks. First of all, the design is quite stunning. It’s also sold at an affordable price. A lot of standing desks are priced higher then the standing desks Jaswig offer. Especially for the electrical desks the prices are very steep and often exceed 1000€. But one of their main USP’s is that they build the standing desk using the advice of doctors and ergonomists. Which resulted in the inclusion of a footrest in the design. This puts the back of the user in certain position where there is minimal strain.

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By selling their product through online web shops and hereby eliminating the middleman (or distributor in this case) they are able to sell the product at an affordable price while retaining a relatively high margin.

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Jaswig did not have financial aid (except for the crowd funding campaign), but they are affiliated with an incubator: Start it @KBC. They helped Jaswig by mentoring them, by offering locations to work, organizing events, giving them lessons and much more. But mainly they offer a gigantic network, which can prove to be very valuable.

Growth

The sales figures haven’t grown a lot since they started, because they have been optimizing the logistical and production processes. Now that they are able to produce and deliver their desks at a relatively low cost they will be focussing on sales.

Customers

The targeted customer is the homeworker. This doesn’t mean that they only target people that only work at home. A lot of companies are offering the possibility to its employees to work at home for 1 or 2 days each week. Also independent workers are potential customers for Jaswig.

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Jaswig has currently a customer satisfaction rate of more than 85%. Which proves that the concept of the standing desk is popular among its users. But the concept itself is still not known to the greater public. In comparison to the European market, the market of the US is a couple of years ahead. The standing desk is already incorporated in many large companies.

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Jaswig did receive a lot of publicity thanks to their kickstarter campaign. They were featured in numerous articles and even made the news in the United States, Japan and other countries.

Competitors

Their indirect competition is basically classical desks. The older generations are less willing to change their working habits, because they have been working on a traditional desk during their whole life. So it’s Jaswig’s task to convince the older generations to change the work environment.

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There are not that much direct competitors. Ikea has a standing desk, but according to Henri Jaswig offers the best standing desks in Belgium. Why? Because they very simple height-adjustable system and a sleek design. The price of the item is also very affordable.

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In the United States they have a lot of direct competitors. The standing desk market is the next stage there and therefore a lot of companies offer a similar product. Their main selling points there will be their design and the price.

Conclusion

One opportunity for Jaswig is that they think that could sell their desks on a large scale without using distributors. So by using their web shop as their main selling point they would try to sell their products and obtain high margins. Secondly according to Henri it is the right time to sell standing desks, the market is ready for it.

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One of the threats to the company is that they are going to start paying salaries to the employees. Which results in a higher cost, so they will have to make a certain amount of sales if they want to survive. Another threat is that a larger player like Ikea starts selling standing desks with a good-looking design at very low prices. Jaswig will never be able to offer the same price like for example Ikea.

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Henri advises starting entrepreneurs to have a complementary team that is motivated to put in a lot of time into the project. Also, give your company some time to grow.

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An obstacle for Jaswig during their development was that there was some friction between the team members from time to time. Which is normal according to Henri, when you work together it is bound to happen that discussions arise. It’s important to learn from these discussions and move on. Another obstacle was getting funding at the beginning. They were struggling and eventually they decided to start a kickstarter campaign, which became a success.

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Jaswig would like to get their sales up in the short term without using a distributor. They would like to grow quickly the next couple of years now that there production process is optimized.

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Posted on 18/05/2016