How EHA Came To Be
14.03.20
Maailma- päästmisest loojanguvalguseni
14.03.20
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
-T. S. Eliot
How five high-school students became the creators of design-lightning is quite hazy, even for us. To be honest, none of us could have imagined that a year ago. The road to EHA lamp was long and winding, as the journey began in a whole different direction.
When school began in fall, we all knew we had a big project ahead of us. We were going to create a student company and there was no doubt it had to be great.
Now we just needed an idea that would satisfy our ambitious souls. We quickly started to regret that we hadn’t thought about it earlier. It was then that we first realised how little time we had left to build up a proper company. And it had to be proper – we wanted to give it our all.
At one point we found ourselves negotiating with Estonian restaurants. Wondering why?
Here’s the story – we wanted to create an app that would help keep excess food from going to waste.
THE IDEA WAS:
Service providers
Upload meals that are approaching the realization deadline with a little discount.
App users
Find a suitable offer and buy it quick and cheap through this app.
We thought that everyone would benefit – customers would have received high-quality food cheaper and restaurants would reduce their waste amounts and earn income from food otherwise going into the trash. Similar platforms are gaining popularity all over the world, even our neighbors in Finland are using it. It seemed as if it could have had a place in our market as well.
In reality the restaurants were not fond of the idea and said they would rather sell the foods with full price and throw away the leftovers. The Estonian market wasn’t ready yet. After a few months of hard work we realised it was not sustainable and had to find a new idea.
Time to make a pivot!
Then came October 18. The girls decided to clear their heads and go on holiday to Spain. The boys stayed behind and brainstormed new ideas. And then one day Oliver sent a message:
“Listen! Let’s start making table lamps – like designer ones”
And then it all started. The first meeting took place at the airport cafe right after the girls landed. We searched the internet for inspiration and set up an initial design. There and then also came the idea to make a lamp without a cord – we wanted to do something a little more innovative and the thought of a cordless lamp seemed intriguing.
The only thing left was to put our ideas together and develop the cordless wooden lamp.
Fortunately we happened to have a team with people who knew about carpentry and electronics. Otherwise the idea would have been difficult to execute. There wasn’t time for a very thorough market analysis – we interviewed people about what an ideal lamp would be like and quickly analysed the market and alternative products.
The road to the EHA lamp was long and winding, but definitely worth the hassle.