KASEY Hou set up her repairable flatpack toaster business, Pivoke, to tackle the growing problem of e-waste as part of a student project when she was studying at Edinburgh University. Hou plans to expand the business to include other repairable kitchen products in the next few years.

Name: Kasey Hou
Age: 37
Position: Founder

WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?

Pivoke

WHERE IS IT BASED?

Edinburgh

WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?

IT started as a graduation project. I was a project design student at Edinburgh University two years ago. What we have currently is a prototype. After graduating in July 2017 I took it a step further and set up a business related to repairable kitchen products.

I set up a website to showcase the prototype but it is far away from a real product.

I tried to get more funding to do product development because the prototype was not safe so I had to modify the product.

I applied for Scottish Enterprise funding, the Scottish EDGE competition and an accelerator programme called Converge Challenge.

I also got accepted into a programme called Climate-KIC.

The procedure to repair the current prototype is not user friendly so it needs modified. We want it to be really easy for people to change parts. Repairing is more about replacing parts and there will be detailed instructions on how to do this.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?

THE closest competing business is a toaster brand called Dualit. Some models they sell are repairable but I spoke to people who have had a bad experience of repairing Dualit toasters and said it is not easy to do. They intend for people to look for an electrician to repair it instead of the user.

WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?

I HAD to do market research to find out the target customer. I visited some local repair shops to ask their opinion. We want to tap into the green market.

The target customer is eco-conscious consumers, people who care about the environment and buy green products.

I spoke to these people and they said they hate to throw away broken things and try to repair them first.

If they can’t fix them they will try to recycle them.

They were interested in my toaster as it is repairable.

Another market is people who like to DIY things. Some of the target consumers might care about the environment and DIY but there is usually a priority over what they care about most.

ARE PEOPLE BECOMING MORE AWARE OF ELECTRONIC WASTE?

I THINK so but when we speak about how to make electronic appliances more sustainable people think in terms of energy use.

The business is about environmental sustainability.

E-waste is big and we must do something about it.

In electronics the recycling rate is very low – less than 20% of electronic products are recycled and that means 80% still goes to landfill.

I thought maybe we could use repair as one of the solutions. I am not saying recycling is bad but people should try different solutions first.

WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS’ TIME?

IN 10 years I imagine the plan is to have other kinds of kitchen appliances in the line.

We also hope to expand to other countries in Europe and the US because they have a much bigger market for repairable kitchen products. We also want to challenge the way a business can be run. We want a sustainable business model.

One option could be to sell products as a service model – people rent products instead of buying it.

We’re at the beginning and the business is at an early stage so we will start simple and then evolve and explore different possibilities.

I have supervisors to give me some opinions and in two to three months’ time I will have to hire employees.

Things will happen after one year. I want to focus on product design and development first.

When we have a working prototype, we will use it to launch a crowdfunding campaign and a lot of marketing will be done around that time.