Creating revenue-generated growth for EONIQ through need finding
Archive Date: May 3, 2018
Founded in the summer of 2014, EONIQ is a custom watch brand founded in Hong Kong and that was the first to create customized mechanical watches that are designed by users on its website. Since its founding, EONIQ has always been profit run (with no capital injection), and the company has been featured on Elle, Tech in Asia, and The Next Web. Below is an interview with the co-founder, Quinn Lai, of how they relentlessly pursue product development through “need finding” (a concept from Design Thinking).
Users design their own handmade watch on an app with EONIQ.
Building on first products, need finding, and creating a scalable solution
You’d started EONIQ because you wanted your own watch and didn’t want to pay the premium, so you made one for yourself. How long did it take to find the parts and put together your first watch? It took a couple weeks to find the initial “researched” answers. Then I bought parts off the internet. Some were the right ones, some were not. By the time I got my first watch working it was already around the 6th months.
From making your own watch to a unique brand experience where users can design and customize their own watches using a web app. How did you get there? My previous side business was Kairos Design. In that business, the model was customer-to-watch designer matching. Each watch would cost upwards of HK$30,000. While doing that business I learned that one of the most inefficient parts of the process was the iteration and communication between designers and customers. I went ahead and created an app to make it more efficient. It turned out this also make things scalable; thus EONIQ was born.
How did you originally think of the app as an interface between you and a customer? How has that view evolved? Originally it was functional: it needs to make the communication of the design efficient, and the preview accurate enough for the customer to iterate and get feedback. Now it is more emotional: it’s about a smooth, enjoyable, not intimidating process of designing one’s own unique watch/gift.
What counts as a product for EONIQ? EONIQ’s product is innovative because it is more than just a watch. It is an experience that involves a customer, but in a way that is easy for them to get onboard. An app helps the customer successfully design and create their own watch by streamlining the process. We do the heavy lifting in creating it.
Everything that the user will associate with your brand counts. That includes your marketing, store placement, customer service, after sales, emotional association (branding), etc. Product is just one part of customer experience.
How did you do user interviews and how did you know what feedback to optimize your product as 1) the watch and 2) the app? How did you do customer discovery and learn why customers would buy your product? We do need finding exercises for both prospective e customers and actual customers. Need finding is part of design thinking, something I specialized in at the Stanford D-School. We do 20+ minute interviews on top of user behavior tracking online (scrolling heat map, button click tracking), social media listening and experiments.
Our approach works quite similarly for the watch and the app. For example, the user’s behavior on the website tells me both which styles they prefer, and the UX they prefer. The reason both the UX and the watches require interviews is because that is where we can see their non-verbal communications cues on their actual feelings about our product.
What data do you collect and why? Based on the data collected, how do you prioritize what to iterate on? We collect anything that we can. But we are data inspired, not data-driven. We are user need driven.
How were you able to continually optimize your product market fit? Need finding. The more we know our customers, the more we can create campaigns that speak to them. All the details, such as timing, discounts given, channels to focus on, or even what video clips and which second of the video to have a popup are all user need-driven.
Technology has been integral to your product, but you have also used it very strategically. Can you share more about your approach to technology? Technology is just a tool. We design our user experience around customers’ needs. If they need a more verbal type of communication, we use chatbot, for example. If we think they need to see more tailored ads based on their progress in the Consumer Decision Journey, we give out ads based on their behaviors on our website.
Optimizing business funnels and expanding to new markets
Since then, EONIQ has expanded beyond Hong Kong. How did you choose the new markets you were entering? Mostly based on data, depending on the customer acquisition cost (CAC) for different countries. We design types of content based on different countries’ social media behaviours, and we test and try to obtain the best CAC for each country. As long as the CAC make sense we grow that pie.
How do you do research to find a new market? Interviews. Goes back to the need-finding topic. I find different ppl in HK (from different places, different demographics, to interview) and same for other markets.
How did you keep iterating your organization for growth? Can you give an example of a series of hypotheses you tested and what data points you found? Way too many. We work week to week to improve our funnels and each of the team heads is iterating on hypotheses: from details as small as asking “HM on FB because they want the watch or if it is just a common user behaviour?” to considerations as bit as how to address users wanting our product line A over line B, but that line A is more difficult to design so line B sells better.
How was building trust from customers? Takes time. In our line of business, most people buy once. (For now).
- Omnipresence (give them impression from as many traction channels as possible)
- Brand/KOL endorsement
- Follower base interaction
- Product reviews
- Warranty and customer services
Any final tactics* (not tips) for fellow entrepreneurs in Asia? Social media is getting a lot more expensive. If a new entrant fails in doing need finding and experiments just with money and data, it will be close to mission impossible.
EONIQ is co-founded by Quinn Lai and Charles Wong and the company now has a 16-person team serving 60+ countries worldwide and over 1 million watches designed on the platform. They have gone from online-to-offline with a physical retail store and now also hold workshops and experiences for customers.