Six regional design startups today pitched their plans at ASML, to gain specific support on prototyping, branding, financial planning, and market research. For them, it was another step on their way to the Dutch Design Week.
The Startups want to find partners that believe in the business opportunities they present and help to accelerate. All startups are participants in the Designforum program.
Design to Market is the talent development program of Designforum, especially organized for high potential graduated designers. It offers participants a learning and networking process with targeted training, and direct contact with companies in the Brainport region to further develop their concept towards production and a market introduction. For many of them, Dutch Design Week is the first big step towards being a company.
Some of the pitches:
Iris Muriel: Piece of Comfort
“It’s healthy to take a power nap, only it’s contrary to what we normally do. You know, a 20-minute power nap makes you 54% more alert, and your performance goes up 34%. So why not do it? I know, culture prevents us from doing this, but in Asia, it’s quite normal. They even have a name for it: inemuri.”
“Piece of comfort” is a foldable wooden bed that can be installed in any office or meeting hall. With it, Iris Muriel hopes to sell 40 beds in 2019, which will bring her more than 100,000 euros. “Technical issues have been overcome, but how to overcome the cultural mindset?”
Timo Lejeune: Lumus Instruments
“For me, it’s all about music, festivals, and lighting. The creativity, the togetherness, the art, there it all comes together. With Lumus Instruments, we can condense technology to make it easier to use. Normally, bringing music and lighting together on a festival means loads of custom work. We solved this.”
Timo Lejeune, who already has experience in big festivals and GLOW, is currently prototyping two pieces of hardware: creative control and creative lighting. “The first is about synchronicity and spontaneity, the second about being modular and re-usable.”
Bert Maas: Vector
“It all started with a frustration after the drone races I participated in. All those throwaway products that were used for the race, that could be done much better.”
It resulted in VECTOR, “a no-nonsense plug and play structural LED lighting solution”. At Dutch Design Week 2018, the first prototype must be ready, which would ultimately cost 60 euro per meter. “A solution in signage”, Maas expects. In 2020, he hopes to sell 2000 meters. And yes, this could also be used for drone races.
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