Help To Grow and OONI Pizza Ovens
Hi Everyone,
Yesterday I attended an event called "Help To Grow" which is part of a UK Government sponsored training course for small businesses, the purpose being to help Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to grow.
It is quite an enlightening event and this particular module was presented by Becky Lodge from StartUP Disruptors who really drilled down into what attendees were expecting to get out of the course as a whole which runs for around 6 months, and specifically WHY? they are doing what they are doing.
The attendees wrote down their vision and specific objectives or goals, and Becky did a read through all of them in the room and rejected some of them because they were not SPECIFIC enough. We all need SMART GOALS and that was lesson one from yesterdays module presentation, ie goals that at Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound..
Once everyone was on the same page about their own goals, we studied a success story of a company called OONI, that was started in the UK by a husband and wife team Kristian Tapaninaho and Darina Garland IN 2012 who established a new market category that did not exist before they produced their first Ooni wood fired pizza oven.
Having both been passionate about making the perfect pizza, they set about trying to create an oven that people could use at home or away on camping trips that easily produced a professional grade pizza in 60 seconds - Amazing!
During the last 12 years Ooni´s growth has been phenomenal worldwide and they have grown into a company with a turnover of more than $200m, and with around 300 employees in the different countries where they market and sell their product range.
The product range has increased and Ooni developed more advanced models of the original pizza oven including gas variants and a OONI Pro model as well as lots of accessories.
It is a classic success story of 2 motivated individuals who saw an opportunity in the market place and created a new niche, because there were no comparible products before that. Pizza ovens were previously traditional brick and stone construction, the alternative being barbecues for use outside.
All the attendees at the event used this case study as inspiration for their own businesses, and how they could adopt what worked for OONI and avoid some of the pitfalls that were exposed during the story of the company´s evolution from a start at home business to a truly successful international business with successful products and a growing market place worldwide.
OONI´s marketing and sales strategy was interesting because they use a combination of direct sales from an online store, plus retail outlets with whom they develop relationships, and even use Shopify as well as extensive Social Media advertizing.
Remarkably they started their business using $7500 of other people´s money, with various crowdfunding type top ups along the way, but did not go down the Venture Capital route.
Their goal from the outset was to go global with their product once they had proved the concept was sound. Originally they started manufacturing in Finland but then moved production to China when they had to scale up.
The first ovens were popular in the US especially and that has been the main market for OONi pizza ovens.
One of the first things they did was brought in a Head of Product Design and built an excellent team around him, so that products were constantly evolving and new offerings being made
OONI´s goal is to reach 10m customers worldwide and have a revenue of $100m by 2025.
They pride themselves on having built a OONI community around their brand and products, and this they believe is instrumental in their success, people want to stick with their brand.
Maybe you already know about OONI (the name means oven in Finnish language), and maybe you even have one of their ovens because you love home made pizza.
They were an inspiring story for me and the other attendees at the Help To Grow module, and maybe their story will inspire you and your business aims and goals, I hope so.
Have a great remainder of the weekend and week ahead whereever you are in the world.
Cheers
Alan
Recent Comments
3
OONI also started an affiliate program so that when they were featured in mass media, those mass media publications could join the affiliate program and earn a commission from the attention they generated. Smart move. Most companies which are featured on mass media automatically start an affiliate program or else they may not get featured; it's literally expected that they have an affiliate program now.
Very interesting, Alan!
Jeff