sometimes in the journey of building a business there are big calls to make, and the price for getting them wrong is high
most recently you have seen me express a preference for introducing the LONDINIUM I – P with a discount for existing L1 owners. the rationale behind this is to reward the loyal customers that got us off the ground, to recognise that those who have bought off you previously are more likely to do so again than a new customer, and most importantly to grow our network of machines that are now dotted across 40 countries
however in recent months i tried to take a similar approach in considering the introduction of two variants of the L1 and with the benefit of hindsight it was not appropriate for the L1
what i lost sight of was our customer profile; what attracted our existing customers to buy an L1 in the first place? it was the promise of a stable product line, something that would not need to be upgraded every five minutes as a result of new models being introduced
layer on top of that the physical realities of our business; our customer base is very geographically diverse. prospective customers are naturally apprenhensive of how much of a ball ache it will be to import a LONDINIUM espresso machine from the other side of the world. so once they have a machine makes sense to extend to them wherever possible the opportunity to upgrade their machine with a kit, rather than force them to import another machine
upgrade kits sail through customs with great ease and the kind of upgrades we have in mind do not require any special tools and are well within the skill set of most owners, and when necessary we can step owners through the kit installation process via Facetime
so as you have seen i have spent some weeks wrestling with these issues. perhaps all of the above is obvious to you reading this from a distance, but when you are on the inside looking out, deeply entwined with the business it can be surprisingly difficult to thing clearly and rationally, without allowing your personal position to colour your decision making
anyway, i got to the right answer eventually, even if it was a rather circular route. i look forward to report on the state of the upgrade kit as i commence unpacking it tomorrow and setting up two L1s side by side for bench testing under a variety of conditions
best
reiss.