They do not jump on every trend, yet they often hit the target and are not afraid of competition. "We have never done a survey of potential demand. With our design & development, we respond to our own needs and the needs of people around us. For example, our travel, sports or housing experience or simply life experience in general are reflected in the design of built-ins for cars, skis or micro-houses," says Radek Hegmon, founder, owner and chief designer of Egoé.
“I've always had trouble driving and parking a caravan, so I was wondering if there was an easier solution. Thus Nestbox car camps were born. They can be easily inserted into the car boot and put into operation within five minutes. They are equipped with a pull-out module with a main socket, a module for water, another for a cooking stove and a refrigerator. Plus you can lie down safely and comfortably on quality mattresses with a grate underneath. Before we launched Nestbox to the market, we used the product on New Year's Eve in Chamonix under Mont Blanc or on a holiday in Estonia, where you can mostly see smaller cars without caravans," Radek Hegmon recalls. These were all holidays when the team was testing the Egoé nest products. This product group has good sales both in Czechia and abroad including France, where they are in high demand. A team of about thirty people are already working on them in Egoé.
"We expanded to the French market through several partners with the Egoé life brand in 2016 and Egoé nest brand two years later. In France, we see great potential particularly in furniture and built-ins, which are widely used there in multi-vans. In mountain areas, they can also be rented. France, the Netherlands and Belgium account for twenty percent of our exports, which in turn accounts for seventy percent of the company's total revenues. We feel that the local public, receptive to good design, could now respond even better to our product range than before. We try to use the experience we have with the sale of furniture as our historically oldest product also in other parts of our product range. However, it takes time and patience to find a quality partner," export manager Barbora Očenášková explains.
"When I was building doll rooms with my little daughter about five years ago, it occurred to me that a five-by-five-meter cube-shaped Leva module could be used as a basic element for the construction of a micro-house, minimalist and functional bespoke housing equipped to meet the needs of the contemporary lifestyle. Thanks to its size, such a building does not require a construction procedure and standard freight can be used to transport the modules. A small plot of land is enough for installation. I originally intended this house for an 'old bachelor' or a man who is perhaps having problems his wife. However, it has a much broader scope. I have lived in the prototype myself for two years and it suits me perfectly. I have managed to design the interior as a full-fledged modular dwelling with a living room, kitchen with stove, oven and refrigerator, bedroom, children's room, bathroom with a washing machine and toilet. All equipment is precisely designed and meets the required technical standards," Radek Hegmon continues. The company will start offering this house to customers from March and sell it from June. "Besides selling, we were also thinking of offering this service in the form of loans, repurchases or refurbishments," he adds.
It may sound dull, but a good product always finds its customer even in strong competition. "We love skiing and already as a kid I admired the colourful and simple equipment of skiers from the West in the 1970s. When computer graphics appeared in the 1990s, I noticed how the visual strength of the skis was ruined. We have therefore created a number of simple children's skis for small series production, with a distinctive charisma. We were surprised at how quickly they established themselves in the market – just like our Alpine skis."
How difficult is it to win your team over for your vision and to get your idea across to those who are initially doubtful about it? "To draw your co-workers into your world and not get lost in your visions or lose track of reality is the most difficult thing in my opinion. Because design is not a vision, design is ultimately the product that gets sold. To get my ideas across to my team obviously costs a lot of energy. The team don't have to be enthusiastic about them, they just need to accept them. I believe that everyone who has built their business on their own high value-added product knows this dilemma," says the winner of several prestigious Red Dot Awards.
That reality is the context in which our world finds itself lately. Climate change and covid crisis have become a strong impulse for part of our society to gradually change their way of living. "For me, usefulness, simplicity, functionality, unpretentiousness, durability and sustainability have always been the qualities that are characteristic of quality design. Lately, I have felt more and more intensely that my concept is appreciated by an increasing number of customers. I am pleased that our product range is able to respond to these developments," the designer emphasises.
As an importer of materials with complete production in Bílovice, Egoé also had to react quickly to unexpected changes in global supply chains. "The price of tropical wood we have imported from South America, Africa and Australia has not only risen rapidly, but the wood has become unavailable. Added to this is the increase in prices and unreliability of supplies due to outages in international transport. Therefore, we had to redesign our products so that the material savings would outweigh the greater labour intensity without compromising quality. We have bought a thermal production line and we are replacing the unavailable tropical wood with thermal wood, specifically larch, on which we have been cooperating with Mendel University for some time. Although the heat treatment of wood is fairly energy-intensive, it is very efficient, so that this way, we obtain the so-called dead wood with a lifespan of up to thirty years. What’s more, it does not contain any chemicals."
Some ideas mature in the designer's head for decades before they reach customers as a product. In one of his previous interviews, Radek Hegmon admitted that even as a boss he does not have unlimited time possibilities: “Designing costs a lot of money, which must be returned at some point. You are looking for the right shape, you put emotions into it, and then you suddenly find out that a quarter of a year of drawing has cost 400,000 CZK."
"In my opinion, a relationship with the bank is not just about lending money. The two parties have to be open to each other, they need to have a good understanding, they must find the right moment and purpose for a loan, and they must work with a tolerable level of risk. Design & development is an activity that is difficult to value, but if I am a client who reliably repays loans for machinery and buildings, the logical next step should be a development and business loan. What good would machines do to entrepreneurs without financial support for development and sales? For the first ten years, our company did not meet the bank criteria for a promising business, and we did not receive the first factoring until sometime in 1998. Over time, we learned to communicate with financial institutions and convince them of the viability of our company. We have been cooperating for years with a long-term and respected partner that is Komerční banka, and specifically Ms. Petra Sanitráková. Thanks to the friendly approach and competence of Ms. Sanitráková and her colleagues, we succeed in implementing our strategy: to develop and produce high value-added products and export them to the whole world," says Radek Hegmon, appreciating the empathy and professionalism of the KB banking team.
Written by Věra Vortelová
Photo credits: Egoé
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