Soundboks – From Idea to 1.5M DKK Revenue in Three Months

 

26 hours after my meeting with Alex, the sun is still shining, and also in Copenhagen. This is my first biking free day, but despite this fact, I decide to take the bike to my next meeting, I park on Gammel Kongevej, right opposite to The Lakes, and take the elevator up to Soundboks' office.

I’m supposed to meet with Hjalte from Soundboks. But the office is swarming with people. After asking three people, I finally find his office.

– Hi Erik, welcome! Christopher will join us. Let’s find a room.

This is easier said than done; Hjalte and Christopher are sitting in a collaborative space called Lydens Hus (The House of Sound), and is similar to what SSE Business Lab is like.

– From the beginning, only sound-related companies sat here, but nowadays any businesses are welcome. This place is funded by the state, and we are really grateful to sit here. And you cannot really complain about the views, right?

Soundboks started with Christopher. He had visited the Roskilde festival for many years, and each year, he built his own speaker.

– It is sort of a tradition that you build them yourself. And there is also some prestige to build the best ones involved.

I tell Christopher that I don’t really recognize this situation, and that I for sure would have no clue on how to build my own speakers. But Christopher sure did.

– The speakers I made became quite good, and I realized that most people, like you, don’t know how to build speakers themselves, but many of them still wanted one. I guess you can say that we found a demand, especially since the only competing product really sucks.

Christopher teamed up with Hjalte and Jesper, who took innovation classes in high school. They started to sell via yellow pages, and managed to sell 150 items before graduating.

– The sales went well, and we decided to try this out for real, putting everything else aside.

January first, this year, it started for real; in less than three months, the product was developed, designed, and a factory for in-house production was set up.

– The goal was to be able to produce and sell 500 speakers for the Roskilde festival. We found an empty space that we could use as a factory, we bought tools and tables, hired people, and started producing.

Simple design. "No matter how drunk you are, you should still be able to get how it works"

But it was not an entirely smooth ride.

– One month before the festival, a second batch of batteries came. Our supplier had not informed us that they had changed the product slightly, but this change made the battery shut down the amplifier in the speaker – disaster! We reached out to a sound engineer, and after some consulting we realized that we could still use these batteries if we tweaked the product a little. We barely slept during the spring, but it was really worth it!

When it was time for the festival, 70 people were queuing outside Soundboks’ booth before opening.

– It felt unreal. Some of them had been waiting there for ten hours, bringing sleeping bags and all.

Soundboks had 16 people working in the booth, 24 hours a day. They sold out, and it all ended up with a revenue of 1.5M DKK.

– After Roskilde, we produced around 100 more speakers, all of which we sold at another festival.

Soundboks have found a gap in the market. Their only competitor offers what Soundboks believe to be a not-so-good product.

– What sets our speaker apart is that it is plays very loud, and the battery life is very long – you can play up to 30 hours straight with full volume. Moreover, it always comes with two batteries, so you can charge the other one when the first is playing. And it will never break – we have tried to brake it by throwing it around, but it didn't.

An extra battery that can be charged externally

Now, phase two is about to start. The Soundboks team is now working together with a sound engineer to build a better version of the speaker.

– We also need to hire some developers, and more marketing people. Today we are four founders and six employees. We want to do this for a living, so we also need to find the right investor for the ride ahead.

The plan for 2016 is to sell 10 000 speakers – a bold goal.

­– Sure, but we have to aim high. There are more festivals than just Roskilde to go to, and we are now also reaching out to fitness chains. In the longer run, there is a huge American market with college frat parties and the tailgating culture.

Christopher, Hjalte and I (in a different order).

Christopher and Hjalte are 20 years old, and have had their company for less than a year. But the guys already have more business experience than most people. They now know that this is what they want to do, and they have a lot of time in front of them. We take some selfies together, and I thank them for taking the time, heading out in the Copenhagen sun again.

Office views. And Galaxersomsliterdinabraxer.