[Stoves] Fwd: business sickness

[Xavier Brandao]

"we can leave them out
we can sell them a stove they can afford that they will abandon
we can subsidize their purchase."

I agree with Crispin, there is (at least) another choice, do more with 
less (materials and production processes) and the help of universities 
and engineers is where to look for.
This is an engineering challenge, this is how products get better and 
better, cheaper and cheaper. Again, (much) more R&D needed.

I was mentioning the size of the stove as a major element of the 
perceived value. The goal can also be to increase the size of the stove 
while keeping the costs low.
We tend to underestimate how big the customers want the stoves. Improved 
cookstoves are often quite small. And when finally a larger version is 
made, it is called "big size, supersize, jumbo" but in fact, designers 
should really admit to themselves that: they have just finally designed 
the normal size people want! The previous stoves were just too small.

In Europe, everyone has gas stoves with ovens, their height is at the 
waist level. They are big and large, but no one would think to call them 
supersize or jumbo.
They just have the size that is fit to their purpose.

Best,

Xavier


On 7/4/16 11:30 PM, stoves-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:
> we can leave them out
> we can sell them a stove they can afford that they will abandon
> we can subsidize their purchase.


-- 
Xavier Brandao
COO

Prakti
T  +91 413 262 34 37
M  +91 997 610 69 21
S  x.brandao
Wwww.praktidesign.com
A  Spirit Sense, Old Auroville Rd,
    605 104, Bommiyarpalayam, Tamil Nadu
    INDIA

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