Building Momentum: From Prototype to Roll-out
A start-up venture like Lasso requires a huge amount of momentum-building in its early stages: designing a completely new domestic recycling machine, building a prototype, testing the machine’s operations in a pilot phase, and finally achieving a commercial roll-out.
My background is in high growth operations and projects, most recently with Tesla. In June 2019 I started working on Lasso alongside my Tesla duties, in order to apply the knowledge I gained from working with Tesla and other scaling companies.
Reserving your Lasso: How the Pre-purchase program helps Lasso become a reality
Firstly I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has reserved an appliance. That in so many ways supports Lasso and our continued development. The community you are building is special and is everyday putting us in a greater position to succeed in the mission to change recycling for good.
Alongside the efforts of Operational and Launch development, which are all currently in their infancy, the Pre-purchase Program, beginning with reservations, is vital to success. This Program is divided into three Phases.
Phase 1 - Reservations: The opportunity to support
Phase 1 began on Monday 16th November, with the introduction of Lasso reservations. What is a reservation? It’s a way for us to show you the amazing work Phil Sanders and the team are doing on building the appliance. It gives you the opportunity to explore important things like operation of the machine, configuration colours, delivery timelines, and it provides a great experience of interacting with Lasso.
Even though there is no deposit, we take these reservations very seriously. As you will read in Phase 2, Lasso’s launch is built around this structure. For example, we initially plan to deliver the Lasso in small quantities and concentrated areas to focus on our operational development, ultimately resulting in the best experience for our customers.
The choice of launch locations for the initial delivery period will be heavily influenced by each reservation holder's region. We wanted to give you, our community, the power to contribute to these critical decisions. This is why reservations are phase 1 of the launch plan.
As you can imagine, each reservation placed strengthens our business case to potential investors, showing them not only how much we need this solution, but also how many people want it, further increasing our chances of success and ultimately, changing recycling for good. Therefore, if you want to support Lasso in any way, placing a reservation is the best way to start. We may also undergo a second crowdfunding campaign at the beginning of Q2 2021, we will keep you updated.
Phase 2 - The Invite a Friend Initiative
Once we had a plan in place to provide the opportunity to discover and support Lasso, next we needed a method for our community to easily share Lasso with friends and family, fairly rewarding them for their support. Thus the Invite a friend program became Phase 2 of the launch plan. We value our community’s friends and family more than any paid marketing campaign because the more supporters of Lasso, the higher probability of success. Myself and the entire team are all so excited to tell people about Lasso and we can only assume our community feels the same way. We admire the referral program Tesla has had in place since their launch, as it creates value for their community and the wider world. We believe a similar program will do the same for Lasso.
Invite a Friend is Lasso’s first referral program that rewards Lasso reservation holders for sharing Lasso’s mission with their friends.
We are in the planning stages of working in partnership with an amazing NGO which is working towards ridding our oceans of plastic. Why would we support such a different sector to our own? Because the way I see it, the current broken recycling system is partly responsible for the pollution of our world's oceans, hence, as we work towards fixing the future of recycling, it only makes sense we help contribute to cleaning up it’s past. For every friend successfully invited, we would like to provide a gift for you, your friend and match these gifts with a donation to the NGO. We are also going to include a range of really cool bonus gifts. The Invite a Friend Initiative will be launched over the next few months.
Phase 3 - Pre-Orders and Delivery
We plan to offer all reservation holders the opportunity to purchase their very own Lasso as soon as possible.
We will initially deliver Lasso’s in small quantities to focused areas so we can scale our operations effectively to achieve the best experience possible for our community. We plan for the first deliveries to begin in September 2022. At that time, we will also launch the Service and Material Pick-up operations. As you can imagine, we want to get this part right. This is another reason for the small numbers in the first rollout.
Phases 1, 2 and 3 all come with their own unique challenges. The catalyst for all three’s success is your support. Without you, Lasso wouldn’t have gotten this far and I honestly wouldn’t have taken the leap from my role with Tesla. I believe in Lasso’s ability for positive change and chances of success. Although we don’t yet have all the answers, we have a passionate team, a loyal community and a vital mission to increase the sustainability of the human race. I can’t wait to push the boundaries, every step of the way, with you.
