My Journey with Officiser

How it all started

One of the greatest joys of my life is finding solutions to a problem. Discovering the problem, analyzing, brainstorming, planning, executing and seeing the result; each process has its unique thrills as it is accomplished.

​​So was the case with Officiser. When I worked in the HR department, I was surprised with the medical bills that were being claimed by my colleagues. These were young, regularly exercising (40~50 min. of soccer every day) people that were taking well balanced meals provided by the company. These factors got me curious of what the base cause was.

Probably numerous reasons were there, including genetics, habits, lifestyle, diet, smoking…etc., but one common factor that I could find is that they were all sitting down during working hours.

Doing a little research of how sedentary lifestyle could affect health, it was an eye opening moment, seeing how prolonged sitting could negatively affect health in so many ways, including cardiovascular, circulatory problems, obesity, musculoskeletal disorders and many more. It was also interesting how much direct and indirect losses it was bringing to the company.

​​Thinking back, I also suffered from the 9–5-routine and had varicose vein surgery. My legs would swell easy in the afternoon and indigestion was common, especially during winter, when I would come right back to sit at the office after lunch. So I searched for related products in the market with hopes to provide them to my colleagues and also myself. What I could find back then in 2008, was the first walkstations and standdesks, ranging from 4,000 ~ 8,000 USD. And not many people can afford to pay such a price. This is when I’ve decide to develop an affordable sedentary lifestyle solution with similar or even better health benefits for myself and for many others like me.

Most of my salary, evenings and weekends were invested which enabled different prototypes to be made. Last year, 7 years after my ideation, the 9th prototype had been made. It is finally ready, I thought to myself. And I showed it to my friends and beta testers.

However, to my dismay, most people thought it is too complicated to use, and somewhat uncomfortable. I liked my 9th prototype, but as an entrepreneur, I understood that I make product for the users. (I had my struggle, which I will write about in another blogpost) Therefore, I had to pivot,starting from 0. The product had to be much easier and more intuitive for use. In order to do that, I had to find someone who understand human-centered design. That’s when I found my design partner, who had won international and national design awards.

I also quit my job and invested full-time on this project. After another year of research, prototyping and iteration, the current Officiser was finally born. And it was immediately loved by my friends and family.

Sedentary health issue is affecting almost every one of us and our loved ones, our children and parents. That’s why I was committed in solving this problem for the past 8 years. Instead of treating the diseases and symptoms, if there could be something easy and affordable that could prevent these consequences, I thought that could bring small but meaningful changes in our life short and long term.

Officiser will be on Kickstarter in few weeks. And Today, a girl reached out to us through Officiser’s Twitter account (@officiser), saying that she thinks the product is amazing and she cannot wait to get it. She told me that she sits 9–10 hours a day and she feels the pain in her legs everyday. Receiving message like this was like a reminder that I and my team are going in the right direction, and it encourages me to go forward. Though it is not an easy journey, it certainly is a very meaningful one, and I am very blessed to be in that journey that makes positive changes in our daily lives.