Paperworld 2016
The last weekend, the Messe Frankfurt organized the biggest office & school product fair in the world.
Most of the companies were European & Asiatic. Almost no LatinAmerican company was there. I had a mix of feelings. First of all , being proud to be assiting to this fair with a super product such as a whiteboardpaint, but also sad to be minority as LatinAmerican in a global market.
Think&Paint was invited to participate and to my surprise 90% of the persons we interacted, did not know about a dry-erase coating tecnologies. Korean, Italian, Portuguese, and Turkish Companies were excited to collaborate together.
Most of the biggest whiteboard companies were there or as they called themselves, a visual communication companies.
Big Companies in the Whiteboard Biz were there. Although this is a 2B USD market, companies seem to be not innovating enough to keep the fast pace of a digital world mixing with visual tools to comunicate ideas.
I did a pitch to one of a medium-size whiteboard companies in their booth. I told them I had a technology they might be interested ( a paint that you can transform a wall into a canvas, so you can write and erase as many times you want, just like a whiteboard) , and I was looking for partnerships in Europe. The answer was not remotely what I was thinking since the company was not big enough, I thought they were a bit more available than the big companies. The export manager said. “ Well, we manufacture traditional whiteboards and we will never change, your product does not seem to have a fit with us”
I am glad he said that because I will be channeling my efforts in the big companies, the one who see real potential. I am talking about disruption in a business that has not change in 35 years.
Also, Moleskine seem interested in something together with us . The Chief of Digital Marketing liked the idea of writing in the walls. And the vision of Moleskine surpasses the idea of just a notebook company, the colaboration with Evernote is a perfect example ( eventhough right now Evernote is not having a perfect time) . You will hear news from this potential colaboration soon.
In conclusion, this fair was an eye opening event for our company. Think&Paint will experiment a shift and dive into the global economy very soon.
Ah I forgot something funny, The europeans were bragging about cool innovations, new pens,markets visual communication tools etc…But when you walked into the asiatic part of the fair, they had the same products available and they could include you brand on it ;)