Why not simply separate the frame and lenses of a pair of glasses and sell them separately? This is exactly what the Munich startup EYEGLASS24 and has developed into a classic first mover in the spectacle lens market. How the business is doing and what challenges the startup from Friendsfactory Managing Director Jascha Chong Luna explains to us in an interview.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
EYEGLASS24 is Germany's first specialist in the exclusive sale of ophthalmic lenses to end customers and one of the fastest-growing companies in the optical industry. We are a Munich-based startup and have already won several awards for our business model.
EYEGLASS24 was founded by Jascha Chong Luna. Shortly after its founding, Felix Zenth joined the EYEGLASS24 management team.
About the online shop www.eyeglass24.de We offer our customers the opportunity to purchase new lenses and have them fitted into both old and new frames. We sell quality lenses from Switzerland and are up to 70% below the manufacturer's recommended retail price.
We differentiate ourselves from our indirect competitors such as Fielmann and Mister Spex by the pure focus on the sale of spectacle lenses (without frame). This unique selling point not only makes us perceived by our customers as the ultimate ophthalmic lens expert, but also provides optimal conditions for exciting collaborations of various kinds.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Quite the opposite! We are classic first-mover in the marketOne could also say that no one has ever been crazy enough to mentally disassemble glasses into their individual components (frame and lenses) and sell only the lenses to end customers. This despite the fact that in Germany, approximately one in three customers prefers to have their trusted glasses fitted with new lenses rather than buy a new pair of glasses.
The fact that we are a true first mover also strongly characterizes our challenges. We do a lot of pioneering work and search for completely new solutions that are superior to previous ones. This is hard work and requires a lot of perseverance, patience, and a positive "obsession" from everyone involved. So we're not climbing a small hill, but a truly high and steep mountain. But the view from the top is all the more beautiful.
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Of course, we deal with the classic hurdles of a first mover: publicizing the business model, credibly explaining its advantages, and describing how it works.
In addition, our biggest challenge is to maintain a certain Educational work in the market and for the first time a Transparency regarding price and quality of spectacle lenses.
Contrary to what brick-and-mortar opticians have had us believe for decades, good lenses don't have to be that expensive. The average price of €274 for a pair of lenses isn't the result of high purchase prices or the labor-intensive integration of the lenses into our frames. The reason is simply this: independent brick-and-mortar opticians sell less than one pair of glasses on average per day. At the same time, however, they incur very high costs for shop rent and personnel, as well as a high capital commitment due to a frame inventory and investments in shop fittings. Therefore, they have to charge a markup of 10x or more between the purchase and selling price of lenses. We can offer this at a much lower price with the same quality!
The other major challenge concerns transparency. Approximately 90% of eyeglass wearers don't know what type of lenses they need or what they currently have in their glasses. Rather, the brick-and-mortar optician deliberately leaves the customer in the dark about the manufacturer, refractive index, coatings, etc. of the lens. The strategy is clear: Lack of transparency leads to poor comparability and thus to higher prices in the market.
This means that our customers have to consider their own requirements for their lenses for the first time, instead of simply buying the overpriced lenses suggested by their local optician.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
So far, things are going well, and we've grown by nearly 100 million euros annually since our founding. However, we're still far from reaching our true potential.
Nevertheless, we are pleased to see that our customers are already very satisfied with our product and our customer service. This is reflected, among other things, in our near-zero return rate and our customers purchasing from us at significantly shorter intervals than is the case at brick-and-mortar opticians.
We have also built a very clean and trustworthy brand and are far ahead of our direct competitors in the online sector.
And above all, we've built a team and a corporate culture that ensures all our employees enjoy coming to work every day and can fully contribute. We all truly enjoy our work and are eager to make a difference. But we also have fun. We offer a great mix of startup culture and serious, professional work.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
With the exception of our interns and working students, we've all lived in Munich for at least seven years. So, we consciously chose Munich long before EYEGLASS24. In our view, the city and its surrounding area offer a perfect combination of a high standard of living, parties, beer gardens, hiking, lakes, culture, and multicultural people. This means that we all personally feel very comfortable in Munich and plan to stay for a long time.
From a business perspective, we see Munich's advantages in very good access to talent and a solid investor base.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
Of course, that can't be said with absolute certainty. Otherwise, we would have financed ourselves through bank loans instead of venture capital, for example. However, we are very confident that we can lead EYEGLASS24 to success. The market for eyeglass lenses is gigantic (at least €37 billion worldwide, depending on the source). If we manage to offer customers in this market solutions that are better than existing ones, the sky's the limit.
So the market potential is there. We've also put together a fantastic team. We're constantly looking for reinforcements, especially in the areas of development, online marketing, and business development (we welcome applications!). So the conditions are ideal – now we "just" have to deliver.
7. Hiking or beer garden?
We enjoy mountain hiking the most, including a wheat beer in the beer garden (a local hut) as a reward. We also live this figuratively at EYEGLASS24.
