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S3E9: TIMEMORE's Brewing Future: Insights from the Co-founder and Design Director
358 Plays1 year ago
Get ready to meet Fish Yu, the co-founder and design director of TIMEMORE, the go-to coffee brand that has been stirring the coffee industry. Today, he takes us behind-the-scenes into the birth of TIMEMORE, a brand born from the shared passion for coffee and design between two friends who dared to dream beyond the mobile phone industry. As Fish unfolds his journey, you'll gain an insight into the challenges of steering a startup, the evolution of his role, and the driving force behind TIMEMORE's acclaimed design philosophy.
We also dive into the intriguing challenge of maneuvering a Chinese brand in the global market. Fish's candid discussions about their commitment to authenticity, the power of design, and the uphill battle to break stereotypes will leave you inspired. You'll also get an insider's look into the creation of their innovative Sculptor grinders and the ingenious knocker design that has been a hit. And for the fans wanting more, Fish reveals what's brewing in TIMEMORE's future. So, buckle up, coffee enthusiasts, for a fascinating journey into the world of coffee.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Focus
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm Not A Barista podcast. We're here to talk about all things coffee from industry careers, brewing tips, community support and more with some really incredible people who love coffee as much as you do. We hope their stories inspire you because humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower all the people behind every cup.
Meet Fei Xu: From Mobile Design to Coffee Innovation
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of I'm not barista. My name is Mickey and I'm your host. And today we have a very special guest. He's the designer. He's also a co-founder of a very famous coffee brand. You probably have one of their products at home. The company is called Tymore.
00:00:50
Speaker
And our guest is Fei Xu. So thank you so much. Join us today. First, I want to say congratulations. Your sculpture project on Kickstarter was a huge success. So great job there.
00:01:05
Speaker
When we talk about Tymour, we often think about the Draper, the Skill, the Hindgrinders, and I believe many, many people, especially in the coffee community or in the coffee shop, they use Tymour as a product. So you are a very, very famous brand.
00:01:22
Speaker
First, we are so happy to have you on our podcast today. Could you please take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners? Give us a glimpse of your background and who you are. I'm the industrial designer and I'm also the co-founder and the design director of Time More. Yeah, that's me.
00:01:48
Speaker
All right. Short and sweet. Thank you. So through all your fascinating journey at Time War, could you share with us the exact time when you founded, co-founded Time War? And what was the inspiration behind it? Yes. The Time War has already 10 years in the 2012. Yeah.
00:02:16
Speaker
At that time, I was an industrial designer who designed cell phones. I worked in a big company, a mobile phone company, and lived a stable life as a common industrial designer.
00:02:36
Speaker
One day my friend, a former colleague, asked me to design a logo for him. He said he wanted to start a brand of coffee-related products.
00:02:49
Speaker
And I designed a logo for him, and I sketched the vision of this brand. And he encouraged me, say, why not start this brand together? And from that time, of course, I think over for several months, and then I decided to come out to start this coffee equipment company.
00:03:14
Speaker
Because I think the design of mobile phones was stuck in a rat. But coffee is different.
Inspiration and Founding of Tymore
00:03:22
Speaker
Coffee is the combination. Coffee embodies both really rotationality and sensibility. And coffee has an interesting culture background. And as a designer, I think there's more space. It's much more interesting than designing cell phones.
00:03:43
Speaker
that time I like the coffee culture.
00:03:45
Speaker
So with my friend, we started this brand, this company. Okay, let me guess. So the friend of yours, is it James? Yeah, it's James. James was my colleague. He was a mechanical engineer and I was an industrial designer in my first company. We had some cooperation before. So we trusted each other and then we started this brand.
00:04:14
Speaker
What a story. So you guys jumped right into the specialty coffee industry from a cell phone business. Yeah. That was brave. So before you started Taimur, were you a coffee person at the time already? Oh, of course I drink, I drive coffee because when I
00:04:35
Speaker
In the middle school, when we study, I need something to keep me sober. In China, I drink coffee a long time, but I was not that professional in the specialty coffee. I was not that professional for the premium oil coffee. I just like coffee, the common coffee, latte Americano, like something like that.
00:05:05
Speaker
But when I take part in this coffee industry, I start to learn more about specialty coffee, the pre-order, and I take many lectures to make myself more professional in this industry. Okay.
Design and Creative Pursuits at Tymore
00:05:24
Speaker
Since you mentioned that the life before time war was comfortable,
00:05:29
Speaker
I just remembered a lot before Time War. And what was your main motivation, quitting your job, starting a whole new company? In fact, I have not that big images. As a designer, I was satisfied, except the design value cannot be realized, the design value. In fact, in a big company,
00:05:56
Speaker
The industrial design is just a small part in the whole position because you cannot decide how a product comes out from the beginning to the end. So you are just a small part. And as a designer, I think that's not enough value for designers.
00:06:18
Speaker
But when I started this brand, I had more chance, more capabilities to make product better. The life at that time was much more easier. I don't need to think more about the business, the commercials, something like that. I just need to be a common designer. I think it's not bad.
00:06:45
Speaker
Creating a new business is just another level of lifestyle and also many people could do it. I want to know how this experience changed your life. What were the biggest differences compared with your previous job? What was your responsibility at the time?
00:07:02
Speaker
At the beginning, I had to make many, many things by myself, even like take photos, design the homepage, and make some videos, and of course design the products. So I need to concern more things. But when the brand evolved,
00:07:23
Speaker
When the company gets bigger, I need to think over more about the commercial things, the corporations. I need to bring them to sustainable development. Sorry, my English is not that good.
00:07:39
Speaker
I recall that the first Time War product that I purchased was a hand grinder that I won the Red Dot Design Awards. I assumed that was done by you, your designer grinder. My question to you, as a designer, what is your ultimate goal at Time War? And where do you envision Time War in the future?
00:08:02
Speaker
I think in the beginning I didn't have so much big ambitions. I just wanted to make something beautiful and easy to use with professional functions. Now I'm so glad that these products are recognized or be accepted by the users over the world.
00:08:24
Speaker
And we will continue to update more products and bring more surprise to our users. Maybe I'm not that good at to see, for example, 10 years, maybe a bit far for me, but maybe in the next year, you will see more surprise products. And sometimes we may launch some bigger, larger, more complex products, maybe our brand
00:08:54
Speaker
will play a more important role in the world market. It is wonderful to hear that Samo is releasing more interesting products. I've used Samo's Scales, Kettle, Drapers for quite a long time and I do appreciate them. They are affordable, well-designed and always maintain a very consistent design language across all your product lines. Will you mention new products coming next year? Could it be an espresso machine?
00:09:24
Speaker
I cannot say anything, but now you see we have the grinders, kettles, and scales, and the drippers. Maybe in the future we will make some more electric ones.
00:09:44
Speaker
For the other types of products, maybe there are still some surprising things in the future. But Espresso machines need more long-time technique.
00:10:02
Speaker
So maybe we need more time. Maybe one day we have some experience or something like that.
Challenges and Triumphs in Coffee Innovation
00:10:09
Speaker
But right now I think it's not the first priority.
00:10:16
Speaker
That is a sensible approach, of course. There's no need to rush a great product. Reflecting on your journey with Tymour, could you recall a moment when you first realized that Tymour could beat the next big thing?
00:10:33
Speaker
Honestly, in the beginning, I didn't imagine we could make this brand like that today. At that time, some of my friends invested. Don't agree with me. This will become a big industry. Because at that time, very few people make pre-order coffee. People say their life is getting faster and faster. No one will pay so much time to make a cup of coffee.
00:10:59
Speaker
If you make some machines, you can just press a button. They don't think the bring-over is future. But I just think if we design something beautiful with good function, that's enough. So I don't care about that. I just want to make something interesting.
00:11:17
Speaker
But when the time maybe the time goes to the 2019 we launched the Chestnut Sea. Many people they don't take part in the parade or they don't start their coffee with the specialty coffee because many people they missed the door to the specialty coffee because they
00:11:39
Speaker
don't have a good grander. Professional grinders are expensive. So at that time, just not see the slope of this problem. Many people thought their specialty coffee life with just not see all over the world. In this year, we see more and more people in China and in Europe, in America start
00:12:00
Speaker
their pre-order specialty coffee by Chestnut Sea. So I think this time I think we can do something for this industry, for the people who love coffee, and we can provide something with full professional function, but also not that expensive. Creating a product that is both functional and affordable is really important, considering how well the Tamora C series did with both customer feedback and sales. Which product would you say is the prettiest one?
00:12:29
Speaker
from the SSD. I think I like Chestnut G1. It's the first product we won the Red Dot Award. And G1 for the next generation, we designed the Chestnut X. It has some factors of G1. This series, I think, is a successful design. The X wins the AF and the Japan GMAC award. So I think these two hand-grander
00:12:58
Speaker
is successful. Of course, the sculptor series is a very beautiful design. At the beginning, we designed the sculptor. We wanted to start an electric one. At that time, I see so many electric grinders, but most of them are not beautiful enough to make people willing to put them in their own house. This is the beginning of the design of the sculptor.
00:13:23
Speaker
We need to design an electric grinder. People like to put them in their oil house, in their oil apartment. Finally, I think we achieved that.
00:13:33
Speaker
Because every design is just like my own trials, I like many of my own designs because they are all included. In fact, the Jeepers, I think it's a good design because, for example, the sculptor electric render, you have many ways to design them because it has a complex structure and every part you can
00:13:54
Speaker
you can have more innovation in every part. But for the drippers, it's much more difficult, because the structure is so simple. You have no parts that you can adjust, like the other drippers. In fact, just for design, it's much more difficult.
00:14:19
Speaker
So being a co-founder, you are likely right in the thick of the market competition, right? So now in 2023, a ton of new folks are popping up in the coffee market, even here, even in China itself. How do you see Timor stacks up against these new brands, especially since you guys offer such a wide range of products?
00:14:46
Speaker
At that time, 10 years ago, we didn't see too much the competitors in this industry. Because at that time, I think as a cell phone designer, I think this industry, not too many good design in this industry. Of course, there are some very classical ones, I agree. But at that time, especially in China, not that many competitors
00:15:12
Speaker
But now we see this industry grows faster and many, many people start to focus on this new area. We have to face this up to the more conditions. You know, Kaimou has the grinders, kettles, scales.
00:15:30
Speaker
And as an integrity grander, I think Timo has these big advantages. So for example, we design grinders, we have to face the best grander competitors. We design kettles, we have to face up to the best or the cattle brands.
00:15:47
Speaker
We have to face up to the very excellent scale brand and so on. So we have to make ourselves more professional and we have to keep our philosophies professional, aesthetic.
00:16:02
Speaker
easy to use and honest have many means the price should not be that high. If we go deep in the professional research, we have good design and assessment if our products are easy to use and
00:16:23
Speaker
It sounds not that expensive.
Design Philosophy and Market Positioning
00:16:26
Speaker
I think this is our product capacity. We should keep this way and we need to update our products. Some of our distributors can place your product updates too fast.
00:16:42
Speaker
I think we have to update to make something more surprised, something with more innovations that will be our foundation.
00:16:56
Speaker
Obviously, your distributors have a point about high-end grinder product line. You do have a lot of products there, from high-end to lower-end. But then, we would like to see more products like kettles and other coffee tubes. Kami-su. Yeah, let me kettles. Kami-su. We designed, we call it competitive kettles because when we designed this kettle, we
00:17:19
Speaker
We invite some of the Blueprint or World Champions to help us address the water flow. And most of the top competitors said it's the best kettle. They like it very much.
00:17:35
Speaker
Designing is simple, but the mass production is difficult because we need a long time to take the test to ensure that the product quality, we need some time. In fact, this kettle, first this kettle appears in the end of last year, WBRC morbid, the Chinese computer, she used that kettle.
00:18:00
Speaker
It is so exciting. We can't wait to see the new cattle in the market. It will be a great update from the purest cattle and a fantastic addition to your product line. I'm curious how Tymor handles the country image. Though Tymor products are well-made, beautifully designed, but somehow there's always this Made in China label. Personally, it's not a thing. For me, it doesn't affect my buying decision at all. Just like Apple's iPhones made in China as well, they're great.
00:18:30
Speaker
But we see many companies. They emphasize they're made in Germany or made in Japan or regions. And do you think the country image still matters today? In fact, at the very beginning, me and my partners, we also discussed about that if we start a coffee brand.
00:18:52
Speaker
As a Chinese brand, maybe it's not good enough for the public. In fact, we discussed about that.
00:19:01
Speaker
I said, we just should be honest. If we are Chinese brand, we are Chinese brand, not Chinese brand. Whether Chinese brand sounds good or bad, I don't care. In fact, we are Chinese brand, so we are Chinese brand. I think if a Chinese brand want to be more successful in the world market, Chinese brand first should have a good design. Good design means a good image.
00:19:28
Speaker
I think that people in different countries have a similar aesthetic at this time. If you design something from his core, his core value, not just for some appearance, it will have enough value and it should be accepted by the people over the world.
00:19:50
Speaker
If you design something just for some market, just make some people in some market happy and you try to design some shapes, some parents, some colors, the design will not be good enough.
00:20:05
Speaker
the design not have enough value. If you design a product from its core value, from its professional function, from some aesthetic can be accepted by the people over the world. It will be accepted whether it's a Chinese brand or not.
00:20:23
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this topic as well. Great products, great design should be based on these core values and functions. And we shouldn't try to please those customers with double standards. Haters gonna hate anyway, right? Regarding the design, I must say we absolutely love the new sculptor grinders. They look stunning. Not just beautiful outside, but also impressively powerful inside.
00:20:47
Speaker
We think this is probably the most powerful and most popular electric grinder for home users. Since you are the design director, could you tell us how much involved you were in this project and how it started? In fact, four years before I started this project, at that time we
00:21:08
Speaker
made many hand grinders. People always ask, when will you launch an electric one? I'm not that ready, but I think an electric one will be the final answer. Maybe four years before I started this project and I came part in the design, the design changed many times. In these four years, the time of the design team gets stronger, gets bigger, and
00:21:34
Speaker
I have more colleagues who is a very, very senior industrial designer and mechanical engineer, take part in the design of the brush. We take part in the test, test the flavors, how the flavors from different to granulars. So when this project goes more close to the mass production, so our team together to build this project to make it happen.
00:22:03
Speaker
No doubt, that's teamwork. How big is your design team? And how many people work for
Team Dynamics and Product Innovation
00:22:08
Speaker
Timor nowadays? The whole time we have almost 100 employees in the factory, in the office. We have obviously Shanghai, Xiamen, and Dongguan. There's three cities, design and development. We don't need that too many. There are five industrial designers.
00:22:29
Speaker
And we have some designers for the packaging or graphic design. And we have some designers for the product testing design and the development. There are more than 10 people, 10 percent. You guys must be super productive since you have so many products to work on every day.
00:22:49
Speaker
As a designer yourself, do you pay attention to the market feedback? Let's say, how do you deal with negative comments online? For example, some people joke about the new sculptor grinders look like sewing machines. I heard that. I'm glad because we can also design a very beautiful sewing machine. If a product is a beautiful
00:23:13
Speaker
enough we don't care what it looks like we just wanted to be professional enough and the people think it's good looking and they like to use it i think that's the most important
00:23:28
Speaker
Maybe one day I will design the same machine. That is a great point. Design could be very, very subjective. So it's not always for a designer to take feedback from others. And I'm happy they are so open about this topic. Speaking of sculpture project, what was the most challenging aspect you faced?
00:23:48
Speaker
because it's the first electric one. So we have to start from the zero. We have no experience to design the electric render.
00:24:00
Speaker
We have to study from the bus, the motor. We may have to pass some certification. This is completely different and much more complex than the hand grinder. So we have to learn more about that. We have many challenges.
00:24:19
Speaker
For example, the Roted Knocker, how to clean the powders, how to clean the fire radiation. There were many ways, but we think it's not good enough. We had many ideas to clean the device, but finally we have innovation.
00:24:37
Speaker
In this part, we designed a structure. It will knock inside and to clean the face very effectively. So this part, I think, is very interesting. We spent years. There were no good enough answers, but when it's close to the mass production, we designed it out. So that's this part, I think.
00:25:01
Speaker
very interesting part in this design, also a very difficult part.
00:25:08
Speaker
And the other part is the burst. If we want to design a grinder good enough, we have to start with this core, the burst. We spend a lot of time to design this burst. We want the burst can grind the coffee beans even more uniformity. The particle size are more concentrated. This will spend us a lot of time.
00:25:37
Speaker
Wow, I have no idea that this most satisfying knocker was actually designed right before the mass production. Unbelievable. I have been using Sculptor for almost a month now. And I have to say, this feature is incredible. I absolutely love it. I love it. Okay, so let's talk about something else. As the co-founder of Time War and a designer, you must have experienced quite a journey. So what advice would you give
00:26:04
Speaker
to the young generations, the young entrepreneurs who are looking to start their own coffee companies today.
00:26:12
Speaker
I think as a designer, I always focus on the product, focus on design. This company gets bigger. We always see some investors, they always focus on the business mode, the marketing mode, something like that. But I think the most important thing is product power, which based on the complexity of design and research, if you do that well,
00:26:41
Speaker
and you can do a good mass production, you can make something, can make you feel awesome, feel cool. I think that's enough, the one who's want to start a company. I think the most important part.
00:26:57
Speaker
Of course, I respect there are many excellent guys in the marketing, but as a designer, I focus more on the product power, the design and the research. Those are fantastic tips. Thank you. I will definitely keep them in mind.
00:27:17
Speaker
We've discussed your journey at Temor and your design work, but I would love to know more about you as a person if you don't mind
Fei Xu: Work-Life Balance and Personal Insights
00:27:25
Speaker
sharing. Could you tell us a bit more about your life outside of work? Yeah, I married. Yeah, I have one kid. I like to manga, homing.
00:27:34
Speaker
When I was a child, I like to read comics and manga very much. So I spent, I bought many books and I put them in my office. This is one of my hobbies. And if I have time, I will take my family in the mountains nearby Shanghai, but time obviously limited. You know, in fact, I like to travel.
00:27:59
Speaker
quite much, but when I started this company, there are still so many businesses I have to deal with. I think life and business for me right now cannot be separated. This is what is my real life.
00:28:16
Speaker
For example, I take my family to some beautiful hotels far from Shanghai in the mountains, high mountains, but suddenly some saw me and I have to deal with many, many things. And as a designer, people always think designers' life are romantic. Designers' life may be just drawing some pictures, creating some images, but most of the time with slow problems,
00:28:46
Speaker
We need to solve many problems, the internal and external resources. We need to deal with so many things. So that's the real life. It seems live outside work is still very challenging, right? You have great responsibility. I can only imagine how hard it is to keep a good balance between work and family.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:29:10
Speaker
I want to say thank you for spending time with us today and sharing so much. Thank you, thank you.
00:29:15
Speaker
As we read up this episode, I want to extend a huge thank you to our gas fish for joining us today and providing us with available insights and stories about the life, the work, and the journey at Time War. Your experience and the license are truly inspiring.
00:29:32
Speaker
for those who are looking to venture in the coffee world and design. To our listeners, we appreciate your support, so stay tuned for more exciting episodes. Until next time, take care and keep exploring your passion for coffee.
00:29:47
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this I'm Not A Barista episode. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram at I Am Not A Barista for more empowering vibes and true coffee stories that connect you with coffee lovers around the world. You're a part of our global community where we celebrate baristas and their craft in everything that we do.