LYLA Design

Our mission

Our mission is to move away from mass production towards more individuality and sustainability in the interior. We provide you with an intuitive online tool that allows you to design your own unique interior accessories like vases or lamps without any prior expertise or assistance from a professional. We then 3D print your design.


Problem

3D printing could be the perfect tool to enable more customization and sustainability in interiors. Unfortunately, the barriers to entry for 3D printing are still enormous. CAD software for creating 3D models is designed for experts and is difficult and tedious to learn. You also need a lot of experience to design printable or aesthetically pleasing models. Hiring a professional designer to do the design is costly. 3D printing itself also requires a lot of experience if you want to print yourself. For reasons of sustainability alone, it is not worth it to purchase a printer for individual objects. 3D printing services are unfortunately not yet geared to print objects for the interior but are much more focused on prototyping and less on aesthetics.


Solution

We will democratize access to 3D printing and lower the barriers to entry by connecting the design and manufacturing process. Our intuitive design tool will make the benefits and possibilities of 3D printing easily accessible to end users, enabling them to design and customize interior objects themselves. Our software is an abstraction of a professional CAD software, dedicated to specific "problems" with a range of functions specifically tailored to their requirements. On the one hand, this includes a simple possibility to give a 3D model the desired shape and on the other hand to adjust its surface, such as pattern, color or surface structure. Our algorithms in the background ensure throughout the design process that the design is optimized and the process is managed in such a way that printability is always guaranteed during FDM printing. The second part of our tool consists of the design of the surface. Here we create a database to offer our customers a selection of 3D printing specific surface textures and color combinations. We will also develop our own slicer to give us maximum freedom in developing our own surface structures. This will allow us to have a direct influence on the G-code. Another important feature is our online showroom. On the one hand, it serves as a source of inspiration, and on the other, it allows users to distribute their own designs. After designing, it is possible to place the object at the intended location using AR and test whether it fits into the room concept as desired. We print the interior objects with FDM printers partly ourselves and through our 3D printing network. For more demanding printing methods, such as wood, paper, ceramics, or hemp printing, we cooperate with partners who specialize in this field. We will enable our customers to design individual and sustainable interior objects quickly and cost-effectively and provide our customers the emotion of having created something unique themselves.


Unfair advantage

The USP is accordingly divided into the two sub-aspects of our online tool: the design and manufacturing process. Our software, dedicated to interior applications, is more powerful than existing product configurators but always intuitive and self-explanatory. Unique are also our material selection and the offered surface structures in connection with the AR function and visualization. The output of the design process is optimized and aligned with the subsequent manufacturing process. For the end user, this means a previously unattainable degree of design freedom. The complete process from design to printable output takes place with our proprietary software. The design capabilities we have developed are at the core of our software, with the goal of making the design process as intuitive and self-explanatory as possible. We will focus on the creativity of our customers. Our goal is a gamification of the design process. We believe that everyone can be creative and that being creative is fun.


Target market

Our focus in the furniture and interiors sector is initially on the lighting sector. We will then expand our product portfolio to include other interior objects. As a third step, we then plan to expand our range to include furniture, as this is where the greatest challenges await us due to the dimensions involved. In the medium term, we aim to distribute our products throughout Europe, and in the long term we plan to expand our business globally. On the one hand, we focus on sustainability and compete with sustainable products, which are also made of recycled or biodegradable materials. Here, we have the competitive advantage that on-demand production gives us an advantage in our production processes at the same time. We see special competition in products that also sell the emotion of having designed something yourself or are unique. Accordingly, we are initially focusing on the market for sustainable and customizable lighting.


Business model

In principle, we will sell our products through direct sales. In addition, we will adapt our software to the needs and design restrictions of other artists and creators who produce products with 3D printers. The goal here is that they can also offer their existing customer base through our software customization options. We would earn per download. In the long run we would like to provide our software as white-lable. We will also get a share of the revenue if customers distribute their own designs through our platform.


Customers

As early adopters, we have identified young adults who are looking for sustainable and unique lamps and are interested in new technologies. They attach importance to environmentally conscious consumption. They consciously buy organic and locally at the weekly market and prefer to buy second-hand. In general, a certain understanding of trends prevails among them. We find our early adopters primarily in gentrified neighborhoods of large cities and metropolitan areas. The trend-conscious middle class of millenials, who spend a lot of time on social networks, is a particular focus for us. A strong urge for individualization was evident here. They also have a strong affinity for products such as Tylko or form.bar, which can be used to create customized pieces of furniture. Since we ourselves have a strong connection to this group of customers, we can well understand their need for self-realization, individuality and a break from mass consumption. To have made or designed something oneself and to know that it is not a mass product seems to have a high value with the described customer group. We ourselves are part of this group of customers and can therefore identify with their needs. This also makes it easier for us to establish contact with our early customer group. In general, our customer group is very well connected and communicates to a large extent via social media.


Sales and market strategy

Our marketing strategy will focus primarily on social media due to our target audience. Accordingly, we will primarily enter into collaborations with up-and-coming designers and artists in order to launch an exclusive design line with them. As already described, we will also adapt our software to the needs of other creatives in the field of 3D printing and thus benefit from their follower base. We get in touch with them primarily via social media and trade fairs.


Competitors

There are currently two types of competing products: Made.com or e.g. Creative Cables have lamp configurators where you can combine different lamp components from an "interactive" catalog. The question here, however, is whether customers actually get the feeling that they have designed the designs themselves, and the sustainability aspect of these mass-produced lamp components is also questionable. Other lamp configurators like Shapelamp are based on Grasshopper and Shapediver and therefore rely on third party capabilities. The UI possibilities and server capacities are therefor limited. SliceUp-3D, a tool to design vases, faces similar difficulties as Shapelamp and is also far too complex for the end user.


Team

Felix studies computer science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and at HU Berlin with a focus on IT security. Felix is responsible for the technical implementation of the modeling tool and the website. Here he focuses mainly on the web design. He describes himself as a "tinkerer" who has a lot of experience in physical prototyping. He is currently developing our own five-axis 3D printer with polar coordinates, which is especially specialized in printing round objects.

Markus has a degree in marketing communications and studied industrial design at the HTW Berlin. He gained experience with smart devices and consumer electronics in design agencies and international companies. Markus is a member of the German Design Club, most recently became self-employed as a designer and is responsible for design, marketing and communication at LYLA Design. In his work as an industrial designer, Markus uses CAD software and rapid prototyping methods such as 3D printing on a daily basis.

Rouven studied industrial engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe and then worked in sales for a startup in Paris. Rouven already came into contact with entrepreneurship during his school years or his studies through courses, networking events and extra curricular offerings. He is responsible for strategy, finance and sales at LYLA Design. He additionally handles material and surface testing.

Wolf studied mechanical engineering and robotics at ETH Zurich. Since then he works as CTO for a software company and is responsible for the technical implementation of the modeling tool and the webshop. He mainly takes care of the complex mathematical model in the background of our modeling tool.