Silicon Valley office chairs are just the beginning!

The short, but at the same time successful and significant export history of the capital’s design studio MZPA, which generates innovative creative ideas and creates conceptual furniture, lighting and decor items, is largely due to the fact that the idea of ​​its creation was already export-oriented. Therefore, the search for foreign markets began, one might say, along with the creation of designer furniture and interior items that should export potential.

However, Galya Proskurina, the operational director of the company, which, in fact, also organizes its foreign economic activity, will tell more about this.
– Over the three years of the company’s existence, we have achieved that our products are quite actively sold in the United States. In second place in terms of sales are Asian markets. European mastered to a lesser extent.

– Usually, Ukrainian furniture makers, who have export ambitions, begin to develop foreign markets, which are closer, but they only dream of overseas markets for a long time. In your own company – you can say that it is quite young – on the contrary: you immediately adopted, so to speak, a high export bar …
– It so happened that the author’s lamp Yulia Kononenko, which became the first item that we proposed under the MZPA brand in one of the prestigious European exhibitions, was chosen by the Americans. Local designers and architects successfully use such lamps in their projects. When the NUT C lamp in the USA began to gain popularity, and therefore showed good sales potential, we had to adapt it to local realities, more precisely – to American UL certification. In particular, they replaced the cable – from a two-wire to a three-wire, the E27 base to E26 under the Edison lamp. We buy these components directly in the USA, where we then sell the finished product.

– The fact that your company receives the greatest profit from overseas (the US market is the most marginal) is really great luck, the basis for legitimate pride and a significant image factor.
– Yes, it can be argued that it was the American market that became the most favorable to our company, if we take into account the fact that another of our items – already furniture – is gaining rapidly popularity in the USA first of all. I’m talking about the armchair The Planet.
The geography of its popularity is wide. They use this subject for relaxation, privacy, concentration in American schools, IT Chinese companies, and in Berlin offices.
And in this case, the United States is a priority, as The Planet’s armchairs will be used to furnish the huge new Google office in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, with a billion-dollar budget. The first batch of “planets” is already in Santa Clara, we are preparing the next one, for the opening of the office is scheduled for this November. We consider the order for Silicon Valley to be our prestigious export project. Although significant will be the execution of the order for the representation of Google in Mumbai. We are sure that Google’s interest in our seats has just begun.

– Did the chair also undergo some modifications?
– Basically – no, but in details – yes. During his first demonstration to the international public at the Paris exhibition, we received a number of proposals, which we took into account in the future. It was very useful for us to participate in a design exhibition, this allowed us to get feedback from potential buyers and improve the product.

– So participation in prestigious European exhibitions is your main “tool” for finding clients.
– Important, but not the only one, I will say this. We are very active in the online trading environment, using PR publications, popular “selling” Internet platforms. As for international exhibitions, their significance for an export-oriented producer is difficult to overestimate. Since at the very beginning, as already noted, the company was aimed abroad, then, as soon as the first items worthy of international display appeared, we immediately took them to the famous Parisian design exhibition “Paris Design Week” in 2017. The second for us was the current January exhibition, also Parisian, but already commercial. We plan to become participants in other European exhibitions, in particular German: one next year, another – in a year.

– Will you go there with new exhibits and offers?
– Yes. At the 2020 exhibition, demonstrate chairs, and at the next – office direction – show the updated “planet”.

– These items, which we spoke about and which demonstrated an enviable export potential, were also shown at Kiev furniture exhibitions, including in the zone of the Design Theater. Participation in “their” exhibitions added to your sales?
– We are glad that Ukrainian architects and interior designers are increasingly using works of Ukrainian subject designers in their projects. Not ignored our developments.

The section “Success Stories” was founded as part of a grant project with the support of the Swiss Cooperation Bureau in Ukraine, the name of the project: “Improving the level of cooperation and trust with joint participation in international and national public procurement” – TENDER TOGETHER.