Almost 3 years ago we started working on a product that would be one of the biggest pre-order launches of 2021 (excluding the car companies).

This is the origin story of Lomi.

How we came up with a good idea by coming up with a terrible one.

It started with big piles of compost.

Pela, being a waste innovation company that makes & sells consumer goods, used a number of different commercial compost testing partners.

This was just part of our process for verifying that claims we make about our products are true (i.e. - how long for our cases to compost?).

If you don’t know what a commercial compost facility is, think of a big field/space with giant piles of what looks to be dirt.

Those are compost piles and these are businesses that make money by breaking down organic waste into compost (healthy stuff used to create more soil/dirt) so they can sell it.

Outdated business model.

Pela had one problem though. Few commercial compost facilities would accept compostable plastics like our Pela Case (pelacase.com).

Why?

Money of course. You see, these facilities make their money by creating and selling compost as fast as they can.

As you can imagine, making compost is a slow process. Somewhere between 3-6 months depending on facility to get the job done.

So if you introduce compostable plastics, that process could take longer.

Effectively, you are messing with their business model in a meaningful way.

The Original Infrastructure Idea

Pela had a lack of infrastructure problem.

And if we had this problem, that means the entire industry focused on making biodegradable/compostable plastics had the same problem.

No different than the lack of charging infrastructure that held up the adoption of electric cars, until Tesla came along that is.

Our original idea was to create our own large scale compost facilities around the world that would take in compostable plastics. Short story, the financial model didn’t work (they are expensive to build).

Thank You Elon

Enter Tesla.

Why couldn’t we decentralized and distribute organics waste management into homes? The same way Tesla offered its customers mobile chargers for their homes.

The original concept of Lomi was to create a small home based appliance that would digest compostable plastics. The largest waste management infrastructure ever, just inside the house instead of centralized locations.

We want to unlock the global economy’s ability to adopt compostable plastics at large scale. It is one of the key components to solving our planet-wide plastic problem.

Luckily for us, Lomi worked really well on these materials.

Even better? It was amazing for food waste too.

I’ll save the launch strategy for another day.