Designing Play: How Rémi Bigot Built Bitpong and a Creative Hardware Studio in Berlin

Chris Whyte (: 00:00

got a clever AI camera so it should filter around in

Remi (: 00:04

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 00:10

just going to move it because I'm slightly off-center.

Chris Whyte (: 00:17

says, here we go, nope that way.

Chris Whyte (: 00:25

Cool, awesome. Right, so I'll mark that because that's where we're starting.

Remy, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you.

Remi (: 00:35

Hi Chris, thank you. Thanks for the invitation.

Chris Whyte (: 00:37

No, no problem at all. Yeah, it's been, it feels like a long time coming. I became aware of your product several months ago earlier in the year and then we got connected on LinkedIn and here we are today. It's coming up towards the end of the summer, end of August. So it's great to finally sit down with you and record this episode. So for those of you who don't know you, you're the founder of Diplik, which is a Berlin based company behind Bitpong.

a glowing game enhanced ping pong table that fuses sport, tech and arcade culture. It's one of those products that instantly sparks curiosity. I know when I saw it pop up on my LinkedIn feed as well, was like, that's cool. I need to speak to Remy about this. So, but as we both know, making great hardware is just the start. So today I want to explore how you're building a business around it and what it's like to lead a product like this day to day and some of the lessons you've learned along the

Remi (: 01:06

Mm-hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 01:36

from idea to launch the scaling up. So yeah, we're gonna dive into a bunch of stuff on this. We're gonna discuss your entrepreneurial and design journey.

Remi (: 01:46

you

Chris Whyte (: 01:49

And so just pull them down behind us. We'll keep that for the for the outtakes. So I'll start again. So, yeah, on today's episode, we're going to explore your entrepreneurial and design journey, the bitpong origin story and where it's headed, reality of running a small hardware business in 2025, building a team and culture around creative, creative tech product and lessons in perseverance play.

Remi (: 01:53

That's so as our calendar, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 02:19

and long term thinking. again, Remy, welcome to the show. We always start with the title of the show as well. So Remy, why design? What first drew you to kind of design or creative technology?

Remi (: 02:38

Well, I think it's like for most of the designers. So actually, when I was kid, I really liked drawing and wanted to study art. But my father was a bit more conservative and was pushing me or trying to push me more direction becoming an engineer. And basically, design was basically a kind of compromise where...

combine a bit artistic matter, also like it's between engineering and creativity and artistic filter. Yeah, that was a kind of a compromise for me, but I think that's often the case with industrial designer at least. Yes, so that's a bit how I started.

studying industrial design first, yeah, and then moved more in like digital design as well.

Chris Whyte (: 03:43

Okay. Was there a moment early on where you thought that this is what I want to do? You know, any kind of standout moments for you?

Remi (: 03:55

Yes, well actually I also at the beginning I actually wanted to study car design.

Yes, because I thought, that's... I mean, when I was actually visiting the design school, I saw these great sketches about cars, and I was like, okay, that's really cool, that's what I want to do. But then quickly I realized, okay, that actually require really good drawing skills, and that's maybe not for me. And I thought also, product design is a bit more broad, and there is probably more jobs around there.

But to be honest, when I started studying, the first six months, I was not convinced this is really what I want to do. then I think it really came when we went out with the school and we went to visit some design exhibition in Belgium, actually. And then I saw all this great furniture concept and a lot of creativity. And then I thought, OK, that's what I want to

So at first I was really more interested in furniture design, lighting, yes.

That kind of inspired me first really, like this is where I thought, okay, that's actually quite interesting.

Chris Whyte (: 05:22

Yeah, you can see that kind of in the product that you're kind of championing now as well with bitpong, know, furniture and lots of lights in there as well. So it's kind of come full circle. So it sounds like you wanted to do design, not engineering, but then really fell in love with it when you saw it in action in industry, obviously during your studies, but on the show.

Remi (: 05:31

Yeah

Remi (: 05:46

Yeah, I mean, I needed some kind of inspiring things to really sort of get because sometimes when you see a toaster or like, I don't know, like a screw machine, this is not, this is also industrial design, but it's not really very inspiring when you start studying and then, but yeah, this furniture exhibition was for me very important and make me sort of get it.

Chris Whyte (: 06:00

The drill, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 06:05

Mmm.

Remi (: 06:15

This is the direction I would like to go.

Chris Whyte (: 06:17

Hmm. And where did you study? I presume it was in Paris, was it?

Remi (: 06:21

I studied Valenciennes in the North of France. It's a school which is called ISD. I mean, now it's merged together with another school for game design and animation. And now it's called Rubica. So Rubica is like a campus where you have all these different design schools.

Chris Whyte (: 06:24

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 06:35

Okay, yeah.

Remi (: 06:42

But the design school itself is still called ISD, think. Industrial Institute Superior of Design.

Chris Whyte (: 06:47

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 06:52

fantastic. you still well up until basically you linked in up until 2017, you were you were guest lecturing there as well. So you went back and get back to the school.

Remi (: 07:01

True, Yes, time to time, like once, two times a year, I go there and I kind of animate or moderate some creativity workshops. It's usually like five days creative workshop on a special topic. And then we explore like ideas and prototype them together with the students.

Chris Whyte (: 07:28

Wonderful. One of your first roles in industry that was with Frog Design, wasn't it? Back in 2004. You spent nearly four years there.

Remi (: 07:35

Yes.

Remi (: 07:39

Yeah, so I did the first internship first at O'Raito, which is a kind of famous designer in France. It's actually more like a creator. more like it's not really industrial design. It's more like this kind of designer, a bit like Philip Stark, who is, you know, he does a special touch and his people are coming to him to get his, it's more like an artist, And then I want, that was actually quite interesting to see because that's one way to...

approach design. And then I also wanted to see the other way, is more like strategic design and really with a really defined process. And then I went to Frog in Herrenberg, so in Germany, which is where the company was founded. That was my second internship.

And then they offered me to stay at the end of the internship and then I stayed there around three, four years. And that was good because it's still a big name and it's a nice reference to have in the CV. And since they had also like studio in US, Italy, bit everywhere, I had the opportunity to travel to Palo Alto, Milan, and different locations. But most of the time I was based in Germany.

Chris Whyte (: 08:40

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 08:49

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 09:00

Fantastic. What were some of the, you know, thinking back some of the key lessons that you've kind of brought with you throughout your career from your time kind of in the early days at Frog and even your internships, I suppose.

Remi (: 09:15

When I started at Frog, actually, it was interesting because there was a big team of industrial designers and one guy doing digital design. And when I left, it was the other way around. There was a big team of digital designers and just a few industrial designers left. And what happened in the meantime is that the iPhone came out. mean, everything started to get more digital.

Chris Whyte (: 09:32

You

Chris Whyte (: 09:37

Yeah.

Remi (: 09:43

I remember there was this guy, the iPhone was already available in US but not yet in Europe. And there was like one of the boss from Frog came to Germany and show us the iPhone and everybody were like, wow, that's amazing. And you can do with your finger. Yes. so, I mean, something I actually learned a lot at Frog was also that

when you do design product and more and more product actually combine hardware but also like user interface, digital design and what we what frog was good at is actually to try to sell the complete package so you go there you get the industrial design you get the digital design and these are designed together so you have a kind of consistent experience across like

the different aspect of the product. So, yeah, that was interesting. And that also made me sort of, okay, interaction design, user interface design is probably the future. And I should keep an eye on that. And yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 10:55

Absolutely. Yeah. And by how things change very quickly when you were there, but they've changed dramatically ever since, haven't they? So, you've stayed in Germany, Berlin, kind of for majority of your career since then, haven't you?

Remi (: 11:02

Yeah.

Remi (: 11:11

Yes, basically I did all my career in Germany. I came for six months internship and yeah, I never went back. I mean, I'm going back home sometime to see my parents, but my mom is still asking when are you coming back to France? It was supposed to be six months and it's 20 years now.

Chris Whyte (: 11:14

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 11:25

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 11:30

Yeah, what is it that's kept you in Germany then all these years?

Remi (: 11:40

Well, mean girlfriends, that's one thing. But not only. I first I wanted to have an experience abroad because I thought that would be very valuable and then go back to France and try to find a job in France, like at Decathlon, for example. It's like a big place where a lot of designers in France are working on.

Chris Whyte (: 11:46

Okay, yeah, that'll do it.

Chris Whyte (: 12:03

Mm-hmm.

Remi (: 12:10

It appeared that it was not so... I tried to apply sometimes to companies in France, but it seems that the experience abroad was not so relevant to them. I think they actually prefer to hire someone who always worked in France. So that was a bit disappointing. I think it's also a bit stupid. But I'm also happy in Germany. And then after Frog, I came to Berlin.

We had a little design studio together with some friends, like two French guys who studied in same school as me. One had an experience at IDEO and another one was coming from Lunar. And we had this design studio together. That was cool. Yes, and then, mean, I think in general, there is more work in Germany than in France. There is more industry here than in France. And in France,

Chris Whyte (: 12:46

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 12:50

bro.

Remi (: 13:08

for a designer, mean, either you work in an agency somewhere in Paris, but life is very expensive and salary are actually not so high, or you go to Decathlon, which most of the people are doing, and try to stay there forever. that's also like, know a lot of people from my school did an internship there and are still working there. But I think that was not my case. I tried to go there many times, but they never really wanted.

Chris Whyte (: 13:25

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 13:31

Yeah.

Remi (: 13:38

to me by the way.

Chris Whyte (: 13:40

You've abandoned your fellow countrymen, haven't you, by emigrating? No, it's a remarkable career that you've had so far. that was wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. So let's talk about Bitpong then and kind of where did the idea for Bitpong come about? And for those who aren't familiar, perhaps you could give us a brief kind of intro and overview as best you might be able to.

Remi (: 13:58

Mm-hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 14:07

Describe it for anyone listening, but I know you were keen to show it as well if you if that's possible

Remi (: 14:12

I can show you but I don't have a player to play with me today because everybody is working on the production or on vacation. But yeah, I can show you a bit. Well, the idea came from, I mean, it's very simple actually. I always liked, like I said before, furniture design.

Chris Whyte (: 14:20

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 14:24

Yeah.

Remi (: 14:42

like of course, obviously industrial design, I'm passionate about product design and design in general. But I also had, I've been working a lot on product combining industrial design and user experience, like user interface design. I have myself also worked as an interface designer. And yeah, somehow I also, everywhere where I worked, was always a ping pong table and I've...

I find it's very cool how this helps to create social interaction between employees or people. And here in Berlin, you also have a lot of ping pong plates, like public ping pong table a bit everywhere. And I thought, okay, that's actually really cool. You see in summer a lot of people playing outside and that just create nice interaction and social interaction between the people.

And then at one point I thought, how cool it would be to have actually a kind of interactive ping pong table that could track where the ball hits and then have a kind of a display and maybe mix it with video games and do like a new way to interact with video game or like a new way to have playing ping pong and also maybe to way to attract new public to this sport, which is a great sport and quite accessible to...

and also the people. So yeah, I tried basically to combine a little bit all these things and I also always had this dream to have one day my own company and not to work only for other people but also try to develop my own product at one point. I mean, that's I think a dream for a lot of designers to develop your own product at one point and earn a lot of money.

Chris Whyte (: 16:08

Mmm.

Chris Whyte (: 16:31

Yeah.

How's that going? Because I know the money side of things usually takes a long time to realize, especially when it comes to hardware businesses.

Remi (: 16:37

Yeah.

Remi (: 16:47

Yeah, I mean, here it's very fresh. It's a new product. We launched nine months ago, something like this. I think it takes about three years really to see if a business is really working. And I'm also not a business person. I'm coming from a design. And so I'm also learning a lot by doing, it's not like...

It's yeah, I mean, of course I have a business plan. have I try to be to think also with a business mind, but that's not my specialty. I mean, the first thing was actually to bring the idea was, OK, this would be a good idea. Let's let's develop it and let's bring it. And if I like it, then I guess a lot of people like video game. A lot of people like ping pong.

Chris Whyte (: 17:30

Yeah.

Remi (: 17:44

Probably it will work. Let's see. let's try.

Chris Whyte (: 17:47

Yeah. So what does the leadership team look like? Because you're the CEO, aren't you? And I guess it's of chief designer as well. Have you got other people in the C-suite? Or is it kind of basically people working for you? How does that set up?

Remi (: 18:06

Yeah, so we are in right now, we are a very small team. are, let's say three and a half people. There is me, there is Andy, which was a colleague of mine. used to work together in a company where we were doing sex toys. So that's also interesting. Yes.

Chris Whyte (: 18:25

Okay, very different user interface.

Remi (: 18:33

Yeah, and then we have someone which is supporting us for business like a new client acquisition. And then like a bit of support from investor or people who are invested a bit of money and who are also supporting.

Chris Whyte (: 18:40

Okay, yeah.

Remi (: 18:53

But it's a very small team.

Chris Whyte (: 18:55

Yeah. So yeah, so you've had to wear many hats across all three and a half of you, haven't you? And assess yourself learning how to run a business as a CEO and the changes that you're going through as well. You know, as the product gets closer to customers, there'll be step changes there and things you have to consider that you've got to learn.

Remi (: 19:00

No.

Remi (: 19:18

Yes, and I mean, first, I thought this could be a product for consumers and it's going to cost like maybe 2, 3,000 euros. It turned out that this is more expensive than what I expected. And now it's more like a B2B product. like I had to, yeah, it has to evolve a little bit along the way. It's not really pivot, but yeah, between like...

Chris Whyte (: 19:25

Mm-hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 19:33

Hahaha

Chris Whyte (: 19:37

Yeah.

Go to pivot. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 19:46

Hmm.

Remi (: 19:47

what I thought first or the vision I had and what, I mean, took also lot of time to develop. So along the way, I also realized that actually maybe it's more B2B product and then, yeah. But yes, of course I have to do a lot. I I actually developed together with the engineering office here in Berlin called Constructive, good people who are very good for actually prototyping.

Chris Whyte (: 19:49

Mm-hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 20:12

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 20:16

Mm-hmm.

Remi (: 20:16

new ideas and trying to make proof of concept. Yeah, so, but I started like four years ago and it took much more time and much more money than what I saw. So that's also like a big learning is like, it always take more time and it's more expensive than what you first think. Yeah. And this is also like a complex product. It's maybe I should have started with something a bit easier and smaller. this is a bit.

Chris Whyte (: 20:33

Mm-hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 20:40

Yeah.

Remi (: 20:47

challenging from the technical side and it's also big so like in terms of logistics when you need to ship the product it's also a lot of challenges that I didn't anticipate at the beginning.

Chris Whyte (: 20:56

Yeah.

Yeah, so looking back over the last kind of four years or so, obviously you mentioned one thing that I guess given your time again, you might kind of focus on B2B earlier rather than B2C, but are there any other things that you think back? Though I wish we'd known that sooner or I wish we'd done things differently.

Remi (: 21:20

Yeah, mean this somehow I think because it took some time to develop it also was good to have a lot of time to mature a little bit and to so I think now we launch a product and it was already there was a lot of maturity already so that was like people are sometimes like impressed like wow okay yeah that's impressive or I just

such a small team and but they don't see like all the work which is and all the time and things I would have done differently yes of course I mean especially raising money I would do it differently no I mean I very early I founded the company because I wanted to get some in like some grants that are available but you need to have a proper company for that

But now, because now the company is already four years old, and a lot of these grants are actually just for young company, which are one or maximum two years old. So I'm not eligible anymore to this public funding. So I thought maybe I should have put my own money first and then fund the company once the product is already there and then get some public who have been easier. now.

Chris Whyte (: 22:33

Right.

Remi (: 22:46

I cannot go anymore to these public grounds because officially the company is too old already. That was...

Chris Whyte (: 22:53

Yeah, that's interesting. Is that a quirk with the German kind of system there?

Remi (: 23:01

Yeah, so basically you get support or you get funding for a fresh young company, but if you are already four years old and they look at the number, they're like, but you just spend money. didn't make money. Yeah, of course. I mean, we are doing innovation and they're like, yeah, okay, but that's, we only finance either like really fresh company or like companies that are three, four years old, but already generate.

Chris Whyte (: 23:16

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Remi (: 23:33

I mean, now we start to generate money, but the last few years it was just spending for development and prototyping.

Chris Whyte (: 23:40

Yeah. It's one of the, one of the interesting things to think a lot of people from the outside looking in don't, don't realize that even when you start generating revenue, you know, a lot of hardware businesses, you still need a lot of funding, you know, you still need to raise capital to actually make the things just because you've got pre-orders or you've got contracts. It doesn't mean that they're, they're kind of going around a schmoozing with investors and, and funds is finished. still, that still continues for some time.

Remi (: 23:44

you

Remi (: 24:00

Yeah.

Remi (: 24:10

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 24:11

But obviously that doesn't get the headlines, it? We've pre-ordered or we've pre-sold X amount of units. And you think, great success, but you're still sweating because now you've got to raise money and deliver.

Remi (: 24:23

Yeah, you need to spend money to make money.

Chris Whyte (: 24:29

Absolutely. So in terms of just just something that isn't on the agenda, but it's something that came up quite recently on a guest that I interviewed, Sam Shames from Ember Labs. So he, their business has been going for several years, it was a wearable product to help heat and cool the body. I don't know if you may not have seen the episode, but

One of the topics we centered on was the idea of, you know, the founders, the founding kind of technical team, bringing in an external CEO or leadership to take over the running and plug those gaps. Cause they realized fairly early on, you know, they were brilliant at what they did, but they didn't have the commercial awareness or they didn't have the, they didn't have the, the experience scaling a company. So they brought that in and then it enabled the business to kind of.

three acts like within months, it was quite a brave decision. Well, I was gonna say, that something that's, we haven't discussed it, but is it something that's maybe crossed your mind about kind of the next next stage once you start kind of bringing money in is do we do we scale it with people underneath you? Do you bring in people that are, know, essentially taking over the running of the business to free you up to do stuff that you're kind of you enjoy and you're really good at?

Remi (: 25:31

Okay, that's maybe what I need to do too.

Remi (: 25:59

Yes, mean, definitely I need to find a solution because this is not going to work on the long run. So, yeah, I think the most important is to think what I...

Remi (: 26:19

So ideally, I would like to focus on product development and also bring new ideas. if I can have someone taking care of the business and customer and just focus on future ideas, that would be great. Yeah, but I mean, that's also a matter of opportunity.

Chris Whyte (: 26:39

I think that.

Remi (: 26:45

contact network and what happened on the way on the path.

Chris Whyte (: 26:49

Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's interesting, isn't it? From, know, from my personal experience and for the people that I speak to daily, you know, it's like you see that businesses go through those various different phases and transitions, called and pivots or whatever, but it's, you know, you get to a realization that in order to get to this next goal, this thing needs to happen or these people need to be in place or, know, or you might go from I'm enjoying building

a thing, a prototype. So and then there's a okay, now what and then there's a decision to be made. Sometimes that decision is made months or years in advance and you've got this part of plan. Sometimes it's like, I've hit a wall now I'm stuck, you know, and it's, I just think that kind of behind the scenes stuff or locked away in your head stuff that probably consumes most founders is quite, quite interesting because I think most people go through it. But yeah.

Remi (: 27:48

Yeah, and I think the exciting part is everything and then launching the product and also making sure that it's on track. But once it's kind of becoming a routine, then you want to go back to this exciting part and then build something new.

Chris Whyte (: 28:08

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So it's a bit pong then. It's a smart kind of physical slash digital ping pong table. You mentioned obviously that you're now kind of targeting B2B predominantly because of the cost. We're likely to see it in, you mentioned on our intake called kind of family entertainment centers, arcades, multi-activity centers, that kind of thing.

Are there any other areas that are particularly interesting or where we might see kind of bit punk in the kind of the near future?

Remi (: 28:46

So, I mean, it's definitely, it's actually, it's between sport and entertainment because ping pong is a sport. in theory that, I mean, federation for table tennis are also interested in our product, but they don't have as much money as the entertainment people. Entertainment, like family entertainment center, arcade, places, or like this...

Chris Whyte (: 29:03

Okay.

Yeah.

Remi (: 29:16

competitive social gaming. It's a big trend and it's developing also a lot actually, especially I think came from US, UK, but now it's also coming in France and the rest of Europe. Germany is a bit behind, also like Scandinavian people, country, it's quite big. And actually they buy this product and then they make money with it. So people...

Chris Whyte (: 29:28

Yeah.

Remi (: 29:44

and then spend money to play on this table here. So yeah, for them it's an investment and then they make money out of it. While sports, club, everything, it's a bit different. It's not the same business model, obviously.

Chris Whyte (: 29:55

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 30:02

Yeah, absolutely. You you've only got to go into a major city like London or New York or Berlin. You know, there's these entertainment centers popping up all over the place, isn't there? You you've got the crazy golf is having a renaissance with its interesting themes. You know, there's tech in that as well these days. Yeah, I'm a big fan of shuffleboard myself. You know, if you're paying eight or nine pound a pint of beer, you

Remi (: 30:15

Mm-hmm.

Remi (: 30:23

Yeah, a lot of innovation.

Chris Whyte (: 30:32

You might as well chuck in at the 20, 30 quid for an hour of shuffleboard and make it make entertainment as well. So it's something that's really accessible. But does you can get quite good at as well. it's the same with your product. So interesting. So what's it been like then turning this creative product, kind of passion project into a full

Remi (: 30:37

Yeah, of course.

Chris Whyte (: 31:01

full-blown business where, like you say, you're selling products and people are buying them from you now. How's that been for you?

Remi (: 31:10

Well, it's very exciting, but it's also sometimes very scary. So you go a bit through different... Sometimes you're like, okay, that's gonna be big success and...

Yeah, sometimes I'm very positive and sometimes there is some issue or like a customer is calling and there is a technical problem, need to solve it. And I'm like, my God, why did I start this? So like some, sometimes I'm very excited and high and sometimes I like, but in general I'm super happy and I don't regret it. It's really good, but.

I mean it's challenging, you need to be able to finance it. It's a lot of risk. I also have kids, family and it takes a lot of time. So you need to balance between family and everything and obviously it's a risk. But I think it's nice to take this risk and at least to try and not regret later.

Chris Whyte (: 32:24

Absolutely, it's such a balance, isn't it? What surprised you most about this journey so far?

Remi (: 32:35

what I'm most proud of.

Chris Whyte (: 32:38

Either what you're proud of or what surprised you most that you just didn't expect.

Remi (: 32:40

Hmm. Surprised me.

Remi (: 32:49

No, I mean, it was a relief to see that because you know, you have this vision and then you prototype and then you try and then at one point everything comes together and then this is where the first time you really can experience and see, okay, is it really as good as what I imagined it to be or maybe it's very boring and I did all this thing for nothing. So the first time it really worked and you play and then you also show it to people and you see like people are really exciting.

Chris Whyte (: 33:06

Hehehehehe

Remi (: 33:19

here in my case, maybe it's not the case for everyone, but here, that was really, that's a relief and it's also very, yeah, it's a nice feeling. And then when we presented first at the Yapa trade fair in Amsterdam last year, yeah, everybody, I mean, there was a lot of positive feedback. I mean, basically only, almost only positive feedbacks and...

Chris Whyte (: 33:21

Hehehe.

Chris Whyte (: 33:45

Yeah.

Remi (: 33:47

Yeah, that's great. then you see, it's going to be, it's going to roll out and it's going to be, but then you realize it's not because everybody likes it and that everybody wants. Yes. And you need also to, you need, mean, one thing is that at one point I also thought, okay, this product is going to be so cool that maybe I don't even need to, I just.

Chris Whyte (: 33:58

Yeah.

Remi (: 34:15

it on the internet and then it will become like viral and people will come automatically and want to buy it but it's not happening exactly like this I mean a little bit but you still need to push and need some people to call and to it's not automatic

Chris Whyte (: 34:17

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 34:32

Yeah

Call me a cynic, but I think those viral products seem like they don't need any advertising and they become the product in vogue. A lot of work clearly goes on behind the scenes in setting that up and knowing how to, that one video that takes over, who knows what's gone on behind the scenes for that. But one thing is having a great product.

Remi (: 34:47

Mm-hmm.

Remi (: 35:00

Well, we had one video which got really viral. I could see suddenly we had like 40 emails a week of people wanting to buy the... But still, it's still... mean, first it's a bit random. You don't really know exactly why this video was more successful than the other. And still, you need to...

Chris Whyte (: 35:08

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 35:12

fantastic.

Chris Whyte (: 35:20

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 35:24

Hmm.

Remi (: 35:29

It's not like automatically selling and that I have nothing to do with it.

Chris Whyte (: 35:36

Yeah, it's just feeding leads into the business, isn't it? like all that impressions are like a vanity metric in a lot of cases, because it's like people have seen some of the video or seen some of the content, but actually how you then kind of turn that into a sale. There's lots of different things in between, isn't there? but yeah, it's interesting. So, have you got products now with customer? Is it out in the public or are you delivering?

Remi (: 35:37

you

Remi (: 35:52

No.

Chris Whyte (: 36:06

Remi (36:06.174)

Yes, so we have four tables right now, which are operational. So in France, Germany, and US. So one in New York, one in Paris, one in Lille, one here in Berlin. And we are shipping six units September, October. So right now, we are super busy with our big batch. I I call it big batch, but sort of.

Chris Whyte (: 36:09

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 36:30

Fantastic. Yeah.

Remi (: 36:34

It's just we are producing 15 units now, which is nothing for most of the... But for us it's big and it's a big product, it takes a lot of space.

Chris Whyte (: 36:42

Still a big unit though, isn't it? Yeah.

So often when I'm speaking to my customers about testing and validating their products, there's only so much you can do in-house testing. So far, your imagination goes to how customers might break your product. Now that you've had product out in the wild, so to speak, what's surprising you now? Yeah.

Remi (: 37:12

That was very scary,

Chris Whyte (: 37:14

What kind of stuff is coming back? How are they breaking it? What have you learned about the product since it's got customers?

Remi (: 37:25

Well, I mean, we are quite lucky, or not lucky, because we knew, okay, this is going to public places where people don't really care. I mean, they just want to play and there is kids, there is drunk people. So it has to be robust. But you can only be sure it's really working once it's in the real situation. So here in our case,

touching wood now, but so far we didn't have big issue. And we had this chance that there is this family entertainment center guy I know, the company is called Whole Unit, are quite big in France. And the guy offered us to buy our first three units and also like to run them as a pilot unit. So it's like a pilot.

Chris Whyte (: 38:14

Okay.

Remi (: 38:19

phase for us to collect feedback and see what's working, what's not working. But actually on the hardware side, everything kind of worked. mean, we little adjustment, but nothing big. And then on the software, this is something we can always iterate and improve. So we're improving the games, of course. mean, thing is like, for example, at the beginning we had

Chris Whyte (: 38:19

Mm-hmm.

Remi (: 38:47

I mean, on ping pong, can... So you play ping pong, but you play little arcade games. We have a kind of snake, have kind of something that looks a bit like Candy Crush or different games. But then I realized also people also want to play regular ping pong. And we knew that, but it came quite early that actually, we really need to also like a real...

Chris Whyte (: 38:54

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 39:01

Yeah.

Remi (: 39:15

ping pong game where the table counts automatically the points and shows you who's time to serve. So that was a bit also of a surprise. I I knew that people would be interested in this, but it was actually stronger than what I thought at the beginning. No, but it's very, for sure it's very scary when you put your baby and then you start to see the people starting to play with and like sitting on it or...

Chris Whyte (: 39:38

Yeah.

Remi (: 39:45

even sometimes standing on it or you're like my god it was i don't know if it will resist but yeah it does so yeah

Chris Whyte (: 39:51

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 39:55

Yeah, that's good. It's testament to how robust your product is that no one's broken it. It's just an interesting use case rather than damage case, I suppose.

Remi (: 40:06

And I mean, it's also designed in a way that you can easily repair and so everything which breaks can be exchanged.

Chris Whyte (: 40:11

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 40:17

Fantastic. So yeah, definitely built to last. So, um, so let's talk around the TLC. So you mentioned it's a small team. Um, what's the vibe like behind the scenes? You know, obviously you're there in kind of the workshop there, can hear the product behind you. um, yeah.

Remi (: 40:19

Yes.

Remi (: 40:35

I can show you, I mean, it's a bit chaotic because as I said, we are a bit in production mode. Actually, I'm sharing also, we have this showroom here in Berlin. This is our office and this is also where we build the under construction, so like the wood parts, the electronic parts, we build it in a different location. And I'm sharing the office with the space with another designer.

She's doing furniture, so we can inspire each other. So I can show you a bit around. This is basically his workshop. That's the other side where it's more furniture from my colleague, Falcon. here's the showroom, mean, with the table.

Chris Whyte (: 41:06

Okay.

Brilliant. Yeah, yeah, that'd be awesome.

Chris Whyte (: 41:21

Cool, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 41:28

yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 41:32

Very cool.

Remi (: 41:36

That's it.

Chris Whyte (: 41:37

there we go.

Remi (: 41:41

And then you can select your game.

Chris Whyte (: 41:42

Very cool.

Chris Whyte (: 41:48

Aw,

Remi (: 41:52

shit.

Chris Whyte (: 41:56

bro. Have I seen one where you can have a wall up against you can play single player? that am I thinking of something else?

Remi (: 42:02

Yeah, that's also possible. Not with this. This is already the first prototype that we keep here. But with the final product, you can put one side vertical and play against the table.

Chris Whyte (: 42:05

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 42:13

bro. Yeah, I got everything covered then. So fantastic. So, so enjoy.

Remi (: 42:20

I mean that's what is cool here that we have this place where people or clients can come and try because usually they always want to try before buying. Especially this kind of interactive experience or this kind of interactive games people always want to try.

Chris Whyte (: 42:26

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 42:31

Well, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 42:37

Yeah, it's quite a considered purchase as well, isn't it? It's like, like say it's an investment for business and they're gonna wanna know that they're gonna get repeat customers are gonna be able to, you know, it's gonna be fun and people are gonna wanna come and show their friends. it's, that's great. Yeah.

Remi (: 42:53

Yeah and sometimes it looks cool on the video and then you actually try and it's wait it's quite boring. But here it's not the case usually. Usually they try and then they are counted, they know it. Okay, it's like on the video.

Chris Whyte (: 42:59

Yeah.

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 43:06

I think the most frustrating thing about tech like that is where it looks great, but then the user experience of playing is frustrating because it doesn't respond quick enough, you know, or there's like a lag.

Remi (: 43:18

Yeah, that's also like a concern a lot of people are having like, it, is there some latency? Is it fast enough? Is it really like responsive? And, but here, I mean, that's where you need to come and try and to be, but I mean, it is, but of course, people are sometimes like, I try and then, or I mean, sometimes what we do is also like online demos and I demo the product with my colleagues. Today is not here, so I cannot do that unfortunately, but.

And then people see on the screen, yeah, okay, that's really fast. But that was also a technical challenge for us to make it faster.

Chris Whyte (: 43:49

That's cool.

Chris Whyte (: 43:54

That's fantastic.

Chris Whyte (: 43:58

So all three and a half of you, you're based in that site where you are today or you kind of spread out.

Remi (: 44:05

The last,

Chris Whyte (: 44:07

That your team are you all based together on site or are you spread out? Yeah, yeah Yeah

Remi (: 44:11

So we have two locations, we have this location and we have the production, I mean, where we build the panels with the electronics, which is not here, so this is where the others are, all their colleagues are here today.

Chris Whyte (: 44:23

Yeah. Cool. Awesome. So what if someone joins your business tomorrow, what might surprise them the most?

Remi (: 44:34

Well, that we are such a small team, for example, because sometimes people are a bit surprised that... What else?

Remi (: 44:48

Well, apart from that, it's quite a classic startup.

Chris Whyte (: 44:54

Yeah.

you present much bigger than you are in terms of like the content and obviously the product's big as well as you'd expect to like say a big team behind it, but it's impressive. I yeah, no, it's brilliant. So I'm guessing then the kind of people that would thrive in that that setup there are people that are comfortable wearing many hats, you know, getting stuck in rolling their sleeves up. that the case?

Remi (: 45:07

Hopefully it will grow soon, but for now it's very small.

Remi (: 45:26

Well, mean, as a designer, usually you already have different hats. I mean, you're between sometimes you're working on like strategy, marketing, target group. So I think designers are also like people who are not really specialized. They are good in many things, but they are not necessarily...

specializing one very focused topic. So I think, yeah, and of course I'm curious. I also like to learn new skills or new things.

Chris Whyte (: 46:07

Wonderful. And how do you stay focused? the obviously having that brilliant product there, I imagine it's quite easy to get distracted or just got to test this next game out or how do you keep everyone from the the bitpong table?

Remi (: 46:26

Well, mean, we have, I mean, of course we play a lot, but that's also good because then we test and we can discover bugs or things that we can improve like on the software side. No, and then I mean,

Chris Whyte (: 46:27

That's just the job.

the

Remi (: 46:50

I think we have no choice, we have to be focused if we want to achieve the goals and make sure that this business stays alive. So yeah, it would be a bit irresponsible to... So for example, this year I didn't take any summer holiday. I hope I can go...

Chris Whyte (: 47:02

Yeah.

Remi (: 47:17

Five years, I can make great holiday, but like for this first year, we need to focus on the production, make sure we deliver, that the clients are happy.

Chris Whyte (: 47:29

Yeah, you got to get those units built, haven't you? get cashflow positive, I suppose. yeah, leads me on to my next question, really. What are you most focused on right now? Is it essentially just delivering on the orders that you've got? Or is there something else?

Remi (: 47:50

So right now it's this first big batch that, so for the first time we bought all of this material to be able to build 15 units. So we need to manage the stocks, we need to produce. And of course, when you produce sometimes there is some issue and we made the choice to produce everything.

internally and here in Germany, sometimes people are like, guys, this is crazy. You should just produce everything in Asia. But I think it's great. mean, that's also because you asked before what is people would be surprised. Maybe that's also one thing that can be surprising that instead of producing in Asia, we just produce here everything internally. Maybe in the future we will produce in Asia, but for now, at least it's good to really.

Chris Whyte (: 48:30

Yeah.

Remi (: 48:43

understand our product and really know our product and also see what can still be improved and I lost a little bit what I wanted to say but...

Chris Whyte (: 48:55

Well, I'm guessing the actual kind of size of the product and the volumes that you're selling every year, the cost savings of producing in China or Vietnam, you aren't like, you're not producing thousands of the things yet. So

Remi (: 49:09

Yeah.

Remi (: 49:13

Yeah, mean, this is also, of course, it depends what type of product you're doing and for us here in this case, yeah. But still, I think it's always good at the beginning to at least have a first batch produced internally. And so then you know, really your product, you know how it's assembled, you know, if something goes wrong, how to repair it. And then maybe later go to Asia.

Chris Whyte (: 49:17

Yeah, and you've got the shipping as well.

Chris Whyte (: 49:39

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what are you most excited about then for the next kind of 12 months or so?

Remi (: 49:50

Well, shipping to our next customer, OneTable is coming to England and it's actually a chain of a family attachment center. So if they bought also like a kind of a pilot unit to test it, then they already want to buy a big amount if they are happy.

Chris Whyte (: 50:04

okay.

Chris Whyte (: 50:15

pretty.

Remi (: 50:17

So I'm excited to, I would go myself together with a colleague and install the tables there. And hopefully this will work and then it's going to be everywhere in England.

Chris Whyte (: 50:29

Well, you have to keep us posted on kind of perhaps you could share after we've recorded where your tables are at currently and then just keep us posted because there's a handful of chains in the UK that I could think of that might be, but I'm sure you're probably not able to say just yet until they're in situ and they're publicized.

Remi (: 50:53

Actually, UK is quite a big market for us, US also, but now with the taxes in US, that doesn't really help. what I wanted to say, yeah, England is important for us. And yeah, we have a kind of exclusivity agreement with this family entertainment company.

Chris Whyte (: 50:56

Yeah.

Remi (: 51:18

So right now we can only sell to this company in UK and that was also something I learned so that we accepted these terms but then in the meantime a lot of companies in UK wanted to the table and I had to say no sorry we cannot sell it to you. That's, I mean that feels a little bit strange but obviously we won't regret.

Chris Whyte (: 51:23

Okay.

Chris Whyte (: 51:29

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 51:36

interesting.

Remi (: 51:46

this first customer will be happy with buy our stock. But yeah, I also like something like dealing with distributor is also something I didn't really anticipate. I thought, okay, we will.

Chris Whyte (: 51:50

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 51:55

Hmm.

Remi (: 52:00

produce and we will sell to end customer. And then a lot of distributor came and say, we all like to distribute your product. And this is something I also didn't really consider from the beginning. now I realize, okay, I also need to consider distributor. And then you need to have also like different price for the distributor than for the end customer. And you need to adjust all these things so that they work together.

Chris Whyte (: 52:14

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 52:19

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 52:24

Mm-mm.

Chris Whyte (: 52:29

It's really interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Cause there's, so many different kind of moving parts there. And like, you know, you would definitely be able to figure out how to get that product to the UK without a distributor, but actually using a distributor that that's what they do. It's like any, any professional partner, like whether it be recruitment or marketing or distribution, you know, there's that's, that's what they do.

Remi (: 52:53

Yeah, and actually if you work with distributors and the distributor actually setting for you and you don't really need to focus so much on setting because then they are doing some job and...

Chris Whyte (: 52:59

Mm hmm. Yeah. Since it's in their interest to ship your product, so it can work out and yes, it might seem expensive, but how expensive is it to sink your time into learning something and getting it wrong potentially because that's part of learning, you know, on balance. I'm not wanting to sell their service for them, but that's the kind of unseen cost that often comes with kind of DIY stuff, you know.

trying to figure things out. So really, really interesting. So we're kind of rapidly approaching time. But you know, what I'd love to ask you just as a final kind of rapid fire is, obviously, you're producing a an arcade game type type machine. When you grow and what was your favorite arcade or video game kind of growing up?

Remi (: 53:52

Well, actually, when I was a there were arcade places. Especially when I was a we used go on the coast on the other side of England, close to Calais, where there was a nice arcade place there. And was fascinated and I don't know, I liked to try all of these games, like fights.

Chris Whyte (: 54:09

Okay, yeah.

Remi (: 54:20

games or like spaceships and then I got my first console, PlayStation, then I played a lot also like Pro Evolution Soccer, so like this soccer game together with my brother and then in the meantime like the arcade completely disappeared, I mean that at one point everybody had a console and there was no business for this

Chris Whyte (: 54:36

yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 54:45

Hmm?

Remi (: 54:48

But now it's coming back because it's a new generation of architect places with other type of experience that you cannot really have at home. So that's great also. And so I'm going back a little bit to my kids' fantasies.

Chris Whyte (: 54:52

Mm-hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 54:58

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 55:06

Yeah. That's awesome. That's brilliant. And the question I try and ask everyone, there any books or podcasts that you could recommend that really kind of, you that you're really into that inspire you think other people might enjoy?

Remi (: 55:28

Well, mean, design books, it's a long time I was not reading design books, but the ones I were reading were actually books from IDEO. So like one of them was I lost my pencils.

And another one was like Ideo, Master of Innovation. I mean, these are already a bit old. It's not that the latest. But I was really, think for me, when I was, even when I was at Fron, I always look at Ideo because for me, Ideo was the big master of innovation and user center, like design process. So yeah, I really liked.

guys were doing and they had really great books also about innovation and design.

Chris Whyte (: 56:18

Wonderful wonderful well Remy. Thank you so much for joining me on on the white design podcast It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you for sharing your story and And shows the product as well. I it's it's a first For someone to pick the laptop up and show me around so I do appreciate that

Remi (: 56:25

Thank you.

Remi (: 56:33

Yeah, you couldn't see too well but check on YouTube or YouTube channel Bitpong, you would see more.

Chris Whyte (: 56:39

Yeah, well, what we do is on the show notes and when we promote the episode as well, we'll share links to the company website and to videos and things like that. Seeing it in action is the place again. But when you're ready as well, share the places where people can go out and try the product as well. That'll be, we'll publicize that. Keep your customers happy as well. Get some more footfall in there. That'd be great. And then, but yeah, thank you again. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Remi (: 56:56

Yeah, of course.

Remi (: 57:06

Yeah, thanks Chris. Nice. Thanks for having me.

Chris Whyte (: 57:10

No problem.