Torreo Case Study

Stephen Igbinosa; Omar Sharaf

Product Lab

05/11/17

Torreo Case Study

        We are Torreo the people's kitchen. The co-founders, Omar Sharaf and Stephen Igbinosa, created Torreo as a unique product that makes it easier for amature cooks to carry and store premium grilling utensils. Omar Sharaf focused on the concept and design of the product, while Stephen Igbinosa honed in on the sales and marketing aspect. Together we used our separate skills and synergized with each other to make an efficient team.

The highlighted experience from Torreo came from the Southby Southwest Interactive that Torreo was privileged to be able to attend. Only, one one member of the team was able to attend, Stephen Igbinosa. The Southby experience offered a chance for me to see the innovative world as a market for sharing new ideas and exchanging thoughts on the popular inventions to date. The goal of Product Lab while at Southby in my mind was to network with business professionals and find out if the public was interested in the kitchen/grill set that Torreo can offer. Firstly, there was no urgent need for me to pitch and I spent most of my time listening to other startup companies share their experiences. I then realized that could learn from the speaking style and presentation manners of the elite.

        Keeping this is mind, Torreo got prepared for its first major pitch night in San Antonio. Torreo, one man short, embarked on the mission of selling the idea of carrying your kitchen tools with you, rather than struggling to find the proper utensils. The idea itself was my main topic point because we weren’t able to do one pitch in front of everyone, I had to do several mini pitches to various Austin College Alumni and interested people. Using the skills and hype I gathered from Southby, I was able to speak professionally about the product. I learned from this event about the downfalls and upsides to the product. There was no working prototype at the time so I had to try my best explaining the different uses of the product. The feedback given was mostly useful, because some people were really interested in the plausible applications of the design while others were more interested in the various items that could come inside the prototype. Using this pitch night as a survey, I was able to collect enough data to prepare Torreo for the next step of creating our first prototype that we used for our next team pitches in Collin County and Dallas.