Back in early 2024 a buyer from Lagos sent Nina a request that looked simple. He wanted our brightest solar torch, the one we rate at 350 lumens, two thousand pieces, fast.
So we quoted it. But Nina has a habit of asking one extra question before she lets an order through, and this time she asked what the lights were actually for. The answer changed everything. They weren't for finding your way at night. They were for market traders who keep a stall open after the power cuts, which in that part of the city is most evenings.
A 350 lumen torch on full blast would have died in maybe three hours. What those traders needed was a lower, steady output that runs all night and recharges off a cheap panel during the day. Brightness was almost beside the point.
So we switched the order to our 80 lumen model with the bigger 2000mAh cell, and added a low-power mode that none of them had asked for. The unit cost actually went down, which made the buyer suspicious until Nina explained why.
The funny part is the samples almost didn't arrive. DHL held them at customs over a paperwork thing for nine days and the buyer was sure we'd vanished with his sample fee. We hadn't. Customs just doesn't move fast in March for some reason.
He reordered twice that year. And we changed our quote form. Now the first field isn't lumens, it's "what is this light for." Sounds obvious. Took us eleven years to put it there.
