During her design studies, Alina Eynck came up with the idea for a new type of dildo. But it wasn’t until eight years later that it became a business. This is going well now.
Sex toys such as dildos or butt plugs are mostly made of silicone, sometimes also made of glass or metal. Very few people should think of porcelain when it comes to lovemaking. But the founder Alina Eynck raves about the material. She sells porcelain sex toys through her online shop Porzelina. Porcelain is, among other things, unbreakable, non-toxic, slippery, skin-friendly, water-resistant, adapts quickly to the temperature in the bathtub, for example, and allows for ergonomic shapes, enthuses Eynck. They recently launched their sex toy line awarded the Red Dot Design Award.
A dildo from Eynck’s startup costs up to 134 euros, which is usually more than the competition Amorelie, Eis, Fun Factory and Co. The reason: the four different sex toys from the product line are made in a complex manual process. The special material is fired in several steps at temperatures of around 1000 degrees Celsius and more.
For this, Eynck relies on two porcelain manufactories in Bavaria. “Otherwise, they make angel figures out of porcelain, for example,” says the 28-year-old in an interview with Gründerszene. However, the Bavarians would not have any problems producing sex toys.
According to the founder, the manufactories could easily produce around 100 pieces of each product per month. In the case of Porzelina, that’s a total of around 800 sexy toys each month that both companies can produce for the startup. Should they reach their capacity limits, the founder could switch to other manufactories.
“I thought as a designer I wasn’t allowed to make sex toys”
Eynck officially launched her online shop just a few weeks ago, in August. But the idea of making dildos out of porcelain came to her eight years ago, she says, while she was studying product design.
She was fascinated by it, but then dropped the idea. She was afraid of being stigmatized. “I feared that my portfolio would not be diverse enough or too frivolous if it only consisted of sex toys,” says the founder. “I thought that as a professional designer, I wasn’t allowed to make sex toys.”
But the thought of the porcelain dildos never really let her go. During her master’s degree in product design and process development, it turned out that her idea could be approached professionally as a real product. This was also the subject of her master’s thesis in 2021. She then started the founding process. She was supported, among other things, by the TH Cologne, where she did her master’s degree. Before that, she got to know the industry as an intern and working student at Fun Factory in product development.
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The company behind the Porzelina shop has been Majursa UG from Krefeld since March of this year. So far, her startup has been a one-woman operation, says Eynck. Friends and family would help out, but the majority of the work – according to her own statements, significantly more than a classic 40-hour week – remains with the founder.
With smart technology in the dildo a topic for investors?
In addition to sales, the company is currently financed by a start-up grant from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Ministry of Economics finances “innovative ideas” for up to one year with 1000 euros per month. The fact that Eynck und Porzelina received an article in the Bild newspaper (belongs, like Business Insider and Gründerszene, to the Axel Springer publishing house). Eynck has not yet spent any money on online marketing.
For further sales growth, Enyck is currently in talks with stationary retailers in Berlin and Cologne as well as online shops that could offer their products. The founder is also thinking about adding technology to her products, because larger porcelain items are usually hollow and offer space for hardware. Eynck will not be specific, but it sounds like there could be smart products that could also be exciting for investors.
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