Essential Puzzles is a mindfulness brand and e-commerce business. Its deceleration products include jigsaw puzzles and books. The NFP business was established as a social impact initiative during COVID-19, with profits donated to charities as a part of our COVID-19 relief fund.

 Our Feel Good jigsaw puzzle was picked by global design leaders for its outstanding product design in the Driven X Design Awards Spotlight.
Opportunity statement
How might we promote mindfulness and improve mental health
For COVID-19 affected community members
So that our community is supported during a pandemic
Project Stages
DISCOVER
Market positioning
With the Australian Prime Minster broadcasting to the nation that puzzles were now considered an ‘essential’ activity during the pandemic, our brand and its initiative was born.
From here I led our team to establish a market gap in the industry and to carve out the business opportunity of adult deceleration products. Activities included profitability modelling, market analysis, market research, product distribution analysis, brand identity, and conceptual design.
DEFINE
Product prototyping
To ensure our product vision aligned to a legitimate market need I remotely managed the project’s validation phase with a design and research team. On a small budget, the team effectively executed several product iterations collecting customer feedback across social media groups, forums, video interviews, and surveys. Once the product reached a point of clear desirability we began the process of physically prototyping the first jigsaw and its package. Prototypes and samples were made by the team in Australia and with international manufacturers.
DESIGN
Product specifications and manufacturing 
We elected to manufacture the product overseas. To ensure a production quality that could meet our customer expectations I led the team to source manufacturers, acquire samples, negotiate rates, establish quality assurance processes, calibrate all print production, and manage shipping plans.
A detailed product specification was created to make certain the puzzle and its packaging would be produced within little to no margins of error.
REFINE
Brand creation, photography, and online presence
Our go-to-market strategy used a pre-launch that required our brand to feel trustworthy, exciting, and highlight that this was a ‘social good’ project. To do this I formed a visual brand and a lean style guide, created our e-commerce website with multiple sales funnels and undertook the role of copywriting to explain the product and its social cause.
Next, I ran several lifestyle photography shoots with our sample product featured in beautiful Airbnb’s and with social influencers and A/B tested results online.
Importing logistics and quality assurance
During the pandemic freight timelines and costs became unstable. Shipment delays threatened our customer experience and the increasing costs became an increasing profitability risk. To mitigate the increase in costs I was able to reduce our projected defect rates and form a new shipping strategy.
As it became clear shipping delays were part of our world's new ‘normal’, a strong line of customer communication was established that successfully managed expectations of their product arrival.
DELIVER
Advertising campaigns, SEO, and PR management
Utilising the creative assets made in the brand creation stage an organic marketing campaign was used across Facebook and Instagram that gained a small level of virality. Successful campaigns were then refined and managed as paid ads across social and search platforms. The SEO of our website was increased by establishing a copywriting team to create a series of keyword-driven blogs.
In addition to this, I interacted with media publishers, awards programs, and writers to build a reputation and establish backlinks to our website.
Result
Within weeks the entire stock of our products had sold out! We exceeded our sales targets and donated profits to charities within our COVID-19 Relief Fund.
The business was highly recognised for its outstanding product design, and mission for social good. In 2020 our Feel Good jigsaw puzzle was picked by global design leaders in the Driven X Design Awards Spotlight.