Story & photo by Oliver Samson / Correspondent
HE didn’t say if he cares being tagged as one, but Koh M. Onozawa, president and CEO of Loudbasstard Inc., admits he is as pliant as the bamboo.
Onozawa also loves being loud as he pitched another homegrown mobile-phone sound amplifier—the battery-powered Loudbasstard Hybrid—to reach ears across the globe.
Released early this year, the product promises to parallel its precursor Loudbasstard acoustic bamboo sound amplifier, which enjoys patronage in different countries since Onozawa introduced it in 2012. It’s being sold for nearly $40 on the company’s web site.
“By incorporating the technology of powered speaker with the acoustic, we created a hybrid,” he said. “You are able to enjoy music either with or without electricity.”
The Loudbasstard Hybrid would be loved in societies where the acoustic bamboo product has been enjoying patronage of ears obsessed with music.
Italy, Japan, Spain, the US and the United Kingdom are only few of the countries where mobile-phone users enjoy listening to music with the Loudbasstard amplifiers.
“Currently, the biggest market for Loudbasstard would be Japan,” Onozawa said. “Next is the United States.”
Prior 2014 most units were going abroad. But the homegrown sound devices are reaching the ears of Filipino mobile-phone user music lovers.
“Now the Philippines is catching up,” he said. “We hope to be able to promote Loudbasstard more in the Philippines. We hope a lot of Filipinos falling in love with our brand.”
In 2014 the Loudbasstard amplifier sold “a good amount of units,” getting him a nomination in this year’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
Loudbasstard holds office and crafts by hand mobile-phone sound amplifiers in Cebu, where Onozawa was born and currently engaged in an empowerment project with the deaf.
“What we are trying to do right now is move them [deaf persons] to our office,” he said. “It’s a very pioneering model, where the non-governmental organization and the enterprise coexist in one office.”
Onozawa aspires employees and customers to have “a sense of ownership of the project with the deaf.”
“We want our costumers to feel they are part of our mission,” Onozawa said.
Loudbasstard is empowering hundreds of deaf from Cebu and other parts of the country to trust their own ability and become useful to themselves and others.
“We are teaching them basic business skills and want them to make something out of their own,” Onozawa said.
Another program of Loudbasstard for the deaf is teaching them, and their parents, with sign language.
The program seeks to eliminate communication difficulties between them and their parents, who usually are not deaf.
Loudbasstard shares what it makes with Filipino deaf so that they can listen to and enjoy music.
It would continue to craft the mobile-phone sound amplifiers and get involved in empowerment projects not only with the deaf but, also other people who require assistance.
Both the acoustic bamboo and battery-powered hybrid, which is built on lawaan (Philippine mahogany), mobile-phone amplifiers are sold at malls in the Philippines.
“Our plans for next year is to be able to incorporate some industry standard technology to incorporate more innovations, and more innovative products.”
Onozawa, an archeologist, was a finalist in many business competitions for those under-30.
He worked for the National Geographic in Japan and conducted extensive archeological work in the Pacific and climate-change researches in Guam, Japan, Saipan and the Philippines.
Image credits: Oliver Samson
1 comment
Wasn’t the brand started by two entrepreneurs, not just one?