The Revolution of the Mobile Toilet

Jojo Linder of Kompotoi tells us about the composting toilet that looks good, is environmentally friendly and absolutely odorless.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

Jojo Linder: We are all healthy and relatively well. Sometimes it is quite hard because I have a lot of pressure due to the uncertain situation.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Kompotoi.

Jojo Linder: Oh, that’s a long story!

First, I studied permaculture in Austria. There I built my first compost toilet. Then I went to India for a foundation and worked in a school. In the same village, they used composting toilets. And what came out of these toilets was the best soil you could get in this area. I was very impressed. Back in Switzerland, I went to an event and needed to go to the toilet. So I stood in front of a plastic chemical porta-potty, and I was just like: “come on, is that really it?”

How does Kompotoi innovate? 

Jojo Linder: I guess we are always in contact with customers and employees and ask them for Feedbacks. That’s the way we can know what we can do to make our products more customer-friendly and more efficient. 

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Jojo Linder: In 2019, we made around 50% of our income from events because of a huge request, so we invested 2020 in that field. Finally, there was nothing happened. That’s very hard for a small and relatively young company. 

But at least we could grow very good in other fields and focus there at the moment. These are mostly communities for public places and also touristic areas. With our Kompotoi and the handicap toilets, we have a perfect product for them. 

Did you have to make difficult choices and what are the lessons learned?

Jojo Linder: The first lockdown was really strange. We needed to stop basically everything. We were just building new Kompotois at that time and we decided to stop immediately. Also this winter we needed to decide if we will continue investing or just resign. But I guess it was the right decision to continue growing. 

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Jojo Linder: I cannot answer these questions. It is hard to say we navigate… It feels like we are a flag in the wind, and we just try to go with the flow. But for sure, this time, we need to have the cash flow really in mind all the time. 

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Jojo Linder: Our big competitors are dixi and Toitoi. They are not so affected as we are because they make a lot of business with construction sides. What we do is actually partnering with smaller companies that rent standard mobile toilets to reach new areas. It works very well, and we start with three new partners this year and keep on growing. So we are very open to new partners in all areas!

Your website?

www.kompotoi.com