| COMPANY NAME Hey Wox INTERVIEWEE NAME Jaroslav Škrabálek SECTOR Software / Smart Home & Energy Management COUNTRY Czech Republic | PROJECT SCOPE Introduction of new products, processes or services | CIRCULAR BUSINESS MODEL Product life extension |
Company and project background
Can you give us a brief overview of your business and the specific project you implemented?
Hey Wox is a smart appliance management application that acts as a “central brain” for both households and businesses. The app extracts appliance information from invoices and purchase orders, then allows users to query their devices — for example, understanding error codes, assessing whether a repair is feasible, or tracking energy consumption trends.
The idea originated from a very practical frustration: founder Jaroslav Škrabálek could not find the manual needed to decode an error code on a broken induction hob. He had to dig through emails, find the purchase invoice, identify the model number, and then search for it manually. That experience prompted the creation of Hey Wox in 2022, initially focused on households.
A business version followed shortly after, adding asset management capabilities. The circular project — specifically the addition of a second-hand appliance marketplace — was completed with support from the Up2Circ grant. The marketplace allows users who replace old appliances (for example, after the app recommends a more energy-efficient model) to resell those appliances through the same platform, completing the circular loop.
What motivated you to make your business more circular?
There were two converging drivers. The first was an internal recognition that simply interpreting appliance documents was not sufficient as a standalone value proposition. The second was the 2022 energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, which caused dramatic spikes in gas and electricity prices across Europe.
This external shock made users acutely aware of the running costs of ageing appliances. Hey Wox already had appliance data; adding energy efficiency analysis and replacement recommendations was a natural extension. Once the app began recommending appliance replacements, the question of what to do with the old appliance arose — which made the second-hand marketplace an obvious and logical next step toward circularity.
Implementation process
What were the objectives of your project?
The primary objective was to build a functioning second-hand appliance marketplace integrated directly within the Hey Wox application. The goal was to reduce appliance waste by giving replaced devices a second life rather than sending them to landfill.
A secondary objective was to demonstrate measurable energy savings: the app calculates that replacing a refrigerator after ten years of use (when consumption may have increased by up to 20% due to ageing) with a modern energy-efficient model can save approximately CZK 3,000 per year in electricity costs. Making these savings visible to users was a key motivational tool to drive circular behaviour.
What activities did you carry out as part of your project?
The core technical work involved developing the marketplace module and integrating it with the existing Hey Wox appliance database. Because the app already knew each user’s appliances — make, model, age, and energy class — it could pre-populate marketplace listings with accurate, verified data, significantly lowering the friction of selling a used appliance.
In parallel, the team developed the energy-ageing algorithm that tracks the degradation in appliance efficiency over time and compares it against modern equivalents to calculate projected savings. The Up2Circ grant funding was instrumental in completing and launching the marketplace feature, which Jaroslav Škrabálek acknowledges would have taken longer or been deprioritised without it.
What feedback did you receive from stakeholders?
Early user feedback validated the core value proposition. The energy savings calculator proved particularly compelling — users respond well to concrete financial figures rather than abstract sustainability messaging. The prospect of saving CZK 3,000 per year motivates appliance replacement more effectively than environmental arguments alone.
Institutional engagement has also been positive: the startup has established a collaboration with the Czech Energy Regulatory Office (Energetický regulační úřad) to help users find better energy tariffs and providers — a natural extension of the appliance energy data the app already holds.
Impact & Outcomes
What are the main results and outcomes of the project for your company?
The completion of the marketplace is the primary tangible outcome. Hey Wox now offers a genuinely circular user journey: the app identifies ageing or inefficient appliances, quantifies the financial case for replacement, and then provides an integrated channel to resell the replaced appliance rather than discard it.
The Up2Circ participation has also strengthened the startup’s positioning in the sustainability and circular economy space, opening doors to partnerships with regulatory bodies and increasing credibility with institutional stakeholders.
Did you detect a positive impact of circular transition for your company and for the environment?
The primary environmental metric tracked is energy savings per household. The estimated saving of CZK 3,000 per year per replaced refrigerator (after ten years of use) corresponds to a meaningful reduction in electricity consumption. Across a user base, this aggregates into significant avoided CO₂ emissions.
By enabling the resale of replaced appliances rather than disposal, the marketplace also contributes to extending product lifespans and reducing the demand for new manufacturing — both of which carry significant embedded carbon reductions. Tracking of these metrics is ongoing as the marketplace scales.
Which changes have you already implemented?
The following are fully live: appliance registration via invoice/order scanning; error code lookup and service vs. self-repair recommendations; energy ageing tracking with replacement savings calculations; the second-hand appliance marketplace; and the business version of the app with asset management. The collaboration with the Energy Regulatory Office on tariff switching is also underway.
Lessons learned
What key lessons did you learn regarding circular innovation?
The most important lesson was that circular features need to be anchored in clear financial value for the end user. Sustainability messaging alone does not drive behaviour change at scale. The CZK 3,000 annual saving is a far more powerful conversion argument than energy class labels or CO₂ statistics — and that saving is only credible because the app holds verified data on the specific appliance in question.
A positive surprise was how willing institutional partners — such as the Energy Regulatory Office — are to collaborate with startups that hold appliance-level energy data. This is a genuinely scarce resource and creates partnership opportunities that were not anticipated at the outset.
Did you encounter any challenges?
The earliest and perhaps most illustrative challenge was the AI scepticism of investors. In 2021, when Jaroslav Škrabálek sought investment, he had already integrated ChatGPT into Hey Wox — with direct permission from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. A prominent investor nonetheless dismissed the concept, arguing that only two or three percent of people would ever communicate naturally with an application. Within six months, ChatGPT had become mainstream and the investor’s objection was overtaken by events. This experience underscored the difficulty of fundraising when the core technology is ahead of the market’s mental model. The lesson was perseverance and the importance of having long-term institutional supporters — such as JIC — who understand the innovation trajectory
If you could do your project again, what would you do differently?
Jaroslav Škrabálek would have moved toward the circular marketplace feature earlier. The energy crisis of 2022 was an accelerant that validated the direction, but the underlying logic — that appliance data is the key to enabling circular behaviour — was always present. Acting on that insight before the external crisis would have allowed the marketplace to launch sooner and capture the initial wave of energy-cost anxiety more fully.
Future plans & recommendations
What are your next steps towards circular transition? Which partners would you like to team up with/collaborate?
The next development priorities are: (1) helping users switch to better insurance products for their appliances — a natural extension of the appliance inventory Hey Wox already maintains; (2) integration with energy providers to facilitate tariff switching, building on the collaboration with the Czech Energy Regulatory Office; and (3) integration with Legamik, a companion app developed by the same founder that analyses terms and conditions in contracts, flags potential pitfalls, and helps users draft complaints. Together, the two apps would offer a comprehensive household contract and appliance management platform.
The aim is to help users identify not merely the cheapest offer, but the highest quality and most reliable one — a principle that applies equally to appliances, energy tariffs, and service contracts.
Is there any advice you would give to other SMEs looking to implement a circular project?
Start with the data you already hold. Hey Wox did not need to build a circular product from scratch — it needed to recognise that appliance registration data was the foundation for energy analysis, replacement recommendations, and eventually a resale marketplace. The circular business model emerged from the data asset, not the other way around.
Also, do not underestimate the power of concrete financial savings as a driver of circular behaviour. Users who might ignore a sustainability argument will act on a CZK 3,000 annual saving. Frame circular choices in economic terms first, and the environmental benefits follow.
How can policymakers or financial institutions better support businesses in adopting circular practices?
The Up2Circ grant was decisive in completing the marketplace feature. Grant funding that targets specific circular innovation milestones — rather than general R&D — is highly effective for startups at this stage, because it reduces the risk of developing features that are strategically important but commercially uncertain in the short term.
Institutional collaborations — such as the one with the Czech Energy Regulatory Office — are equally valuable and could be brokered more systematically by policymakers. Startups with relevant data assets often lack the access to regulatory bodies that would make partnerships mutually beneficial. A structured matchmaking role for public bodies or innovation agencies like JIC would accelerate this.