Seeing that the majority of the Hong Kong populace is frequently too busy or too far away from wet markets to buy fresh groceries and find it difficult to identify healthy produces, Hinz paired up with two friends to set up Jou Sun 早晨, an online platform that does the grocery run for customers; digitizes local wet markets, organic farms and specialty importers; and empowers housewives with part-time jobs.

Launched in May 2015, Jou Sun—which means "good morning" in Cantonese— helps customers to source fresh groceries from local and international vendors, and enables brick and mortar retailers and brand owners to sell directly to customers online. After a customer places an order, staff will divide the shopping list and send out part-time workers to purchase the groceries and bring them back to the company's Wan Chai headquarters to be packaged. The groceries are then delivered that same day to customers.

The biggest challenge to Hinz so far has been logistics: despite Hong Kong being a relatively small city, it can still be expensive to arrange the shopping and delivery from one place to another. Jou Sun's experienced vendor partners and part-time staff—mostly housewives—help mitigate this problem of sourcing and picking fresh and healthy produces. Hinz and team also work hard to increase the variety of products available while ensuring that vendors do not compete with one another, and that only high-quality, fresh products are sold on their platform.

In his spare time, Hinz is also dedicated to serving his community. He worked for several years in design and advertising before becoming an entrepreneur, and continues to make use of his expertise to support local social enterprises with branding and design on pro bono projects. 

Know more about Hinz from:

Hack-A-Bench RTHK Interview 2018 (Cantonese)

South China Morning Post – May 24, 2016

RTHK31 - August 25, 2015 (Cantonese)