There’s a quiet guilt that comes with modern comfort. We order, unwrap, replace—rarely questioning the trail of waste we leave behind. Most of us notice it in small ways: a child’s question, a hurried glance at a trash bin, a product that feels too cheap. These moments pass quickly. But sometimes, they catch—pressing us to reconsider what we’re part of and what we leave behind.

Henrik Jonsson was working as a global sales director in the phone case industry when those questions became louder. After years on the road, the personal cost of constant travel and consumption weighed on him. In 2020, he contacted the founders of Agood Company—a Swedish DTC brand founded in 2018—and eventually joined as an investor and partner. By the end of that year, he helped steer the company through a fundamental change: moving from online sales to building a global retail operation grounded in circular production.

“We realized the market research was a lie.”

The company’s original vision was to sell directly to conscious consumers. But by 2021, Henrik pushed to lean into retail distribution—his own area of expertise. “The intention was to be a pure DTC brand,” he said. “But now it’s totally the opposite.” Today, retail accounts for about half of their revenue, including distribution through major telecom carriers like Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, and Swisscom. The rest comes from a mix of corporate gifting, fashion collaborations, OEM partnerships, and limited DTC sales.

The real shift came when the team stopped trusting sustainability surveys. “Every researcher survey is saying people will pay more for a sustainable product,” Henrik said. “But the truth is, they won’t. You can’t charge a premium just because it’s circular.” Instead of messaging circularity as a value-add, the company began redesigning its pricing, manufacturing, and product features to be competitive with conventional goods.

This decision triggered a major reorganization. Agood Company reduced DTC investments, ramped up resources for physical trading, and improved production efficiency to reach cost parity with suppliers in low-cost regions. “That was an important realization,” Henrik said. “Now we can offer circular products at the same price as products made in China.”

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“We can’t expect consumers to figure out what’s sustainable.”

Henrik no longer sees education as the path forward. “Even I struggle to judge if a product is good or not,” he said. “Imagine the average consumer.” He believes brands must take responsibility by making circular products that don’t require trade-offs. “If you’re choosing a phone case, you should pick based on design or features—and it should just happen to be circular.”

To support this goal, the company has opened production facilities in Sweden, Asia, and most recently the US. South Africa and India are next, with local production expected to begin in 2026. “You can’t make a circular product in Sweden and expect someone in Japan to send it back for regrinding,” Henrik said. “That’s not realistic. Local production is critical.”

The company’s growth hasn’t come without pressure. “It consumes cash,” he said. “You need to scale quality, service, and systems at the same pace as demand.” For Henrik, the emotional volatility is just as real as the logistical challenge. “Some days you feel like a king, other days you feel close to dying,” he said. “But when you’re in a deep crisis, that’s usually when you’re closest to a breakthrough.”

Henrik’s focus now is on maintaining momentum—without losing the integrity that brought him to Agood Company in the first place. “We can’t cut corners,” he said. “Not when we’re trying to do something even slightly better than what’s out there.”

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