WOW Tech is the sex-toy company trying to make the earth move: ‘You don’t have to be ashamed’

Johannes Plettenberg tells Andy Martin about his career arc from wine to investment banking, to sex toys

The Womanizer sex toy uses a column of air to 'push and pull' (WOW tech)

He could have gone into the family wine business. His great-grandfather started the vineyard in the Nahe Valley in Germany and his father is still producing wine. But Johannes Plettenberg went into sex tech instead. “It’s more interesting and exciting than wine,” he says. “Wine is limited by the amount of land you own. WOW Tech is bigger than any vineyard.”

Plettenberg studied engineering and business studies in Berlin and at the University of Montana, where “my second semester was more about snowboarding”. He paid his dues in investment banking in London, then went to work for Bombardier transport group in Canada and India. But he was “a little bit bored”, so he joined sex toys start-up, Amorelie, in 2015. “You don’t have to be ashamed when you buy sex toys,” he says.

The real breakthrough occurred when Michael Lenke came to them with his “Womanizer” sex toy. Plettenberg admits “It’s not ideal in English.” But vocabulary aside, it works. Lenke is an eccentric inventor, along the lines of “Doc” in Back to the Future. He already had many original creations to his name. He devised an earthquake early warning system. And a device that encourages roses to bloom early, inspired by watching a dandelion blossom between the paving stones on his back-garden terrace.