You offer rides in a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and now a Ford Mustang. Which one is your favourite?
Each of those cars is completely different and has something to it. The American cars are generally a bit more cumbersome and I haven't done that much driving with the Mustang yet either. I'm more into the classic supercars. Plus the Ferrari and Lambo are just classics. The Ferrari is definitely the closest thing to my heart, it's got absolutely incredible handling. When you're driving it and you're accelerating, you feel like the car is glued to the road by some invisible force. It's just a blast!
Do you still drive them, or are they just for customers anymore?
I try to drive them as much as I can. I haven't been able to do it very often this season, but I've still taken every opportunity. We have every Monday designated as a service day, and when I see that there are no rides scheduled for Tuesday, I book it for myself. Or if there's a reunion of these car lovers, I'll take them to Austria to see some beautiful places. I love that.
You're going to drive supercars for our customers, but how did you get into these cars in the first place?
I've liked fast cars and supersports in general since I was a kid, every time they passed me on the street or I heard that engine sound it made my day. And it still does to this day. And then about 7 years ago I drove one for the first time.
You were 18, weren't you?
Yeah, I needed to try them right away (laughs)
So I tried a competitor, who at the time was probably starting out driving both Ferraris and Lambes, and it was a blast. At the same time, I saw how those experiences worked and I thought I'd like to go down that route one day. But at that time it was a fairly distant future.
And it came true for you, and you're offering those cars today, too. Why should customers choose to ride with you?
I think we have a lot of advantages. The main ones are that we offer the most appointments, we have the most beautiful cars, we have them in the classic colors (red Ferrari and yellow Lamborghini) that people expect and want, and last but not least we have a modern booking system that we think is the most intuitive and customer friendly.
What car do you have at home?
As a dailycar I use a BMW 650i, frozen black, which has 401 horsepower. My heartthrob is a Nissan 350Z, which I bought at 18 with the first money I earned. It's "that" famous car from Need for speed. It's been with me for 7 years and I plan on never selling it. And maybe this year a friend and I bought a half Fiat Multipla. That is, again, the ugliest car ever made. It's so bizarre, we've started to like it (laughs).
What else do you do?
I started with men's fashion, which I'm still doing. We have our own e-shop with men's and women's fashion. Then, of course, supersports. And we also have our own nonprofit Brave Bear where we do events for kids in orphanages. We help locally, we work with local people, and we pride ourselves on the fact that donors know exactly where their money is going down to the last penny. They can come to our events or go and talk to the people.
When we talked to the directors of these orphanages about wanting to help them in some way, they told us not to bring toys and clothes because enough people bring those things, but to take the kids somewhere. They don't have parents who would take them on a weekend trip. So we take them to the cinema, the theatre, bowling etc.
And where are you going, what is some of your long-term goals?
I think it's easier to get rich today than it ever was thanks to the internet. The internet offers unlimited possibilities. Therefore, I see my future in online services for users on a global scale. That's where I see myself as a "business". But if I were to answer the question of where I would like to be in, say, 3 years, I would answer that I would like to be happy. Nothing else really matters.
So what are your plans now?
For the last year and a half I've been developing this social service that we're going to be launching on the 1st of January, and it's exactly that. I have this vision that maybe in 3 years time it will just have maybe 10 million users using it.
| You're very young, tell us some recipe for success :-) I think it's very important to do things now. I'm sure you know it yourself, you tell yourself you're going to put something off until tomorrow, tomorrow is next week, and then a year later you find out you still haven't done it. Well, I like to do those things now. Because if you do something today, you'll find out a year from now that maybe it moved you somewhere else. Somewhere a level further. I don't know if that's quite a recipe for success, but it's certainly a great step on the road to it. |
What's made you happy lately?
I enjoy traveling, so I guess that's it. Now I was in the Dominican Republic the week before last, and I'm enjoying that a lot.
What specifically, exploring foreign places or just relaxing?
Well, I usually come back from a vacation even less rested than I was before I left (laughs). I don't go there to relax, I go there to explore. So I'm travelling, seeing places, talking to people and stuff.
And when you look at our offerings, what experiences (besides your own of course) would you like to try and why?
I've tried a lot of them, so it's not easy. For example, people around me know that they won't make me happy with a material gift, but only with an experience. And they don't really know what to buy me anymore. I've jumped out of a plane, I've cave climbed, I've tried bungee jumping, shooting, surfing, wakeboards, and many more... But now I'm thinking that maybe I'd like to ride in a rally car with someone who really knows how to do it. Maybe with a European champion, or a fighter jet.
