When I was younger, people would ask me what I wanted to do for living. The answer was definitely not an entrepreneur. I had my hobbies, my plans, and doing business wasn’t one of them. It all started by chance.
At sixteen, my friends and I used to play Need for Speed: Underground, a video game which allowed us, besides car racing, to upgrade the cars we raced with. What particularly caught my attention in this game were the underglow lights, so I thought I’d make one for my Cagiva Roadster. I was thrilled with the result. So was a friend of mine who immediately wished one for his Yamaha YBR125. That was the moment the company started to take shape without me realising it. As I was already making one underglow light for my friend, I made a few extra ones and tried to sell them on Aukro (a Czech online second-hand shop). The production took a long time and there was no chance to make big money but I had a good feeling when I managed to sell some after a few months.
After a while, my dad asked me for a fuel gauge for his Honda XL600V Transalp. He didn’t want to drill into the tank so the ideal solution for him was a float-free version. It was a challenge for me, but thanks to my studies at university where I learned to program, I was able to make a functional piece that you know today in its newer version (link here). I was developing this fuel gauge with the idea of starting to sell them at some point in the future. When I was still at university, I also got down to developing and selling auxiliary lights which stood out thanks to their size and good luminosity. And they got me noticed by Radek from RADE/GARAGE (link here) who was looking for an enthusiast to help him develop lights for his fairings. I had to study a lot of things we had only touched on at school. It took a year of hard work to develop functional pieces and another year to obtain homologation for these lights. That was a huge achievement for me, who actually just made underglow lights for fun in the beginning. At that point, it was clear that I was going to take the plunge and build my own company. It gave me the opportunity to improve my skills and abilities and to surpass myself.
If I were to go back to the beginning and choose a field of business, it would definitely not be electrics :D You have to know a lot of things, get expensive equipment, look for materials that are costly and sometimes damn hard to get, and that’s quite a bit of complications to start with. But today I don’t regret anything. Maybe except for the moments when it’s close to midnight, I’m on my fourth cup of coffee and I’m still thinking about the new product, why it doesn’t work and I’m wondering where the hell the fault is… And I’m not going to sleep till I figure it out.
My goal became to build a company that would not only give people jobs, but also care for their wellbeing. I like when people come, enjoy the pleasant atmosphere and feel good about the work they have done. Sometimes, good ideas cross our minds when we are riding motorcycles together, we discuss everything from the weather to annoying neighbours at evening barbecues, and now and then we also bring our culinary creations for the others to have a taste. In summer, we recruit students who come to us to take a break from school and learn something new. Who doesn’t want to know how to solder or operate a laser. :D We just love spending time together and I’d like to keep it that way.
Jakub