It appeared moderately apt that Jack O’Sullivan, founder of electrical bike producer and designer Modmo, has based mostly his Irish staff within the WeWork premises on the North Wall Quay in Dublin. His newest investor constructed the constructing.
he 25-year-old Dubliner, who constructed Modmo from the Vietnamese metropolis of Ho Chi Minh, has simply raised €5m from property improvement titan Sean Mulryan, the boss of Ballymore Group. It brings the full funding raised by the e-bike firm, which solely began in March 2020, to €8.7m.
O’Sullivan’s likelihood to impress Mulryan took place thanks to one among his enthusiastic early buyers. When the 2 met for the primary time, the property developer favored what he noticed.
“Fifteen minutes into the meeting with Sean, he was clearly impressed with the product,” he says. “We went into the assembly trying to increase perhaps €2m in January. However Sean stated, ‘Well, what would you do with €5m today?’
“With Ballymore, they are planning really far in advance as well, and one of the things he mentioned in that meeting was, ‘We are planning 80,000 bike parking spaces in our buildings over the next few years. Let’s fill those with Modmo bikes rather than from someone else.’”
O’Sullivan says getting the deal executed was spectacular.
“The decision-making process was somewhat instant,” he says. “It was clear that when he made up his mind, he had the team behind him to make it happen quick… He wanted it done before Christmas.”
The money couldn’t have come at a higher time for O’Sullivan’s Modmo and his staff of 46 employees, who’re dotted worldwide from Ireland to Vietnam.
The e-bike market is booming. Modmo is at present delivering to eight European nations, with Germany making up 85pc of gross sales, and has plans to increase to North America. This March, it can open its first dealership in Vancouver, Canada.
As demand grows, O’Sullivan admits Modmo has struggled to sustain at instances.
“We pretty much stopped selling our bike at some point last year,” he says. “We simply had so many delays and didn’t need to disappoint our clients.
“After that preliminary say 1,000 bikes that we pre-sold in 2020, we switched gross sales off and simply targeted on producing them and preserving clients knowledgeable.
“Sales are not going to be our biggest issue. The call I took just there, they wanted to order 2,000 bikes.”
O’Sullivan says the largest problem going through Modmo can be supply-chain constraints, wreaking havoc across the international economic system. It has meant Modmo is now ordering the inventory it wants a 12 months prematurely, utilising a few of its raised funding.
The founder additionally hopes to develop its core European markets, develop its manufacturing unit in Vietnam and construct a staff of 30 employees in Dublin targeted on gross sales and R&D. Modmo additionally plans to bolster its expertise and serve different “micro-mobility” wants, doubtlessly together with e-scooters and cargo bikes.
It isn’t just the quick tempo of biking that Dubliner O’Sullivan has lengthy held a ardour for – the world of enterprise additionally has a particular place in his coronary heart.
Seeing his mother and father develop a enterprise that operated for over 30 years clearly impressed him, however an obsession with downhill mountain biking meant a 15-year-old O’Sullivan was all the time trying to make his personal cash.
“I was just selling everything to buy better bikes,” he says. “The components marketplace for bikes wasn’t that large, so I began importing second-hand iPhones from the UK and promoting them.
“At one level, I used to be turning over €15,000 in a month.”
After his spell promoting iPhones, O’Sullivan arrange his first bike firm – Vital Fixies. The firm was targeted on importing and promoting fixie bikes, that are fixed-gear and customary for monitor racing.
O’Sullivan discovered a provider in China and ordered a container with the assistance of his brother and father, who invested start-up capital. Finally, the cargo arrived, and he acquired promoting.
“I learnt a lot about the full cycle of running a business.”
Following a transient spell in school learning enterprise, he dropped out early to chase his entrepreneurial desires. The inspiration for Modmo quickly took place. While engaged on the Vital Fixies enterprise from Dublin metropolis, O’Sullivan seen biking right here had its fair proportion of pains.
“I decided we needed to create a bike that can solve three issues – sweat, theft and utilities [being able to carry goods].”
O’Sullivan went on a journey to China when he was 19, in search of inspiration for his bike thought.
As time went on, a good friend advisable going to Vietnam. With a 3D render and proof of idea pattern bike, he agreed with a manufacturing unit within the nation that they might make the product if he may increase $10,000.
O’Sullivan marketed pre-sales of the Saigon Modmo bike on-line for a €99 deposit, and inside months he had the funds.
In March 2020, Modmo was born.
The firm acquired greater than 1,000 pre-orders for its flagship product, the Saigon. In addition to travelling up to 200km on a single cost, the e-bike comes with Bluetooth and GPS monitoring. A second lower-cost model, the Saigon S, has additionally been developed.
“We were totally blown away,” O’Sullivan says. “Looking back, that was the perfect time – to the day – to launch a bicycle company.”
O’Sullivan set about constructing his staff in Vietnam. Due to Covid restrictions, he based mostly a group of round 30 employees in a villa overlooking the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City, full with a swimming pool, ping-pong desk, geese, chickens, and a canine.
With the pre-sales, Modmo had to set about constructing and delivery bikes. When the staff began, it by no means took longer than 60 days to get the components they wanted. However, as bikes continued to promote, the lead-in instances for components swelled – and delays started to stretch to six months.
“If there is a bolt missing, you can’t ship anything,” O’Sullivan says. “Right now, we are going to have to wait five weeks to get a slot on a ship to deliver more bikes.”
Last February, Modmo began to ship its first tranche of bikes. Shortly after, it additionally raised its first seed funding of €1m.
Delivering these first bikes was a particular second, but in addition a nervy one for O’Sullivan. He says he had “prepared for the worst” – however was proud of the response.
Looking to the long run, O’Sullivan has large visions for Modmo. He hopes to “turn sales back on” this March, with the corporate having made extra bikes final week than it had over the earlier 12 months. He recognises some clients had been dissatisfied with ready instances.
All going properly, O’Sullivan – who someday hopes to take Modmo to IPO – has a lofty goal of constructing and promoting 12,000 bikes this 12 months and hit a goal turnover of between €20m and €30m.
With O’Sullivan’s hopes excessive for Modmo, his love of enterprise has made this journey – stretching across the globe and now involving one of many titans of Irish enterprise – extra of a interest than a problem. Despite some bumps within the street when funding was tight, and provide chains strained, O’Sullivan is having fun with the trip.
“There have been many instances throughout Vital Fixies and Modmo when there was subsequent to no cash within the financial institution, and a few individuals would take into account shutting down the enterprise. But, for those who hold going at it, you’ll be able to hold going.
“You only fail when you give up.”
Curriculum Vitae
Name: Jack O’Sullivan
Age: 25
Position: Founder and CEO of Modmo
Education: Clonkeen College and briefly studied enterprise at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology
Previous expertise: Founded Vital Flexies
Lives: Dublin/Ho Chi Minh City or “wherever the business needs me”
Favourite interest: Mountain biking