“Whenever I hear a squeaky bicycle chain or see a bike that’s practically crying out for service, I realize how many people and especially bikes need us,” says Florian Binder, co-founder and CEO of Radish. His young company from Vienna offers quick and easy booking of bicycle services and repairs. You can book appointments for service and repairs online and then bring your bike to one of the drop-off locations.
Radish-CEO Florian Binder © Trending Topics
Radish team are enthusiastic cyclists
This concept is already very successful today. Among other things, Radish cooperates with the Storebox storage network and with numerous partner bike workshops so that customers can drop off their bikes and pick them up again. In addition, the young company made it to the final of the #believeinyourself challenge this year. Of course, Radish didn’t achieve these successes entirely without help. An important supporter along the way was the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
The founders Florian Binder, Daniel Horak and Michael Mack created this concept out of a personal need. “We are keen cyclists ourselves, but we have had negative experiences with bike services and always wished we could make it easier, more flexible and more digital. Then we realized that many people have the same problem. That’s why we’ve made it our goal to solve the problem ourselves,” says Binder.
Der Radish-Workshop © Trending Topics
Bike service as easy as ordering a pizza
Cycling is very important to the young company because it is not only fun, but also healthy, environmentally friendly and sustainable. That’s why Radish wants to help its customers achieve more bicycle mobility. The offer should make bike service as easy as ordering a pizza. The aim is to democratize this process for everyone. The start-up wants to build up a bike-loving community and offer comprehensive bike-related services from a single source.
A good business plan is crucial for getting started as an innovative, fast-growing company. The Viennese mobility startup has also adhered to this golden rule. “We put a lot of work and time into our business plan. It is important not to go into the foundation naïvely and unprepared. That’s why we put our idea through its paces beforehand. The FFG was a great help to us,” says Binder. Radish made it into the FFG program Impact Innovation.
FFG helped to check the business plan
Impact Innovation helps founders and other innovators to find or test their ideas and covers half of the costs. Up to 75,000 euros are available, regardless of the topic or industry. Not only did Radish receive this funding, but also a lot of advice from the FFG team of experts. “We had to answer questions about our business plan here in a structured way. That was extremely important, because it enabled us to look at our business idea again and see it through different eyes. We also had a lot of help from the FFG with the submission for funding,” says the startup co-founder.