One Sneak Peek Into An Opportunity Born from a Cycling Mishap

When the hospital said no, a cycling startup was born. 

After a cycling accident that led to him having to be transported to the hospital via ambulance, Laurent was told that he could not bring his mountain bike along with him to the hospital. 

Even though he was bleeding really badly from his forehead. 

So his friend suggested to let go of the ambulance, sign a waiver, and go to the hospital by themselves. 

Figuring that Laurent was injured, the bike transport service provider intentionally raised the price from $35 to $70. 

Unsurprisingly, the friends decided to not take the deal and Laurent had to cycle to the hospital while nursing the worst headache. 

During the hospital stay, he wondered if he could start a business and show the bike service provider guy that it is possible to do honest business without taking advantage of others. 

And this led to the founding of GoBike, a bike rental company that also does tours and events for cyclers. 

1. The Evolution of GoBike

“GoBike Started off as a telegram group that I started with my friends who are all avid cyclers. It was our extra income on the side as in 2021, there were many people that were cycling around Singapore. That’s where I saw an opportunity to create a cyclers’ group. 

Soon, we had too many people and I would spend so much time managing the chat that I would have no time at all to sleep. Then, I built a telegram bot that automated the booking for me. We joined the 500 Global accelerator programme to get the SG Founder Grant, and after we successfully got the grant, we built an app. 

Afterwards, we expanded to do bicycle events and bicycle rentals. We had a good start initially with the bike repairs. But soon, we realised that when you have an app, there would be issues such as people not liking having to sign in to use the app and what’s shown on the app not being exactly representative of what you are selling. So in 2023, we moved on to a website and redid the existing website. 

We started off offering very cheap bike rentals, but everyone negotiated with me. I don’t understand, why are you negotiating when the price is already so cheap? So, my dad, a businessman, told me to raise my prices, as only when you raise the price, will your potential customers know that you are a high-end service. Now our bicycle rentals can be pricey, but we do get rentals as people come to us for a positive cycling experience. Ever since I raised the price, no one has haggled for a cheaper price with me. 

At that point, the service that had the lowest return-on-investment was our bicycle repair service, so we decided to stop offering it and just recommend repair services around the area to our customers instead. For our bicycle market service, people were dumping their bikes on my platform. But I wanted our brand to be high-class. So I had to close down the marketplace for a while to rebrand everything. Now, I rebrand the company every year and fine-tune the SEO often. The bicycle transport service was entirely a fluke though, we found it completely not worth our time and effort. 

Now, we are focusing on bike rentals, as well as cycling experiences and events as they generate the highest return-on-investment for us. We are a small team that comprises of myself, my dad (who helps out with the SEO), a customer service staff, as well as three to four part-timers. It is a small operation and I view it as more of a side hustle.” 

2. Challenges faced on his startup journey

“I think my biggest hurdle is myself. In entrepreneurship, the business only runs as fast as you can. If you have a great idea, but you cannot scale fast enough, it would be tough to implement the idea in reality as well. So I learnt to hire people as I realised that I should start to delegate some work to other people. 

Another issue that I faced was that when you add money to the equation, it seems to diminish your passion for something. I initially started GoBike because I loved to cycle. But when I think money, I cannot destress from work. So now I turn to running, a hobby that doesn’t earn me money, to distress. 

My work at GoBike also became my life — I sacrificed my grades and friendships to work on it. I think even though your business is important, your grades are also important. In our society, education is still being put on a pedestal. So we must dedicate a certain amount of time to focus on each thing. If your attention is too spread out, you will fail school exams and tests

My advice to future entrepreneurs would be that, you need to understand how to spend your time wisely and not let your business dictate your life. You have to be the one driving the business and not the other way around.” 

3. His parents’ view of entrepreneurship

“My dad is a stereotypical ang moh (Singlish for Caucasian) guy that told me to just do it as I had nothing to lose. My mum, a local Chinese lady, is more traditional in the sense that she told me that I could do all these things if I wanted, but I had to still view school as most important. I am fortunate to have both Eastern and Western influences in my life, but you got to find the balance between both somewhere. Both of my parents have merits in their arguments, but I think whether they like it or not, I have to eventually find my own space and hopefully they will respect my choices.” 

4. Opinion on the local startup scene

“My hot take is that, for males, we all have to go through national service. When we come out of it, we become very risk averse. In the outside world, however, it is different. Unlike us Singaporeans, the foreigners know to just go all in when it comes to entrepreneurship. Most of us still don’t dare to take this plunge. 

While my normal take would be that for most startups, we need to think about the market. Singapore is too small to sustain a million-dollar business. You have to be able to adapt to other cultures, which includes speaking their language, if you want your brand influence to expand far and wide.” 

Connect with Laurent here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-m-469361105/

Follow our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

And that is all for today’s One Sneak Peek Into.

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.