Rafi Mohammad, Fixi
Fixi’s innovation emerged In 2018, when a young ambitious student Rafi Mohammad, 22-year-old, traveled from India to Sweden to pursue a master's degree in industrial management and innovation at Uppsala University. He always had an entrepreneurial mindset and to create something innovative to serve people and to make the environment sustainable. Six months later into his course, a broken bicycle became the launching pad for his adventure as a tech entrepreneur.
When he cycled to his university to attend a seminar but missed it due to a flat tyre, the concept of fixi was conceived. He sat down with his friends and colleagues to discuss what they would do in such a situation and concluded that there were no viable methods for repairing bicycles. He conducted additional study on the bicycle repair market and concluded that it is the same old traditional solution and a bother to get your bikes to the repair centers, wait for the repair, and get them back which consumed a lot of time and that a modernized solution is required due to the changing times. With this knowledge and idea, he approached his programme director, and the rest, as they say, is history: Fixi is today a very innovative Swedish startup that is gaining popularity. The journey was not simple, and Rafi was often rejected by investors initially but with his ambitious mindset fixi took off.
Fixi was founded in 2019 with its headquarters in Uppsala and operations expanding to Stockholm. Fixi has raised more than 10 million Swedish krona until now with the long-term goal of expanding to places such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin and across Europe. As more and more individuals decide to ride bicycles instead of driving, the bicycle industry thrived during the pandemic. Fixi also tried to solve the problem of long waiting times for repairs as they put a damper on the wheels for many. Fixi also focuses on encouraging a healthy and ecologically conscious lifestyle among millennials and intends to develop a comprehensive bike utility application that provides riders with convenient access and application.
Fixi just started with 10 orders in 2 days and in 2020 they had over 300 customers with positive feedback and they used these feedbacks to incrementally innovate their business model by implementing bambora and choosing a drop off time. As time evolved, the company now has over 2500 happy customers and as Fixi evolved Fixi Marketplace provides both new and used bicycles and accessories through local bicycle retailers. With this business model, Fixi started concentrating on operations, recruiting new bike retailers with the best conversion success rate (95%) and have begun to acquire a large number of our own customers, and our average revenue has climbed by 100 percent from the previous year. The number of orders exceeded 9 600. Fixi started reusing abandoned bikes and started selling it on their platform for free and provide services to fix the bikes and send it to customers which adds on to their mission to make a difference for the environment by reusing a bike that would otherwise be discarded rather than purchasing a brand-new one. Fixi has sold more than 125 rescue bicycles to yet and hope to sell more than 500 by the end of the year.
Rafi Mohammad, the founder of Fixi, through countless hours of meetings with investors, sleepless nights, and near-bankruptcy, never gave up on his vision and never lost hope. With his optimistic and driven mentality, he established Fixi on a path to entrepreneurial success. He believes that if he can accomplish something, anyone can. In this journey, I would like to thank Cilla Franzén from Nyföretagarcentrum Uppsala for the support during the turbulent times at Fixi.
’The support from NyföretagarCentrum was really amazing, the guidance and help was invaluable.’ - Rafi Mohammad
