We are celebrating 5 years of RackBuddy!

Exactly 5 years ago, RackBuddy was founded. In these past 5 years, a lot of things have happened. We decided to take a little trip down memory lane and share some of our best moments with you.

Both are still very connected to their old teammates and friends, which is why there are also a lot of RackBuddies to be found in some former and active professional football players homes.

2013 

It all started in the end of 2013, when Martin and Lasse built their first clothes rack in a small garage in Næstved. Martin had been searching for a stable, customizable open wardrobe solution for his new apartment, but did not find anything that was matching his vision. All existing offers were either unstable or had a tasteless design. Therefore, the two owners decided to build a clothes rack themselves. More than satisfied by the outcome, they were determined to design more racks out of water pipes to friends and acquaintances.

The first racks were sold on DBA (Den Blå Avis), which is a platform, where private people and small companies can sell products. Within 14 days, they sold more than 10 clothes racks and decided to make a business out of it. They invested just enough money to buy the supplies and financed all of the forthcoming projects over their sales profit.

The hardest part of founding the company was finding the right name. After long discussions, both of them came up with RackBuddy as the name had a relation to what they were planning to sell (racks) and was also linked to them, as they were two buddies starting a company together. Just to be sure, they talked to a branding expert who told them that it was the worst name they could have come up with - but they decided to go with it anyways.

When they decided to found the company, Martin was working as a police officer and Lasse was in charge of an online shop selling plumbing supplies. Lasse therefore had some experience with running an e-business, and his knowledge definitely helped with creating RackBuddy.

RackBuddy started as a side project both of them would work on in their spare time on evenings and weekends.

2014

Starting up a company was a lot of work - Martin & Lasse were basically having two full-time jobs at the same time: their “normal” job and RackBuddy. They heavily relied on their big network of friends and acquaintances for advice.

In the beginning, the focus was on bigger projects such as for example the first showroom who exclusively used RackBuddy clothes racks - The Little Showroom in Copenhagen. Martin remembers with a smile that in order to deliver all necessary parts, they rented a trailer and delivered everything themselves.

Another milestone was the first international project, just over the bridge in Malmö, Sweden. RackBuddy planned, produced and installed the whole clothing racks and shelves for Superjeans of Sweden. This was also the first project where wooden shelves have been incorporated in the design.

In the summer of 2014, the production was moved to a new industrial space in Esbjerg. As the orders grew, the garage in Næstved simply wasn’t big enough anymore.

2015

Martin and Lasse were working out of Lasse’s old apartment in Frederiksberg. They developed more clothes rack models made from black water pipes and the Original Collection was complete. The first professional RackBuddy photoshoot was held there as well, as Lasse’s living room had a brick stone wall which fit perfectly with the industrial and raw look of the clothes racks.

The warehouse in Esbjerg expanded to a bigger location.

The company was growing quickly and by the end of 2015, both founders decided that it was time to focus 100% on RackBuddy. Martin quit his job as a policeman and moved back to Esbjerg to oversee the growing warehouse and production of RackBuddy in Esbjerg.

2016

In April of 2016, RackBuddy opened its first showroom/ store on Frederiksberg Allé in Copenhagen. Before we moved in here, it was used by a basket shop and we spend a lot of time, effort and money to renovate it. Read more about the process here. 

Next to the store were two rooms we decided to make into office space. One room was used by us, the other one was supposed to be rented out. We quickly found two other Danish startups who wanted to move in.

One of them was the Danish watch company About Vintage, who now has their own showroom on Gothersgade. The other one was One Funky Furniture.

The showroom quickly developed into a hotspot in Frederiksberg for urban interior & design. We are not only selling our clothes racks, but everything else related to interior that fits in our design universe - tables, chairs, lamps, wall paint, decoration and more.