The CEO of a pogo-stick rental service knows you won't actually hop to work. Here's what's really going on at the viral Swedish startup.
- A pogo-stick rental company made headlines this week, emulating the current wave of bike and scooter services.
- The company, called Cangaroo, is the product of a Swedish marketing firm that's been behind many a viral stunt in recent years.
- CEO Adam Mikkelsen said the pogo-stick isn't Cangaroo's final form. He's hoping to get venture capital to launch another vehicle soon.
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As far as startups go, you can get money for almost anything, it seems.
But in micromobility, everyone appears to be chasing a very similar idea: bikes and scooters. There's Spin, Jump, Lime, Bird, Skip, Beam, Dott - just to name a few - and probably some other single-syllable companies we missed.
That's why the founder of Cangaroo, a Swedish pogo-stick rental service that operates similarly to the multitudes of other last-mile transportation services, felt the need to differentiate. A new type of vehicle, even if unusual, is how Adam Mikkelsen is hoping to get in the door to meet with potential investors.
"Most people would definitely not jump for 40 minutes and commute with them to school;," Mikkelsen, who's also the chief executive of the creative agency powering Cangaroo said in a phone interview with Business Insider from his company's headquarters in Malmo, Sweden. Some of the firm's other viral creations include an office nap pod, slippers with grass insoles, and a "stache shield" facial hair guard.
"That's also why we're looking to launch the next product in the somewhat near future after the pogo stick," he said. "We want to use that traction to get people saying, "oh there's a bird, there's a Cangaroo scooter or bike or whatever."
In the meantime, the company is preparing to meet with venture-capital investors this week, Mikkelsen said. Cangaroo's gearing up to launch its pogos in Malmo, Stockholm, San Francisco, and London this year.
"We do see demand that people would actually love to use them," Mikkelsen said of Cangaroo's pogo sticks, suggesting people might pay to unlock them in places like parks or a beach boardwalk and hop with their friends for a bit. "But our branding, which is kind of taking after these shared e-scooter companies, was made more as a statement. We're not that delusional that we think we're going to scale the pogo-stick specifically and buy a thousand of them in each city."
For now, Cangaroo's pogo-sticks are being sourced from China, but the company hopes to find a US-based manufacturer soon for future expansion.
"It all depends on how it goes with the VC's," Mikkelsen said. "Pogo-sticks definitely are not the end product."