Jakub is urban commuting life-style evangelist in the Czech Republic focusing on bike-sharing and electrically assisted bikes and scooters. In 2007 he established ekolo.cz, company specializing in electric urban transportation. From October 2017 he's also the Czech market lead for one of the largest bike-sharing companies in the world, Chinese unicorn startup Ofo.

Ofo

Founded in 2014, Ofo offers riders convenient bike rental services that allow users to rent and park dockless shared bikes anywhere they prefer.

The Beijing-based company, valued at more than $2 billion after raising $700 million in its latest round of financing in July, has more than 10 million bikes in 13 countries globally.

It has generated more than 25 million transactions per day and provided bike-rental services for over 200 million global users.

In September, Ofo announced its official launch in four European countries — the Czech Republic, Italy, Russia and the Netherlands — as the company ramps up efforts to expand its booming cycle empire globally.

Agenda

We will discuss:

1. Why Ofo decided to launch in the Czech Republic as one of the first European markets.

2. How Jakub got in touch with the Chinese unicorn founders at the first place.

3. What the Ofo's strategy in the Czech Republic is and how it plans to succeed and win over the local competition.

We'll have time for some Q&A too!

The interview will be conducted by Jan Smejkal (@yourchinaguy) who runs Startup Grind in China & APAC and so has a lot of experience with companies like Ofo.