Followed passion: Startup of the week wants to make finding a ski or climbing buddy easy and safe

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He came rolling in on a longboard with an orange cap on his head when he started at the Faculty of Economics in Aarhus after a season as a guide in Mallorca. A stark contrast to his fellow students who dreamed of becoming investment bankers or management consultants. But along the way, Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard became so hooked on the program that it became his dream too.

“I went all-in on suits and long hours and took my career from student assistant to manager. At the time it was the right thing to do, but at some point I just got more and more bored with it. Because I also had a startup dream that needed to be realized,” says Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard.

After six years in the consulting industry, he made the leap to Head of Strategy at the then up-and-coming startup Weld.app. It turned into two years of apprenticeship in running startups with the ups and downs that Weld went through.

At the same time, he met René Brask Birk at a mountain bike camp on Bornholm. And that meeting had a big impact on Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard when he left Weld: It was René Brask Birch who convinced him that it was a good idea to pack the car and go ski touring in Chamonix for a season – after a joint trip to Chamonix with René’s travel company.

Life with a warm sleeping bag and a motorhome without electricity in Europe’s mountain capital, Chamonix, was first and foremost about cultivating a passion for ski touring and mountaineering in the French Alps. To take a break from career travel and find the energy again.

“I knew I could afford to live a year without a job, so at that point I was in no hurry. I decided that for the first three months, all I had to think about was having fun. I wanted to spend the summer trying out new things and testing ideas – that turned into learning how to surf. And in the fall, I needed to have a clear idea of what the next step should be.”

But the free approach to cultivating passion in the mountains was also the starting point for the startup Oak – which René Brask Birch co-founded.

“I’m actually in Chamonix as a solo traveler, but I just meet so many cool people who I do things with in the mountains on a weekly basis. But I think it’s extremely difficult, time-consuming and also a bit dangerous to meet with strangers to go 1,500 meters up in an area where there can be avalanches – without knowing if they have the right equipment, skills and experience to make good decisions on behalf of the group,” says Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard and continues:

“It’s the first time it strikes me that there is a lack of a platform for people like us who want to go to the mountains and don’t necessarily have a local network to do it with, or the desire and money to pay 500€ a day for a guide.”

Mountain enthusiasts find each other

The mountain ranges in which skiers and climbers practice their sport are vast and wild. That’s why finding a mountain buddy is more complicated than a badminton buddy. But it’s important, because doing it alone can be downright dangerous.

“You want to go with someone who knows what they’re doing – at the very least, you want to know what they’ve done before and have some references on them. And we can solve that with a digital platform,” says Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard.

With the Oak community, skiers can find each other and plan ski trips with others in the area. If they don’t already know each other, they can see each other’s accomplishments on the app. This planning is currently done by word of mouth or in sporadic Facebook groups – both in Chamonix and other ski and mountain sports areas around the world.

“For us, it’s not just about making it easier for people who already have a need, but also about opening the eyes of those who are considering how to get started with ski touring and who to do it with,” says Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard.

Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard proved that there is indeed a need for such a solution last winter: With a home-built app, he went to Chamonix again, and during the season he got 2,000 profiles and 250 daily users in Chamonix using a bunch of flyers, 15 local ambassadors and word of mouth.

A passion project with unicorn potential

With traction from the first season in Chamonix, Oak managed to raise millions in investment from a number of passionate business angels over the summer. At the same time, he has brought two co-founders on board: Rene Brask Birch, who has 15 years of experience from Netcompany, but followed his passion to travel agency De Brede Planker and now Oak. In addition, Dave Searle, who is both a trained mountain guide and a big mountain influencer on both Instagram and Youtube.

“There’s a match between passion and skills and timing all the way through. It started with me creating ski touring activities on the app on Mondays and Wednesdays and inviting people to join – they just had to download the app to join. Then I was skiing two days a week, but of course I also had an ambition to turn it into a business,” says Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard.

With the passionate team, user growth has increased by an average of 1,000 new users per month. And if Oak succeeds in bringing the mountain community together in the app, it opens up revenue streams such as the established guide industry, which largely consists of independent, local companies that do not have a large booking platform today.

So Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard firmly believes that Oak can be both a passion project and a really good business:

“For us, it’s like AirBnB: Not many people thought it was a good idea when they started and doubted very much that you could succeed in renting out private apartments to each other. We believe in our project just as much and insist that there is a smarter way to bring together both mountain enthusiasts and mountain guides around a community that is not just trying to be a dead marketplace.”

In fact, the belief and passion for the project is so strong that Emil Wittrup Præstbrogaard has invested his entire personal finances:

“I’ve invested all my savings, sold my apartment and car and now live in a van that can be placed where our marketing efforts are most important, and luckily I have a great girlfriend who also shares my passion for the outdoor life and nature,” he says and continues:

“Even if it’s not successful, I’ve been living in Chamonix with my girlfriend in a van, climbing or skiing on weekends and putting all my energy into building something I really believe in. And then you have to remember to tell yourself that real people use our platform every day and tell us that they would never have met so many people so quickly if it wasn’t for Oak. That will be the most important thing for us.”