How did KarTent come about?
To make it clear immediately: we really were not "festival types" when we started Kartent. They are of course enough; seasoned festival goers, who stay in the festival world and eventually find their dream job there. People with a love for the event sector, who are passionate about giving others a fantastic time.
That was not exactly our background. On the contrary; We studied at TU Delft, which is not exactly known for its frivolous, exuberant and social types. Although we may not do incredibly technical studies, we too had our niger traits (which later came in handy.)
KarTent arose somewhat coincidentally during an interesting drink from the "Cleantech Challenge", a subject with a pitch competition associated with it. Jan was busy with his graduation project, in which he did full research into cardboard. "Did you know that you have so many different types of cardboard?! Moisture does not have to be a problem at all! "The majority of his research concerned a number of cardboard tubes, which once placed under the beach house had to ensure that the sand could be blown through the wind on the dunes from the beach.
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The beach house became a festival tent. Already at the first introduction we concluded that "Strandhuizen" was not a scalable business concept, so other options for temporary accommodation was searched for. After first considering market stalls and refugees, after a short brainstorming, the Festival Scenario came up. Subsequently, the well -known Business Model Canvas was filled in for some of these ideas, whereby the festivals clearly stood out.
cardboard was suddenly everywhere. In Jans Studentenkamer at the Koornmarkt in Delft there were Stapels sample cardboard that he had received during the research for his graduation project. There were many different types of cardboard; Golf cardboard, up to 4 layers thick; Honeycomb cardboard in all shapes and sizes and "solid cardboard", a hard type of cardboard that the tubes were made of.
Because of all this cardboard science it was clear that it didn't just stop at the normal "cardboard", as we know from the banana boxes. And because the nose project was already carefully put into the cardboard industry for the graduation project, there was soon contact with a number of local cardboard producers who wanted to help us. With their help we were able to test and put different types of cardboard. Test cardboard became test models, and test models became real go -karts. It seems unnecessary to emphasize how much we have had about this; Without this help in the initial phase we could never have got that far.
Once we had enough faith in our tested model, the step to order cardboard turned out to be quite large. A BV had to come and quickly. In addition, the minimum order quantity was 250 pieces; A lot of cardboard for 2 students. With the help of friends, family and prize money, it was possible to get the required amount together. But where do you leave so much cardboard? It was hardly possible to make a performance of 250 tents. "Maybe the tents can be in the side room with your parents?" Was one of the options that were suggested. "We can also simply put them under a sail on campus!", Another brilliant inspiration. Fortunately, a farmer was found via-Via with a place in his barn.
Once arrived, the tents turned out to be slightly larger than expected. An impressive euro truck of at least 30 meters long turned onto the farm on the gray Tuesday afternoon. Were these our tents? The truck's side panel opened and our gaze fell on a huge stack of cardboard plates, at least 3 meters high and impressive in all its brownness.
It was immediately clear that unloading by hand was not an option. Fortunately, the farmer had heavy tools and a forklift to release the pallets. There we stood, as naive city boys who look at the big machines in awe and surprise.
With this baptism of fire it really started. The tents brought the possibility to take promotional material and photos and really start selling the product. A bus was purchased, a permanent shed, and so Kartent could start his adventure.