Founders Learnings
"It is our mission at woom to get as many children as possible excited about cycling. Cycling is a powerful lever for making mobility in our cities and communities more climate-friendly, healthier, more efficient and more joyful."
Marcus Ihlenfeld was born on 25 May 1972 in Rüsselsheim, Germany. A passionate tennis player, he went to the United States on a tennis scholarship and earned a Bachelor's degree in General Business at a college in Louisiana. He then spent a year selling vacuum cleaners door to door in San Francisco before completing an MBA, which included a year of study in Hong Kong.
In 1998 he joined Opel Europe as a marketing trainee, the start of fifteen years as a manager in the automotive industry. In 2005 he moved to Zurich as Assistant to the Vice President at General Motors Europe. In 2010 he relocated to Vienna as Marketing Director of Opel Austria.
When he became a father, Marcus went looking for a good children's bike and couldn't find one. In 2011 he met Christian Bezdeka, who was already playing with the idea of building a better kids' bike, and the two decided to do it together. They founded woom in March 2013, and that August Marcus left Opel to go all in. They bootstrapped woom from a garage into a market-leading international children's bike brand with more than €8000M in revenue since starting it. Marcus still serves on woom's advisory board.
He is also co-founder of poptop. Together with Christian Bezdeka he co-founded soundslikeaplan (SLAP), which passes on first-hand business know-how. SLAP gives entrepreneurs a clear roadmap, so their money and energy go into growth instead of the wrong priorities.
Marcus lives in Vienna. He is married and the father of two children.