Published in de Volkskrant on October 9, 2022. Written by Liam van de Ven. Photos taken by and property of Raymond Rutting. Also available at https://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/ondernemen-in-duurzaam-wc-papier-deze-twee-jonge-ondernemers-doen-het-rol-voor-rol~bc039ae4/
The 24-year-old students Leroy Ranglek and Joseph Nickisch wanted to bring a product to market together. But what? It became bamboo toilet paper; a solution for the emissions and environmental damage associated with paper production.
Joseph Nickisch, co-owner of Bamboi, demonstrates the strength of the paper.
Image Raymond Rutting / de Volkskrant
On a sunny day in April 2021, a colossal container truck drives onto a storage yard in Hoofddorp. A group of students stands watching with open mouths, faced with the Herculean task of unloading. It concerns more than 50,000 rolls of toilet paper, packed in boxes of 9 kilos each. It's the first delivery, straight from China, for the startup Bamboi by students Leroy Ranglek and Joseph Nickisch (both 24).
Dutch customs also comes to check but quickly gives up on inspecting every box. Half of it needs to go into garage storage units, the other half to Nickisch's student house. 'The attic there could only support five hundred kilos, and we ended up putting over five thousand kilos of rolls there.'
More than a year later, they laugh about it, but they haven't forgotten the nightmare of back then. 'And we only paid our friends who came to help twenty euros, while we ended up working for more than six hours.'
Old trees
According to Ranglek and Nickisch, bamboo is a solution for the emissions and environmental damage associated with paper production. Cutting down thirty-year-old trees for toilet paper that's only used once is a crime, they believe. Bamboo, on the other hand, can be fully grown within three months.
Moreover, Ranglek explains: bamboo grows best when regularly harvested. When a bamboo forest is well maintained, it absorbs much more CO2 than a forest of trees. The harvested bamboo can be made into a pulp that's very suitable for making paper. Win-win, therefore, for the environment and for the two toilet paper sellers.
Nickisch and Ranglek became friends in their first year of high school in Amsterdam. Between them, they've had more than a dozen side jobs and small businesses, from street vending to hospitality. They once set up a small e-commerce platform, long before bamboo paper came on their radar. That the two would become entrepreneurs together was a given. The only question was in what.
Leroy Ranglek came up with the idea to bring bamboo toilet paper to market.
Image Raymond Rutting / de Volkskrant
Ranglek came up with the idea to bring bamboo toilet paper to market. 'I wanted to sell something that everyone uses. A friend's father had his own garbage bag business, and from there I thought through until I arrived at toilet paper. So I looked up: is toilet paper actually sustainable? It turned out absolutely not to be, because so many trees are cut down for it. Now I'm from Thailand, where bamboo is widely used, and I wondered: why don't we make toilet paper from bamboo?' The idea was then shelved. Because, as the founders say, 'who's going to start a toilet paper company as a young guy?'
After two years, the duo decides to move forward; the idea is too good to let go. They write a draft business plan. Nickisch, who studies International Business Administration, handles communication, customer contacts, and the brand. Ranglek, a Mechanical Engineering student, knows how to get a product made on the other side of the world.
They ordered dozens of prototypes from just as many different manufacturers until they finally arrived at a product that met all requirements. Softness, strength, weight, and, crucial for the entrepreneurs, made entirely from bamboo. From core to wrapper, there isn't a gram of regular paper in a Bamboi roll.
Minor in entrepreneurship
Meanwhile, they took the minor in entrepreneurship at the HvA. 'We used that minor to turn the initial setup into a functional business plan,' says Nickisch. When that was established, with their teachers' oversight, they applied for a social credit of 50 thousand euros. They only received half of it. Nickisch: 'Because we're young, they didn't have enough confidence.' From their own savings, they scraped together another 10 thousand euros, just enough to order that first gigantic shipment.
Sales began through their own webshop and via platforms including bol.com. 'The biggest challenge was managing our inventory. Because we had to work with a smaller budget, we didn't have enough room to order a second shipment while sales were going through the roof.'
About six months after sales began, Ranglek was a guest on an NPO4 radio broadcast, after which thirty orders came in on one morning. 'If that had continued, we would have sold out at once and wouldn't have been able to deliver. We would have gone under due to our own success,' says Ranglek.
The most exciting moments for Bamboi are over. While the two complete their studies, they're more than full-time busy expanding their business. Within the startup world, they're a breath of fresh air among all the fast-paced tech entrepreneurs. They're winning prize after prize for their entrepreneurship. And the fact that they're not paying themselves yet? 'That doesn't matter to us,' says Ranglek. 'In a year we can probably pay ourselves a salary, but for now that's not so important. We both intend to roll out this company and tackle the paper industry, that's the vision.' Order our bamboo toilet paper.
Company: BamboiLocation: Amsterdam
Since: 2020
Number of employees: 2
Revenue 2022: 34 thousand euros
