Feel like going on an adventure with the Fat Freddy, Lazy Jack or Lola? Campooz, a young camping company from Drenthe, produces trailer tents with character. With their unique market approach, they are taking the international trailer tent market by storm.
Folding trailer and trailer in one
When avid tent campers Gert IJszenga and his wife decided after the summer of 2015 that it was time for some more comfort, they thought about a folding trailer. But one whose trailer you could also use outside the vacations. Turned out such a folding trailer didn't exist yet. And so Gert came up with the Fat Freddy. A lightweight and easy to set up two-person folding trailer with the tent mounted as a package on the trailer.
'With Raoul Veldink and Harry Dijkstra, I developed the concept further. As recently as 2015, we went out for coffee with a prototype behind the car to the folding car dealers in the Netherlands. In early 2016, the Fat Freddy was already on sale in five showrooms. Still in the fall, we came out with the four-seater Lazy Jack. Right now we are introducing the Lola, an absolute innovation, because this wagon is inflatable and made of a thirty-meter-long tube. Until two years ago, no one had ever heard of Campooz. Now dealers in the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, France and Sweden are selling our wagons.'
'We are having an awful lot of fun being entrepreneurs. At the same time, it took blood, sweat and tears to get it all done. Suddenly the three of us had to become a serious company very quickly. Now we still assemble the folding trailers ourselves in our workshop in Balloo.
We order the parts from Germany, Australia and China. But we are growing ridiculously fast. We can no longer sustain that. We need funding to keep producing, hiring staff and moving our production to Assen.'
MKB Fonds Drenthe
'When I contacted MKB Fonds Drenthe for funding, everything gained momentum. We are now in the completion phase. It was an interesting process to go through together. In several conversations we went into depth with them. Dave and Emmy put different emphases that allowed them to avoid blind spots. It was striking that they were especially interested in the entrepreneurs behind the plans. The three of us have mastered the most important parts of entrepreneurship. I am of the product development and the international contacts, Harry is of the technology and the financial administration, Raoul is the marketer and ensures that we continue to make a difference in a contemporary way and with humor.'
Campooz is a super cool adventure that is going to be hugely out of control in a fun way. We are going to make camping incredibly cool and appealing again.'