MadsChristian Friis – known to most in the Copenhagen nightlife as Felix – is the co-founder,
creative director, and partner at REKOM, RestaurationsKompagniet (The
Gastronomic Company), with more than 90 bars and discos spread out across
Denmark, Norway, and Finland. It appears there is only one direction for Felix
and his fellow three entrepreneurs since they opened their first bar in the
year 2000 and that way is upwards! The coming years will see REKOM expand substantially
after the founding partners have been joined by the Danish private equity firm, Data cap, to grow the firm at an even faster pace. This new structure will see a
slight change in how things go about as the founders no longer have the final
say when decisions are taken. However, having brought new partners on board has
also made the founders financially independent. Mads Christian Friis today has
enough money to live a comfortable remaining life if he behaves as he puts it.
Success did
not come about on its own since he started from the absolute bottom.
How did you end up in the nightlife business?
It all
started with organizing school parties for the students while I was attending
Copenhagen Business College (Niels Brock). We were only permitted to organize
3-4 parties per year on the school premises but the students wanted a lot more,
so we had to think out of the box. Together with some friends I rented a club for
a night and charged the entry fee (cover) at the door. Quickly a pattern
emerged where when my friends organized a party without me it was making a loss
or just breaking even whereas it was profitable when I was a part of organizing
the event. Soon after I decided to go it alone and expanded so it was not only
for students from my college. The first big party of such kind was the J-day (J
is for Jule = Christmas in Danish) where the Christmas beer is released in
Denmark by the Tuborg Brewery (part of Carlsberg Breweries Plc) and a huge day
for partying among youngsters. For the party, I felt that the super hip club
“X-Ray” would be the ideal spot to make the event a success. Posters and flyers
were printed which I then spread out across other colleges to give the event
some marketing boost. I was 19 years old but had not gotten my driver´s license
yet so my dad had to serve for the occasion as a chauffeur. At the time I was
quite nervous about how the event would go down as I had spent 10,000 Danish
Kroner (DKK) – equivalent to USD 2,000 for renting the place for only that
night. When the clock hit 10:00 PM the doors opened and by midnight the placed
was crowded and people were having a great time.
When did it go from being a hobby to becoming a
career?
Things
changed when I met the other co-founder of Rekom, Adam Falbert. We have had a
very similar childhood – we both used to work as paper boys; we both had worked
as janitors in supermarkets and as kitchen assistants due to the good money to
be earned. He attended the Falkonergaarden College and was the main party
organizer there. In the beginning we were competitors but eventually became
friends and business partners by appreciating the stronger distribution through
having a combined network that would ensure success at almost every party we
would organize. One day the opportunity arose for us to take over a club in the
prestigious Boltens Gaard area. Joining us in the venture were the two
established entrepreneurs, Tommy Petersen and Soren Wedebye with whom we created
the organization that today is known as REKOM. They owned The Australian Bar
and had plenty of business experience from this place, which we badly needed as
we had no operational understanding of a bar – only the marketing side. As a
team, we then created the first club called Blue Buddha with the intention of
making it the coolest place in town. Unfortunately, that turned out to be
wishful thinking. It became an R´n´B / Hip-hop club with a bit more street vibe than what we have wanted.
But that was the achievable option for the place at the time.
So this was the recipe for future success?
Absolutely
not. It was a long and hard effort. Financially the club was in trouble and we
had plenty of challenging customers. Some certainly felt like they owned the
place and literally pushed other customers around. This caused a lot of trouble
including violence where I have seen terrifying things. One of the episodes
that have stayed in my mind is of a guy having his stomach cut open in a knife attack
and then seeing his intestines bursting out. Several times people tried to
assault me on the street and threats were made on a daily basis. It left some
scars on my soul and for long periods of time, I always carried a tear gear
spray for protection. If I had forgotten the tear gas I would go back home and
get it due to the dangerous times. It really made me reflect upon the industry
and whether it was time to call it quits. I had turned 30 and felt that perhaps
I had gotten too old to be a promoter. Even during weekends when I was off I
lay awake at night thinking how the business was performing that evening.
What was the turning point?
Heidi´s
Bierbar! We managed to sell the club, Blue Buddha, and the money was invested
in creating Heidi´s Bierbar. We decided that going forward we would focus on
a jolly crowd like one might know from the Oktoberfest in Munich or a cozy
night at a pub with a good atmosphere. Back then in 2004 a cultural beer-wave
swept across the country and we were fortunate enough to be on it. The tasteful
decoration of the place known from the German-speaking part of the Alps and an
atmosphere of the after-skiing party simply was a smash hit. Add to all of this
when Copenhagen´s leading TV station broadcasted a 3-minute piece from the bar it
became an instant success. Since that day Heidi´s Bierbar has been crowded with
great people having a fantastic time. Thus we soon expanded into Aarhus and
Odense (Denmark´s second and third largest cities respectively). In Odense, we
found the ideal location for a bar to lease. They were however not suitable for
the concept hence we came up with another concept – L.A. Tequila Bar. With this
concept, we also have a network of stores today.
Was this the kind of life you imagined while attending business college?
No. Back
then I thought the way forward in life was to become a management trainee like
my older brother, perhaps with 6 months internship in London. By chance I
happened to become active in the youth section of Ventres (Denmarks Liberal
Party – the Danish Tory party) and decided to study political science since
this was what everyone else in the field of politics seemed to be mind
towards. When I eventually attended the first semester at university it dawned
upon me how boring this kind of life was.
What is your role at REKOM?
I am the
one on our team who puts the icing on the cake. For instance, the name for
Heidi´s Bierbar I came up with. The name almost radiates that jolly and
positive atmosphere giving association to the classic Heidi movies from The Alps with mountains, snow, dirndl dressed ladies, large beer mugs. The
operational side of the business is not my strength so I am delighted that my
fellow partners are in charge of such. My role centers around creating the
right concept for each bar and then applying it as a profile on the given
location. This includes ensuring that once it is up and running that necessary
events are taking place, a network of contacts and affiliates is set-up to
ensure the desired profile of guests visits and in large enough numbers to make
the business profitable. I love visiting all of our premises and grasp if all
is as it should be or what is that last little bit missing to make the place
loved by the guests. One challenging part of this role is, of course, to sense
what is going on in the market as a trend and what is the next thing that
people want to visit in the years to come. You might call it “mood management”
but in essence, it is about grasping if our concepts achieve the requirements we
have set for having satisfied customers and then ensuring how the guests truly
feel about this.
A key
component for building the business since day one has been the importance of
distribution through promoters. In the world of marketing, it is labeled as
“below the line marketing” where you need to have people out there reaching out
to the customer. In the world of modern day online marketing, it might be
labeled almost as viral marketing, as the human component of interaction is
key when a promoter is to drive a business towards a new or existing place. It
cannot be mass marketing with billboard and the likes; it must have a personal
touch and you feel that this appeals to you as you happen to know the promoter
or someone that is going to the venue. So in short, the promoter´s sole job is
to engage with the desired audience for the relevant place and ensure that
those guests visit us. Naturally, it is essential to have a large network and if
a promoter is seconded to a new city, the person must be a natural networker
with lots of positive energy and love, capable of getting to know people
quickly. As a consequence, I have a significant network after having been a
promoter since 1998. In my world, it has always been fascinating to meet new
people and I am reasonably good at remembering people´s names and faces even
though I communicate with a lot of people every day. Especially during the party
days of the week Thursday, Friday and Saturday lots of people write or call and
request to be written on the guest list. Personally, I am honored to serve our
guests and it prides me when I am able to get them a good price for table
seating in a club or a bit more TLC from staff. If I am awake and can reach the
relevant manager on duty I will ensure that people who contact me get a nice
compliment. Sometimes I do wake up in the morning and see the list of missed
calls from people during the night. Then
I learn they went somewhere else and that annoys my customer service heart.
Now that you have become a wealthy man, what are your priorities?
Hard to
say. It feels like time has just flown with no intention of slowing down. I
often miss taking a break to digest the ride and catch up on certain things.
Since I know so many people it becomes harder to stay in touch as so many
people reach out. Today we also have more shops than ever before (>70 bars
and clubs) that I want my friends to become acquainted with. Add to all of
this, my interest in politics and art has caused my network to surge with so
many invitations and events that I cannot attend. Sometimes it feels like I am
behind on schedule from when I wake up in the morning until I go to bed at
night. One of the clear targets for the year ahead is to have a more structured
working day whereby the schedule does not get out of hand.
A beloved child has many names, which one is correct since you are bothMads Christian, Felix, Friis, von Friis – how come?
Felix is my
old alias from the nightlife industry. We had some bounces back in the late 1990ies
who felt I looked a bit like the Swedish cartoon character Felix. I appreciated
it and felt the name was quite cool as from my childhood there was a famous
gangster kingpin named Thevis. Felix –Thevis was quite similar and back in
those days the bar and clubbing industry very different and much more violent
compared to how it is today. Since then the name Felix has stuck, but my family
calls me Christian whereas those who know me from Social media like Facebook
and Instagram call me Mads Christian. Von Friis was just a gimmick I came up
with when I got to know the artist Kristian Hornsleth because he calls himself
von Hornsleth.
What has he meant to you?
Coincidentally
we started working on the idea of making a Hornsleth Bar. Some good premises
had come on the market for us at REKOM to lease and I felt it was time for us
to try something with a real edge challenging the status quo of how concepts
looked as they all were very mainstream and polished. So we needed to do
something new and different in order to get attention and be interesting. It
turned out to be a success and since then we have added a few more to the
portfolio. Truth is said Hornsleth is the one who made me become interested in
art. The first art I ever bought was made by him and since then I have added a
lot of different art. Almost instantly I can feel if a given artwork catches my
interest or not. If it does, and I have some cash in the bank, then I am in.
This has led to some unusual purchases such as the full-size human figure
sitting in a chair by the artist Kurt Trampedach. It used to be placed in my
office for many years and new visitors would often be shocked when entering the
room thinking there was a dead man sitting in the chair. Nowadays it is lent out to exhibitions at various museums of modern art. As a businessman, I wonder
how the market value of the various artworks might have progressed and with
some, I simply have a burning desire to own them.
My most
passionate love for Art falls upon provocative political art which I have often
purchased for the sake of protecting freedom of speech. I find it terrible that
we in this day and age in Northern Europe have to live in fear of being
assaulted killed or – as is the case in Sweden – to be imprisoned for painting,
drawing or writing something that others might not condone.
Where does your political interest come from?
My father
was very interested in politics and geopolitical matters and since I grew up
during the cold war where the west were the good guys and the Soviet Union the
bad guys, I became interested in politics from a conservative point of view.
Early on I joined the youth section of Denmark´s Liberal Party “Venstre” and
during the 90ies this was the dynamic party seeking progress and freedom in society.
This allowed me to establish a strong network together with lots of interesting
new friends. While I am no longer a member of the party I still support it and
all other parties on the right side of the political center represented in
parliament. Surprisingly to most I am also a member of the Labour (Social democratic)
business club. Joining that club came about as the Danish Tax minister, Carsten
Koch and I were sitting next to each other on the train commuting from our
common home town north of Copenhagen into the city center on several occasions
and then the friendship got going. He and I had some very insightful
conversations that led me to try it out and I am still a member of that
business club to this day. Just like with the human networks it does feel
privileged to be able to cross party lines and understand what people in the
different political camps are thinking, to network with them and naturally
apply one´s influence wherever possible.
You have also gotten close with Lars Seier Christensen?
Indeed. We
were in North Korea together and that was a peculiar experience. Originally I
had the pleasure of meeting Lars superficially back when I arranged a meeting
for him with the “Round-Table” (RT) network back in early 2009. We managed to
have 170 members of the RT network, where I have also be very active, to attend
and learn about all his initiatives including his support for the new party
Liberal Alliance, which at the time was suffering 0.0% approval ratings in the
polls. To think that this party today is the core component in the current
ruling Danish government is really stunning. During the event with Lars Seier, I
heard about his intended tour to North Korea and enquired why on earth they
would go there. He logically explained that it would be one of the oddest places
to visit on Earth at the moment and I was more than welcome to join, so I went
along. It turned out to be a fascinating experience although it also had some
terrifying and very sad moments when you see with your own eyes how the entire
society is run with an iron fist. You really grasp it when you see the poverty on the streets and the look
of fear in people´s eyes. The contrast to Beijing could not have been more
abrupt coming from a metropolis with life bustling 24 hours around the clock.
When we landed in Pyongyang we saw hundreds if not thousands of soldiers or
perhaps they were slave labor constructing a new runway at the airport by
hand! It seemed like the frequency of mad moments would not end. For instance,
we visited the museum where all the presents brought by foreign leaders during
their visit to North Korea were on display as gratitude to the great and loving
“mighty ruler..” Then there were two wax
statutes of them in an audience room and we were explicitly instructed how to
proceed in a humble manner and bow as deeply as we could and reverse out of the
room facing front while bowing like in the imperial courts of ancient time. You
did not know whether to laugh or cry! It was petrifying to experience a
totalitarian society in real life and yet at the same time, it was such a jolly
trip with strong camaraderie amongst us. Most relieving was, of course, the
ability to leave this hell on earth of a country. Since then, however, not a
single day has gone by after that trip where I do not think about the poor
people of North Korea and sincerely wish for them freedom and prosperity.
What would you like to teach your children about life?
To me it is
not important whether you study at university and graduate with an elegant
sounding degree. The important thing is to understand what you like to do in
life with a passion. So it would not bother me if they became lorry drivers or
working as cashiers at the supermarket. As long as they feel that what they do
brings inspiration and is not a heavy burden. Although money has motivated me
along the way I never felt that what I did was work in a demanding sense.
Instead, I feel it has simply been a part of my everyday life and up until this the day I feel my life has been like a game of good fun.
Essential Question.
What is your best advice for success?
I have
never been holding back when it came to meeting new people and reaching out. As
long as they were interesting I wanted to learn more about them. This has
allowed me to bond with people from many ways of life and made good contacts,
friends and profitable business ventures.
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