Coffee Bike World founder Vladislav Priadko was just finishing up his UBC business degree when a friend suggested a coffee cart might be an interesting opportunity.
Interested in the idea (and in starting his own business, which he'd done before), he found a bike coffee shop online and ordered one in 2017.
"Absolute...garbage"
"I ended up placing an order for the coffee cart and what I received was absolute, if I can say, garbage," Priadko tells V.I.A. "That took me more than a year to actually make it work."
Even after he got it working, the bike wasn't really functional; it was so heavy he could only really ride it downhill. He moved it around with his car, but it wasn't working for him.
So he got to work designing his own.
Good idea, new design
"What I realized is the idea was great, but the execution was completely off, so I redesigned the concept," he tells V.I.A.
Priadko notes that the mobile coffee shop has some key advantages over a bricks-and-mortar shop. Its mobility is an obvious one, but so is the lack of location to take care of.
"If you work, you make money. If you don't work, you don't lose money, right? It's a very good formula," Priadko explains. "[Retail shops] still pay rent, insurance. I don't have anything against retail people, I respect them for what they do, but it's a bit of a trap when it comes down to monthly and weekly and daily bills."
With some help, he launched Coffee Bike Vancouver in 2019 with a bike he designed. While the business was a mobile coffee shop, people were curious about getting their own coffee bike.
At first, Priadko wanted to focus on making sure the bikes worked well and establishing the coffee business, expanding to a fleet of six bikes. But the long-term plan included a much bigger expansion.
After the launch of his first bike, Priadko kept tweaking the design to make it functional for both baristas and bike riders. After his own experience, he wanted to make sure the bike he was selling would perform well.
Global goals with unique business plan
In 2023, he was ready for that expansion, launching the coffee bikes as their own business.
"What I wanted to focus as the next level for Coffee Bike development was launching our own manufacturing facility of turnkey mobile coffee shops slash coffee bikes," he says.
Coffee Bikes aren't franchised, though he did toy with the idea. Instead, Coffee Bike World sells the equipment and offers a variety of optional support levels, from part replacements to barista classes to marketing. Priadko notes he's essentially helping people skip the equipment research and development phase.
"The idea is to have this worldwide community of Coffee Bike owners," he explains.
Coffee Bikes was a Canadian-only business until recently, when the first one opened in Peru. Priadko says they weren't marketing outside of Canada, but someone moving from Sweden to Peru stopped in Vancouver on their way, learned about Coffee Bikes while here, and bought in on the idea.
"All the stars aligned, he inquired, and, yes, we managed to deliver the unit to Peru," he explains.
Another Coffee Bike is headed to L.A. soon, while others are open or heading to other parts of Canada.
Interest from dragons
With the business' growth came the opportunity for Priadko to appear on one of his favourite shows, CBC's Dragons' Den.
"I've been watching the show for decades, since season one, since I was a teenager," Priadko says. "Dragons' Den, Dragons' Den UK, Dragons' Den Australia. I watched it all, every single season."
He's just returned from pitching the business to the panel of Canadian business leaders.
"It was such an amazing experience and genuine conversation," he says. "It's a surrealistic experience, and I was a little bit in shock."
While he can't share exactly how it went, he says he had a positive experience. In all, he spoke to the "Dragons" for 45 minutes. He expects the segment to air sometime between September and January.
In Vancouver, Coffee Bikes can be found around the city or at private events. Given their mobility, the locations vary (though they are often on the seawall or in the Bentall Centre). Along with hot coffees (including espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos), they have iced drinks as well, like lemonade.
