Who wants to travel? Who doesn’t, right? Who wants to carry their luggage while doing it? Who does… Hey, wait a minute… no one does!

Luggage is an unavoidable part of every trip. It can also be a great burden when there’s a huge gap between checking out or in your place of stay, and the schedule of your chosen transportation.

Janick Lawaetz found a solution for this annoying problem. Why not leave your luggage in a nearby coffee shop or a store? Find a place providing this service, book the place online, and just leave it there for as many hours as you need. Together with Kristian Løkkegaard, Janick founded LuggageHero.

The young lads decided to take a trip to success-land, and their company LuggageHero was the place where they stored all their intellectual luggage.

If you’re interested in knowing more about how LuggageHero became the sought-after solution for travel lovers, continue reading the story of Janick and Kristian.

Prodigies Ready to Wreak Havoc

Janick, the founder and the CEO of LuggageHero was born in Copenhagen. He was deemed exceptional from a very young age, showing signs of above-average intelligence. Passing through school was no sweat for him. He showed an immense interest in technology. While other kids were playing with kiddy stuff, Janick was toying with his creative ideas and obsessively working on his projects.

The result of his favorite pastime was a mobile platform he developed when he was only 14 years old. But it wasn’t just a child’s play, it was the real deal. Young Janick sold his platform to a big company and even got offered a contract to stay and continue developing his website, an offer that he accepted. What he did as a teenager was very impressive, and it wasn’t all that hard to assume that success will follow him further in his life.

Kristian, the co-founder, and CTO of LuggageHero was also born in Denmark. Like Janick, he was a gifted child with above-average intelligence. As a kid, Kristian was very curious and eager to learn. Kristian showed great interest in technology and knew that it was the field that would probably occupy his life.

As a kid, Kristian showed interest in innovations and all things that bring changes to the world, making it better. Young Kristian wasn’t interested in mundane and boring stuff, creativity and thinking outside of the box were what grabbed his attention and held to it tight.

Nothing Is Rotten in the State of Denmark

Young Janick was studying and working at the same time. After the contract with the company that bought his platform came to an end, Janick went to study business and administration at the Copenhagen Business School. At the same time, Janick spent a lot of his free time designing a webshop, which turned into a real success.

Janick’s webshop was a part of the Denmark telecommunication business, providing services to customers from all of the largest operators in Denmark. It was one of the 5 top-selling webshops in Denmark in 2010.

After spending six months working for a company as a sales and marketing coordinator, he got back to doing his own things. He just couldn't stop getting new ideas and trying them out. Janick started a portal for fitness and nutrition and then, two and a half years ago, he sold it just to develop a platform for triathletes.

Kristian, on the other hand, earned himself a diploma in computer science from the Lyngby Business Academy, where he excelled as a student. Immediately after graduation, Kristian started working as a software engineer at DtecNet. After three years working for the company, he was promoted to Chief Technology Officer. Kristian left after 6 years in the company, mainly because he was eagerly looking for a new challenge. He became a VP engineer in Thomson Reuters Company, and he stayed there for 3 and a half years.

Kristian started being very interested in startups. He wanted to be a part of developing new products and making changes in the world. This excited him a lot more than working in an established company. In 2015, Kristian invested in Your Local, a startup in Copenhagen fighting the problem of food wasting, and dabbed into the tech sphere, landing helping sphere with all things technology.

In 2016, Kristian read about Janick and his idea and liked it so much that he couldn’t resist involving himself.

The Bags are Packed

The story of the creation of LuggageHome starts in Barcelona. Janick was on a vacation there with his girlfriend. After checking out from the place they were staying, they had plenty of time till their flight home. As they didn’t want to carry their heavy bags with them while walking around the city, Janick asked the owner if they could leave the bags in the room and pick’em up later. But the owner refused their request, explaining that he had to clean the room before the new guests arrived.

Janick, full of frustration, stormed out and started thinking of a solution to the annoying issue. Then, Janick spotted a shop nearby. He went in and asked if they could leave their luggage there, and the owners agreed. They went for a last round of sightseeing, got back, took their luggage, tipped the owner, and left. As simple as that, their luggage made it through.

The next year when Janick himself was renting his place, he noticed that a lot of the guests were requesting to leave their luggage after they have checked out, or before they were checking in. This reminded Janick of his experience in Barcelona, and that’s when it dawned upon him that this could be a great opportunity for unraveling a concept and offer a solution for the luggage problem. Why not make a website that connects travelers to local places that would offer a luggage storing service? That’s what Janick thought, and that’s what he started working toward.

The Trip can Begin

Janick was excited about seeing his idea turn into reality, and was determined to make it work. But before he could rejoice in the sight of his idea, Janick faced many challenges in the beginning. He had to leave his job to completely focus on his project. He was investing all of his money in the company even though he had no job and no income to financially support his plans. This was a hard period to go through, but Janick managed to see it through and established his concept locally in Copenhagen.

Kristian read about it in an article and became quite intrigued by the awesome, unique idea. He liked what Janick was doing and recognized the possibility of the idea becoming a huge thing. Kristian didn’t hesitate and wanted to be an investor in the company. But, as the ball started to roll, Kristian ended up partnering with Janick, bringing his own ideas to the table, and taking care of the technical part of the business. Together, the young lads founded LuggageHero and started seeing success shortly after their established collaboration.

Attention, Travelers! Enjoy Being Luggage Free!

After only one year from its founding, LuggageHero expanded to London and New York. What attracted people to LuggageHero was the fact that it was very useful and also very simple to use. You only need to book a place online for your luggage and go there following the directions provided by LuggageHero. Leave your bags there and enjoy yourself walking around the city with no luggage to burden your sightseeing. You are only required to pay an hourly rate, and it’s a win-win for travelers and shop owners.

LuggageHero was spreading quickly, attracting attention everywhere. Investments started pouring in rather quickly. LuggaeHero was boosted by a total amount of $3.95M in fundings, starting from 2017 up to 2020. Besides having a great number of micro investors through crowdfunding, the company also received investments from Growth Fund, Nordic Eye, and the Investment Fund of Denmark.

The company attracted huge attention in the media, with the likes of the New York Times, Forbes, CNBC, and others, brewing news about them. LuggageHero was nominated in 2019’s 25 hottest startups. Its founder Janick Lawaetz has appeared as a speaker in many tech conferences.

LuggageHero Today

Tody, Luggage Hero is based in Copenhagen, and it’s led by Janick Lawaetz as the CEO and Kristian Løkkegaard as the CTO of the company. The company offers employment to over 20 people, tending to the needs of travelers. It operates in 40 cities around the world, with more than 1100 locations for booking. It has attracted more than 220.000 users with a total amount of over 2 million of storage hours. LuggaeHero also collaborates with many companies like Booking.com, Revolut, GuestReady, and many more.

Before LuggageHero became the solution for a luggage-free experience while traveling, it had to overcome some serious competitors, like NannyBag, Radical Storage, Stasher, and Bounce, among others.

The story of LuggageHero is not just inspiring, but also an interesting one. It’s about a simple solution to a problem most of us can identify with. Anyone that has traveled has been in those situations, carrying bags around. Janick went from utilizing a personal frustration to creating a simple but yet genius solution. So, next time you have some free time while on a trip, use LuggageHero and enjoy your time while your heavy luggage is safe, and most importantly - not in your hands.