Ústecký startup vyřešil “veslování na suchu”, má objednávky od špičkových sportovců ze světa

11/10/2023

| Success stories

The startup from Ústí has solved "rowing on dry land", it has orders from top athletes from around the world

His grandmother was a policewoman. His dad is a police officer. His best friend is a police officer. This is how action movies start. And the story of Matouš Kostomlatský begins in exactly the same way, only as a rower. There are hobbies that you don't choose, so Matouš inherited his hobby from his parents and started rowing. Outdoor sports have the disadvantage that when winter comes (and it always does), you have nowhere to train. Which annoyed the passionate rower and coach of rowing youth. So he started working on a solution that would eliminate this pause. And thus the startup Rowingo was born.

The Innovation Center of the Ústí Region (ICUK) with its program for budding entrepreneurs Startup Go (business incubator) helps entrepreneurs with their growth. It is a several-month program full of workshops on various topics, which aim to develop the founder of the project and his business. At the end of the program, the so-called Startup Go Grill is organized, where Ústí startups are "grilled" in front of a jury and the most successful one is announced. Startup Rowingo went through this program and won the "grilling".

Rowers started anew in the summer

The biggest problem for rowers is that the season is short, so the space for training is not what they would like and need. In addition, rowing itself is such a specific movement that it cannot simply be trained in the gym. "In the summer you are in shape, you have trained. Physics and technology. Winter is coming, you train as much as you can. And in the spring, you will find out that you can train the technique from scratch, and the physics is partial, because nothing simulates the movement of 100 % when you actually row," CEO Matouš Kostomlatský describes the rowers' problem.

Matouš rowed since childhood. He studied construction engineering at secondary school and then obtained a university education in the field of economics. During his university studies, he started looking for a project to start. "Then I looked in my training diary and saw a page with a prototype of a rowing simulator that I had drawn years ago, and the vision was clear," explains Matouš about the beginnings of the business. He had a clear colleague - it was his rowing partner Jéňa Psota.

DIY in the garage - that's how a startup begins

After a short survey, they discovered that there are about 10 types of rowing simulators in the world, but not one of them fully corresponds to the real movement. So they started their own. They invited a new colleague, David Kučera, to the team, who supplemented their technical knowledge, and when they agreed on the final form after hundreds of drawings, they started prototyping. In the beginning, their biggest partner was the 3D printer.

Developing a simulator that faithfully replicates such a specific rowing movement is not easy. And so it was necessary to prepare several versions of prototypes and test them over the long term. That is why Rowingo is currently seeking participation in the Technology Incubation program, which would help them speed up the development of a mobile application, perform stress tests and prepare them for patent proceedings.

WC in Račice

And the interim feedback from professional rowers? Startup Rowingo managed to present its simulator at the 2022 World Rowing Championships in Račice. "That day was a blessing for us, because coaches and top rowers could try out our trainer. The feedback was such that, for example, rowers from Taiwan wanted to take all our prototypes away from the event. We actually got over a dozen pre-bookings from that day, which gave us the energy to continue developing as there is still plenty of work to do,” Matouš enthusiastically shares his feelings and continues his plans in Rowingo: "We are currently working hard to prepare the official launch of pre-orders. We are aiming for late 2023 with the finished product in late 2024. This waiting period is actually the same as waiting for a rowing boat. But it's not the intention (laughs).”

Get advice

Acknowledging that I need help is the first step to growth. Matouš knows a lot about this, as he joined the business incubator for this very reason. "I have economic and a bit of technical thinking. However, I lacked certain soft skills to be able to deal with potential investors, customers and above all with people in the team. And that's exactly what I got during the incubator workshops. I also enjoyed the energy when you meet people of the same caliber every week, only in different fields." Matouš explains why he joined the ICUK business incubator.