They were warned against starting a business as best friends. Today, they make a living from it.
When Anders Kargaard Thomsen and Tobias Guld founded ToriiTravels, they went against all the usual advice. Today, they make a living from the company and send young people to Japan and South Korea every year.
And the friendship? It is stronger than ever.
In front of Tobias Guld, a phone lies on the table.
Every now and then, the screen lights up. Followed by a short buzz.
Under normal circumstances, most people would probably turn it over. Put it in their pocket. Leave it alone.
But not here.
Not when you have more than 30 young people on the other side of the world. Not when they are in Tokyo, Seoul or somewhere in between. And not when you, like Tobias Guld and Anders Kargaard Thomsen, have made it part of your business to stay close to the people who have placed their trust, a significant amount of money and the next six months in your hands.
From gap year to side project
Tobias and Anders have known each other since primary school. The two friends from Eastern Jutland hit it off, and when they both graduated from upper secondary school, they decided to set their sights on Japan.
Not just one of those “let’s spend 14 days in Tokyo” kinds of trips.
No, they wanted to get under the skin of the culture. To experience the authentic side of a foreign country.
“We didn’t just want to be tourists in Japan. We wanted to experience the culture from within, and the only way to do that was to live in Tokyo for six months — long enough for everyday life to become part of the journey.”
- Tobias Guld
And the two childhood friends were sold.
When they returned to Denmark, they each began their studies. But Japan and Tokyo would not loosen the grip the country had taken on the two young men from Eastern Jutland.
And when, during corona, they discovered that the travel agency that had sent them to Japan had gone bankrupt, they knew exactly what to do.
They were ready to pick up the torch and carry it forward.
For Tobias Guld and Anders Kargaard Thomsen, there is rarely a long way from thought to action. And the beginning of ToriiTravels was no exception.
So there was no time or resources set aside for market analyses, lengthy reports or elaborate go-to-market strategies.
Instead, they trusted their gut feeling and what they themselves describe as a healthy dose of “we’ll-figure-it-out energy.”
“We had a clear idea that if we thought it was great, then there would probably be others who would think so too. And fortunately, that turned out to be true,” Anders explains.
When “we’ll figure it out” got serious
As the website, visa rules and local agreements in Tokyo began to fall into place, they could start sending travellers to the country the two founders had fallen head over heels for just a few years earlier.
One traveller became 10. Then 10 became 30.
Suddenly, the two students no longer had just a side project. They had a real business on their hands. And with a real business comes real responsibility.
A responsibility that would soon put the two young men from Eastern Jutland to the test.
With a large group in Japan, new travellers on the way and even more who had already paid for their upcoming stays, Tobias and Anders found out that they had to provide a guarantee of DKK 150,000 to the Danish Travel Guarantee Fund.
The only problem:
They did not have DKK 150,000.
“We had 14 days to find DKK 150,000, and at the time our only fixed income was our monthly student grant, most of which went straight to rent.”
- Anders Kargaard Thomsen
The two childhood friends called bank after bank. But despite their seemingly endless supply of “we’ll-figure-it-out energy,” the banks needed a stronger financial foundation.
The banks said no.
Again and again.
In the end, Tobias reached out to an old football coach who worked at Fynske Bank. A move he himself describes as desperate. But after a couple of meetings, the bank agreed to provide the guarantee just hours before the deadline. Not because the numbers spoke for themselves. But because they believed in the entrepreneurs behind the project.
From side project to workplace
But while the bank guarantee ensured that ToriiTravels could continue, finances were not the only thing that needed to fall into place before the side project could truly grow.
For Tobias and Anders, it was also crucial to have a place where the business could take up space.
Before that, they had been working from Dokk1, the university and their homes, trying to squeeze the business in between exams and lectures. But when they got an office in Kitchen, the project changed character.
“In a way, it can be difficult to take yourself seriously as a business when you don’t have a fixed base. When we got an office in Kitchen, it suddenly became clear to us that there was real potential here,” Anders explains.
Because with the office space, they did not just get a desk. They got a place where ToriiTravels could be at the centre. A place where they could show up, work with focus and gain access to knowledge, sparring and an entrepreneurial community that could help them with all the things they still did not know about building a business.
From being something they worked on whenever they had time, ToriiTravels became something they showed up for.
Something they took seriously.
Friendship, responsibility and seeing eye to eye
Since then, the two childhood friends have long since left the entrepreneurial nest at Kitchen. Today, they both make a living from ToriiTravels. They have employees, are continuously developing new travel products and send a steady stream of young people on adventures in Japan and South Korea every year.
And they are proud of that.
Because even though they are not chasing the dream of building a travel empire or owning a mansion on Strandvejen, they have worked incredibly hard to get to where they are today.
“We are doing something we can make a living from, and something we have built ourselves. You can only be proud of that.”
- Anders Kargaard Thomsen
And even though the classic advice is that you should never start a business with your best friend, it was never a concern for either Tobias Guld or Anders Kargaard Thomsen.
“There are definitely people who should not do it. But for us, it has never been about making the relationship more professional than it is. We have simply built on the friendship we already had,” says Anders Kargaard Thomsen.