Portrait of Mads Christian Friis Work must not be a heavy burden.

Portrait of Mads Christian Friis Work must not be a heavy burden.

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 both​Mads 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.

Source:​https://madschristianfriis.blogspot.com/2019/04/portrait-of-mads-christian-friis-work.html