Blood, sweat and gears

He began to turn his school- yard earnings, neighbourhood lawn mowing and grandmother’s knitting into a profit, allowing him to travel around the world in a bid to launch a motorcycle enterprise never seen before.

Ten years later, Braaap is one of the fastest-growing motorcycle companies in the world and has franchises both in Australia and overseas. But it wasn’t so easy getting to this point.

Brad takes The Adviser on the journey that led him to become one of Australia’s youngest and most successful entrepreneurs, discussing the challenges and setbacks he encountered along the way.

Early days

“Before I could even ride a bicycle, I was obsessed with motorcycles,” says Brad.

Brad grew up in Launceston, Tasmania, with his mother, father and younger sister, developing a love for the sport at an early age.

“My dad was a motorcyclist so he and his mates would meet at our place on a weekend, load up their bikes and go off on an adventure for a day,” he says. “At the end of the day they’d come back and they’d be covered in mud, sharing stories about how much fun they’d had.”

He couldn’t wait to be part of the action and spent his childhood training on motorbikes until he became good enough to compete in junior motocross competitions around Australia.

At one particular event in Sydney, Brad remembers his family pulling up in their little white van alongside an enormous semi-truck with six branded dirt bikes attached.

“We’d parked next to Richie Rich,” Brad says. “This kid has got his own mechanic, coach, nutritionist and I asked my mum ‘How on earth do these people have what they have?’”

On answering that question, Brad’s mother taught him something that would motivate and help him through every aspect of building his business.

“These people don’t have what they have because they work harder than us; they have what they have because they work smarter than us,” she told him.

From that point onwards, Brad dedicated his time to figuring out how he would turn his passion for motorcycling into his profession and build a business empire that would attract the attention of aspiring motorcyclists all over the world.

The steps to success

The first thing you need to do to develop a successful business is to “get smart”, says Brad.

“I went from being the kid at the back of the bus, paying the kids at the front of the bus to do his homework to the kid that started reading all the books, going to find mentors and listening to audio tapes.

“We have to learn what we need to learn in order to become the people we want to become,” he says.

The second thing Brad says is crucial, is putting yourself in the “position to pounce” when opportunity comes knocking.

Brad knew he would need money to develop his dream so he began stacking shelves for Woolworths, holding up signs for Domino’s Pizza and mowing lawns for the elderly – doing anything that would give him income and prepare him to launch his own business.

The third thing you need in order to have a successful business is entrepreneurial skills, he says.

He recalls his first entrepreneurial experience from primary school, when he had a hacky sack which all his friends enjoyed but were unable to afford.

“None of my mates had a spare 20 bucks to go splash on a hacky sack so that’s when I knew my market.”

“I got my nan to teach me how to sew these hacky sacks then took them to school on tuck shop day, sold 20 of them at two bucks each and then I had 40 bucks in the bank.”

Finally, Brad highlights goal setting as essential when attempting to build a business.

“You’ve got to have vision, you’ve got to get focused and you’ve got to have discipline,” he says.

The foundation of Braaap

While looking at some of his American motorcycle idols, he noticed they were all riding new, customised bikes, which were unaffordable to the average rider.

“What really shaped Braaap is that I saw this new type of motorcycling as an opportunity to make our sport more accessible and to make it more affordable so more people could experience what I love about motorcycling,” Brad says.

Braaap was born on this notion and after saving $10,000, Brad researched, made phone calls and exchanged emails with several different overseas manufacturers to create a bike he envisioned.

“I finally found this Chinese company and they promised me they could build this dream bike of mine that would compete with the Americans and still be affordable,” says Brad.

“The first 10 bikes turned up after 10 weeks and they were nothing like the ones I’d ordered. Our brand colours were black with a pink logo – these bikes were bright yellow.”

The setback cost Brad a year and all of his money but he still hadn’t lost his vision of making motorcycling accessible and affordable. On the day he turned 18 Brad had again, saved up enough money to book a flight to China and meet face-to-face with a number of manufacturing companies.

He sought out an interpreter who took him to over 50 manufacturing companies, all of which laughed him out of the office, Brad says.

“They weren’t willing to take a risk on an 18-year-old kid with no money, no engineering experience or no distribution channel.”

It was Brad’s perseverance that helped change his course and after 50 “laughs out of the office” he ran into two French businessmen who were willing to turn his dream of Braaap into a reality.

Now Braaap has 32 staff in Australia working on the motorcycles he envisioned, distributing them throughout the Australian and overseas markets. It is the only motorcycle company in the world that offers a lifetime warranty and holds the first production bike in history to win back-to-back world championships at the Mini Moto SX in Las Vegas – the largest Superlite SX championship in the world.

The mission

The Braaap group prides itself on providing custom-made and affordable motorcycles but Brad says its main goal is to provide a platform for children to learn how to ride.

“The thing that makes me most proud is that in 2014, we taught over 1,000 people how to ride a motorcycle for the first time,” he says.

“For the young people that come along, we use it as a reminder that you can get clean adrenaline through activity, through movement, through motion, through motorcycling. You don’t need drugs or alcohol.”

Brad credits persistence for his achievements.

“Opportunity takes time,” he says. “We live in a world where we’re so used to things being instant and immediate and when things don’t happen fast for us it’s easy to quit.

“My job is to remind people of what happens when we work with passion, with persistence, when we have a strategy, when we have a system and most importantly, when we’re willing to invest the sweat equity and do whatever the hell it takes to make our dreams happen.”