When I first spoke to Adam Kalamchi, founder of Brilliant Bicycles, what immediately struck me was the frequency with which he used the word “fun.”
The growing startup is reducing the joyride to a science and an art. Painting in brush strokes of swept handlebars and curved steel, their chosen medium is the perfectly modern, minimalist bicycle.
“I’ve always loved the way that bikes change the city, how everything starts to feel closer, and how much more you’re engaged with your surroundings,” says the 32-year-old Kalamchi, a WeWork Santa Monica member. “You tend to explore different places and go longer distances, and the city really starts to feel like a neighborhood, like a smaller place.”
The value of this wide-eyed wanderlust of riding with no particular destination in mind is one of the reasons Kalamchi started Brilliant Bicycles to begin with.
It all began with a search for the perfect bicycle. Kalamchi was living in New York City at the time, and was looking for a bike that was modern, simple, and well-suited to the city streets.
“The process was just frustrating and confusing and very technical, and really, really expensive,” says Kalamchi.
The problem with the current bicycle industry, says Kalamchi, is that the focus of design is heavily skewed towards athletic performance rather than recreational enjoyment, while in reality, the modern consumer is not concerned with, and frankly doesn’t understand, all the expensive features and technical gear options these more traditional models provide.
The light bulb moment came when Kalamchi decided to do a little research, looking to find an alternative to the overly technical sports performance models that dominated the market. What he realized was that most of the brands he encountered were controlled by only five big conglomerates. At the time, Kalamchi was a senior associate at RRE Ventures, working mostly with e-commerce companies.
“I had seen a lot of other startups that were taking on highly consolidated traditional industries, like Warby Parker with the glasses industry,” says Kalamchi. “That was definitely the first moment where I realized this fun pastime could be a business.”
Kalamchi soon found the perfect partner for his new idea while still working full-time as a venture capitalist. Kane Hsieh, a friend and colleague, was game for the adventure.
”At the time it was just two guys really interested in bikes, taking personal vacations to Asia to poke around factories and attend trade shows—we weren’t really about making the business work yet, but we just kept peeling the onion back, and eventually we took the leap,” he says.
Since the two were already co-workers, the jump to co-founders was an easy one.
“I have a business background and understand the strategy of economics,” he says, “and Kane is technical—he understands hardware and software, and he used to build bikes, so he understands manufacturing as well.”
The two eventually became co-founders of Brilliant Bicycles, though they did the majority of their research while still working as full-time venture capitalists.
“We were really open with them, they were flexible with vacation time and travel, and they even gave us feedback on the idea,” says Kalamchi about his other colleagues at RRE Ventures.
One of the upsides of the more streamlined, simplified models Brilliant Bicycles produces is a much less hefty price tag for consumers. Kalamchi’s past experience investing in startups at RRE Ventures allowed him to put to work a business model he had seen succeed before. Borrowing from the missions of other big-business disruptors like Casper and Warby Parker, Brilliant ships bicycles directly to the consumer, giving them 14 days to test out their new ride or return it. This completely cuts out the expensive middleman of the traditional brick-and-mortar distribution model.
“These bigger conglomerate companies have to pay for retail space, sales clerks, storage, and every step of the way, someone is taking a profit—and that’s all baked into the price,” he says. “We produced our own bike and ship from our own warehouse directly to the consumer.”
The Aston and the Mayfair, the two models currently offered by Brilliant, are sleek and simple, tailored to the fun-loving city rider. While the Aston retains a more familiar, traditional bicycle shape, the Mayfair is a Dutch-style step-through, which allows riders to mount the bike without having to swing their leg over the seat. The Mayfair, says Kalamchi, is perfect for the rider wearing a tailored suit or a skirt.
“I love the Mayfair. There’s something really happy about being on the Mayfair. You really feel like a kid again,” he says.
When Kalamchi talks about his bicycles, one can’t help but conjure up the idyllic vision of a girl in a sundress pleasure-riding through the city, like an image out of a vintage photograph. And that’s exactly what Brilliant Bicycles is setting out to do: taking a timeless, carefree daydream and modernizing it. This is a company made up of people who love how a joyride can transform a city, and it shows.
“It’s never been about financial gain,” says Kalamchi. “It was always about loving bikes, seeing there was a gap, and thinking we’d have fun doing this.”
Photo credit: Lauren Kallen