The Big Question: How did two rail enthusiasts fund their own €4.5 million sleeper train company?
Elmer van Buuren, CEO of a European night train firm, explains how he made his business dream a reality through community funding.
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00:00 I have always dreamt of having my own train company. There is no manual for it. You can't
00:04 do anything if you don't get started and just try things.
00:13 Welcome to The Big Question, the series from Euronews where we delve deep into the biggest
00:17 topics on the business agenda. In this episode, we're chatting to Elma van Boeren, the co-founder
00:22 of the European Sleeper Train Company, to discuss building your dream business and if
00:25 it's really possible to be an entrepreneur if you're not super rich.
00:29 First of all, tell me a little bit about European Sleeper. What makes it different from other
00:32 train companies?
00:33 European Sleeper is a company from the Netherlands that is doing sleeper trains. We have just
00:38 launched our first service, which is Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin in May. And I think the
00:42 big difference between us and other train companies is that we're community-owned.
00:45 So you're still quite a new company. So you kind of founded in 2020 and then you opened
00:57 up for crowdfunding in 2021 for your seed capital. So how much did you need to get going
01:02 and how long did it take for you to get that money?
01:05 The first €500,000 that we started with in 2021, we raised in 15 minutes. And that
01:11 was really a great success because it also proved that people liked the idea.
01:15 How did that feel? Were you expecting that?
01:17 Not at all. We prepared everything and pressed the start button at some point at 11 o'clock
01:22 in the morning. And I remember getting myself a cup of coffee, thinking everything is ready
01:26 now and I came back to my computer and everything was gone. And that was really surprising because
01:32 I thought that the platform was broken basically.
01:34 So why did you choose to start the business in this way? Were there any other discussions
01:38 on financing it in any other way?
01:40 The main reason we started the company in this way is that we believe that it is important
01:44 to involve the community. And we also needed a sort of flexible way to raise money. One
01:50 of the added benefits that we have from doing it this way is that we have people involved
01:54 now that have become owners of our company, but that also have a specific knowledge that
01:59 can be very helpful in reaching our goals. And I think that this is really the main reason
02:04 for doing it.
02:05 Yeah. Are there any disadvantages to it, do you think?
02:08 We thought that we'd get a long way with €500,000. That was a bit, let's say, underestimation.
02:14 So by now we have raised €4.5 million. I think the main thing is that if you want to
02:19 run a train company, of course, you need much more money than we have currently raised,
02:23 especially if you're starting to get into the phase where you want to invest in the
02:27 new trains. And this model is not going to help for that kind of investment. But that's,
02:32 I think, natural when you want to run a train company. There's enormous investment involved.
02:44 So looking forward, what are the next steps and how are you going to finance it going
02:49 forward?
02:50 The next step that we will take, I think that is significant, is that we will extend the
02:54 existing service Brussels-Amsterdam-Berlin to go on to Prague. This will be from March
03:00 already on sale. So I think it's really good. And one project that we are currently already
03:05 working on is Amsterdam-Brussels-Barcelona service. That is bound to start in 2025. It's
03:12 very ambitious, but it will definitely be a great success. It's also selected as a European
03:19 Commission pilot project. So we're getting some support from that side as well.
03:28 Thinking about if you wanted to buy a brand new sleeper train with the average number
03:33 of carriages, how much are we talking? How much would that cost?
03:37 That's a good question. Train is about 400 meters long. So you need about 14 carriages.
03:41 If you want to run the train daily, it means you need two of those train sets. You need
03:45 to have some spare carriages as well. So you end up buying about 35 carriages. I think
03:49 one carriage costs anything between, let's say, 2.5 and 3 million euros. So that is a
03:57 significant investment. And then you don't have an engine yet.
04:00 Yes, OK. So yeah, if you need 35 carriages and two engines as well.
04:04 For one service to run daily, you are talking about between 70 and 100 million euros.
04:15 So then in this whole process of building European Sleeper, what mistakes have you made
04:22 and what have you learned? If you run yourself into perfectionism, you
04:26 don't end up anywhere. Yes, maybe there are things that we could have done better, but
04:30 I wouldn't call it wrong. I think we would have needed to scale up the amount of money
04:35 that we raise more quickly. And I think that we have underestimated how tough it is to
04:44 find your place and to get your place in the environment of all the big companies. On the
04:49 one hand, we're quite successful in it. And on the other hand, it's still tough. But it's
04:53 not necessarily something we did wrong. I think it comes with being a startup company,
04:59 a new entrant company, private company in this kind of environment. There is no manual
05:04 for it. Did you always feel like you had an entrepreneurial
05:09 streak? You said you had this dream for a long time. Did you ever think you would actually
05:15 do it? I have always dreamt of having my own train
05:18 company. So this idea has been boiling inside for 25 years. And it's been difficult to decide
05:23 to become an entrepreneur. One of the most important things that I have learned, I think,
05:27 in the process is don't take too much advice from other people because they will try to
05:31 keep you from doing it. And they don't want you to fail and to just go for it.
05:37 So ironically, I am actually going to ask you for some advice. I know you said don't
05:41 take too much advice. But thinking about someone who maybe has a dream of building a business
05:47 that is a very expensive business to get into, and it's not something that they can just
05:51 do with their personal capital, what advice do you have for them?
05:54 I think the main advice that I would have is that there is money available. You just
06:00 need to tap into it, really. And I think the most important thing is make sure your idea
06:06 is really clear and that it really doesn't work if it remains a PowerPoint presentation.
06:10 So you need to demonstrate that it works. You need to take it step by step and grow.
06:22 So looking to the future, where do you see European Sleeper in 10 years' time?
06:26 Well, in 10 years' time, I expect that we will have been able to launch a few more services.
06:32 So our ambition was to launch a new train service every year. But it turns out to be
06:37 very ambitious to do this. We're hoping to launch the first new service in 2025 from
06:44 Amsterdam to Barcelona. And then from there, let's say if we manage to start up a new service
06:50 each year from then on, that will have us operate a small network in 10 years' time.
06:57 Brilliant. I mean, if you start a new line every year, in 10 years' time, it won't
07:02 be a small network. It'll be pretty extensive, and that would be amazing.
07:06 Yeah. On the other hand, looking at the European map, I think there's so many lines that we
07:10 could still start that I think one line per year is really ambitious on the one hand,
07:15 and on the other hand, it's not enough at all. So that's what I'm thinking about.
07:19 How can I speed it up even more? Yeah. Wonderful. Well, good luck. I look
07:25 forward to taking some of your sleeper trains across Europe. And thank you very much for
07:28 talking to us today on The Big Question.
07:29 Thank you.
07:30 Thank you.
07:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]