Our Story
Great to have you here! We are happy that you are interested in Urbany's and we would like to take you on a journey through our company history. We two, Patrik and Carlo, founded Urbany's and put a lot of time and heart into the company. The fact that our business has developed so well in the last few years makes us proud.
Young and wild
We met at the Kantonsschule Enge. Although we were not in the same class, we took each other to heart from the very first day. We played soccer together, had wild party nights, spent vacations together and discovered the world. It was a great, carefree time that we like to think back on.
In 2016, we decided to set up a joint project and become business partners. We had an idea, but didn't yet know where the journey would take us.
Our vision takes shape
Our plan was clear: we wanted to track down urban trends and bring cool products to the people. A name and an online store were needed. Urbany's was the perfect label for us - and what luck: The domains urbanys.ch, urbanys.de, urbanys.eu and urbanys.com were all still available. What was missing now was a website where we could sell our products. We decided to set it up ourselves, and Jimdo made it easy to do, even without any programming knowledge.
We started our adventure with five backpacks and ten watches. We took advantage of the fact that at that time it was possible to reach a lot of people relatively cheaply with advertising on Facebook. We used this opportunity to draw attention to our online store.
Founding of the GmbH
The launch was a great success. Within a very short time, we were sold out and had to ensure resupply. And so it went on. Soon we were able to pay ourselves a small salary and put some money aside.
With this money, we officially registered Urbany's as a GmbH about a year later, on April 6, 2017. But a simple resale of products was not the vision we wanted to pursue with Urbany's in the long run. Soon, we decided to design high-quality watches according to our wishes and sell them under our own brand Urbany's.
Unfortunately, during this phase, there were delivery bottlenecks. The production of the new watches took much longer than expected. Our bad luck was that the market was flooded by many other trendy watch brands during this time. By the time our watches finally arrived, the boom was over.
Adventure Berlin
That was no reason for us to give up - we had to start all over again. We spontaneously decided on a change of scenery and moved to Berlin to be inspired by the trends and entrepreneurial spirit of the startup metropolis. As soon as we arrived, we discovered the phone necklace. Once we noticed it, we couldn't escape it, so prevalent was it already on the streets of Berlin. It was immediately clear to us that this functional and stylish accessory had to find its way to Switzerland. Why not through us?
The first prototypes
So we immediately started developing a first prototype. We visited craft stores all over Berlin and made custom braided cords, which we combined with high-quality cases to create the very first Urbany's phone necklaces. Based on numerous feedbacks we continuously improved our prototype and developed step by step the first market-ready Urbany's phone necklace.
With the active support of Carlo's parents, we set up a studio and a small warehouse in their basement in Wollishofen (ZH) and started selling our first in-house production. Since we were still living in Berlin at that time, we regularly traveled to Switzerland to assemble the phone necklaces for the upcoming month. When it came to shipping, we could count on the generous help of Carlo's parents as long as we were still in Berlin. You can always count on the family!
On the road to success with the Phone Necklace
The phone necklaces proved to be an absolute hit, which is why we finally returned to Switzerland after a year in Berlin. We built up a network of suppliers and partners around Urbany's to meet the ever-growing demand. Meanwhile, our phone necklaces are made in collaboration with the Altried Foundation, which offers perspectives to people with mental and/or physical disabilities.
Today, our customers are real Swiss retail leaders such as Globus, Swisscom, Fizzen and Loeb, with whom we have a great relationship. In 2021, we also opened our flagship store at Zwinglistrasse 35 in the heart of Zurich, which also serves as a showroom and office for our now 6-person team. However, the soul of Urbany's is and will always be the online business, where we also serve the majority of our customers.
Ready for the future
We have big plans for the future. We want to continuously expand our product range and make it more sustainable. We will increasingly use recycled materials and replace genuine leather with vegan leather. New exciting products are already in the making and won't be too long in coming.
Thanks to the steadily increasing demand, also from abroad, we started operating a warehouse in Berlin (DE) in 2021, which will enable us to serve the European market more easily and efficiently.
Let the future come - we are ready! ♥️