Steve Jordan interviews the CEO of HOLD, a new self storage company set on disrupting the market.
In the April issue of The Mover we published an article about London-based self storage company HOLD that recently opened its debut storage facility in the heart of Kings Cross. The story explained that the company plans to disrupt the market and open a further 20 stores by 2030.
Never keen to let a bold claim go unchallenged, The Mover resolved to find out more. In this article we interview Frederic de Ryckman de Betz, CEO and Co-Founder of HOLD, to explore what he means by ‘disruption’ and how he believes the industry is failing the customers it serves.
Fred has been in the self storage business since 2006. In recent years he has also been the chairman of the Self Storage Association (SSA) and former Vice president of FEDESSA. After leaving his previous company, and seeing out his restrictive covenant, he became a co-founder of HOLD in September 2023 with Callum Kempe, someone he had worked with previously.
Fred has a reputation of being something of an innovator with a handful of ‘firsts’ to his credit. For some time he had believed that the way the self storage industry was working was not serving customers as well as it might. “When someone booked self storage they had to provide two paper proofs of address, and ID, and would have to sign two copies of a contract,” he explained. At the same time you could book a flight on EasyJet using your Apple watch. That made no sense to me at all.”
He said that today’s consumers want to interact with businesses as they do with Apple, Netflix or Amazon. “This is what we are now addressing. Many of the people that come to us are at a stressful junction in their lives and need to be treated properly. It seems that some in our industry are just not bothered about our customers’ circumstances.” He implied that customers are required to fit in with the industry, not the other way around ...
Photo: Frederic de Ryckman de Betz.
Click here to read the full story in The Mover magazine.