Background: Racing bike innovation by OnlyFans
Flitedeck" has been available to pre-order in a pre-order campaign since last weekend. The two inventors and company founders, Sabrina Fischer and Matthias Huber from Bad Tölz near Munich, promise a road bike handlebar that integrates all the functions of a bike computer and also has a light. It is modelled on the cockpit in a car, which combines all functions from navigation to data display. The first crowdfunding order phase is currently underway. If enough money is raised, the two start-up founders are planning series production. However, there are still only prototypes. Fischer and Huber both have a Bachelor of Engineering (engineering degree). Both have experience in motorsport - particularly with electric racing cars. They founded Milky Way Media GmbH in 2020 and Flite GmbH in 2024. The patent for the handlebars has been in place since 2021 and the start-up financing was generated in an unusual way. Sabrina built up a large community on Instagram four years ago under the name cycling.sina. Inspired by its success, she expanded the offering to OnlyFans, where more revealing content is permitted and generates a lot of money.
Interview with Flite co-founder Sabrina Fischer
TOUR: What is the current status of the handlebars?
Sabrina Fischer: We are working on a close-to-production prototype. It is being finalised and we have already completed the first working prototype with the first tests. This means that we have already tested the stability and user interface over the first distance.
TOUR: The pre-order phase has just started. What is the idea behind it?
Sabrina Fischer: We prepared the project for four years and financed it ourselves. We launched the pre-order campaign to see once again: is the product really needed by our target group? Do people really want it? We will continue to look at this and can then simply move on to the next phase and launch it on the market.
TOUR: Have you set a point where you say you won't do it because the demand is too small?
Sabrina Fischer: We now need 500 orders, to put it bluntly. With 500 orders, we can go through the entire series development until delivery. Theoretically, we could continue to finance it ourselves, but of course we also want to see if it is really needed on the market.
TOUR: The biggest hurdle is definitely the software. Companies like Wahoo or Garmin have taken years to develop good Software to develop ...
Sabrina Fischer: We had super-strong partners on hand who were up for it, who told us how it could work. But with this knowledge, we want to and can build a team of specialists ourselves. We know that this is a weak point when you have external partners, because you simply have to be able to sit together and act quickly.
TOUR: What is your professional background - what does Bachelor of Engineering mean?
Sabrina Fischer: You can translate that as mechanical engineer or, in my case, automotive engineer. The degree courses only differ in terms of specialisations, for example when it comes to lightweight design in automotive engineering. During my studies, I volunteered in an association that develops electric racing cars.
TOUR: You first founded a limited company for social media and then Flite GmbH for road bike handlebars. When did OnlyFans come into play?
Sabrina Fischer: The idea was to generate an income stream with the idea of using it later for Flite GmbH so that we could build this dream. We always wanted to be independent and not have an investor involved in any way. We taught ourselves everything about social media. How to place adverts and so on. But then we realised that was too slow for us and there are other options like OnlyFans. There was this demand for more spicy content on my Instagram account. I posted about my life on this racing bike or influencer account. The target group, mainly men, kept asking if I had any more spicy pictures. I thought to myself: no idea, there's OnlyFans, let's take a closer look. How do they do it? We looked at successful creators and said we'd just give it a go. And things have been going uphill ever since. We can use it to finance our Flitedeck project.
TOUR: You have over 200,000 followers on Instagram. Is it fair to say that you've realised that bare skin works well there?
Sabrina Fischer: It started with the demand there, with comments that I could show more sexy pictures and it wasn't just from men, but also from women. You have such a beautiful body, why don't you show a bit more? Then I questioned it myself - do I even want to do that? I have no problem with it and then I just tried it out. The reaction was so positive that I just carried on. Of course, when there's a market, you don't say I'm not going to do it now. I show photos and videos with very explicit content on OnlyFans.
TOUR: I'm sure you often hear the accusation that you promote an image of women that is no longer in keeping with the times - does that come more from women or men?
Sabrina Fischer: I would say that it comes more from men, fascinatingly enough. I have extremely little hate in my community, that's what I call it. That has levelled out well. I look past it now because I really don't care. I just often think that men like to criticise because they see the woman playing with her femininity and taking maximum advantage of it. I think that many men don't think it's so great that a woman now has an advantage in business. Normally, women are at a disadvantage. A business model has emerged over the last few years where women can simply be very successful in a self-determined way thanks to their femininity. I think it's often a case of resentment when it comes to women. I have some female friends who are also relatively big in cycling and they are fully behind me.
TOUR: Can you estimate how many users on OnlyFans come from the cycling community?
Sabrina Fischer: I would say 80 per cent. The fans only come via my Instagram account. I do have another X account, but I'm not currently maintaining it. There's only cycling-related content there too, and that's exactly why they come because they say it's not available anywhere else.
OnlyFans as start-up financing
TOUR: Can you tell us how much money OnlyFans brings in?
Sabrina Fischer: Last year, in 2024, we invested a quarter of a million euros that we raised on OnlyFans in Flitedeck alone. (Editor's note: According to Sabrina, the total income was significantly higher. We did not reproduce the quote clearly in the first version)
TOUR: That's an astonishing amount of money ...
Sabrina Fischer: We said the same thing to ourselves the other day and we also thought that we would have a much more comfortable life if we only did that and not Flitedeck. Then we would be somewhere where the sun is always shining, lie on the beach half the time and cycle the other half. But we probably wouldn't have started OnlyFans because, funnily enough, it was the incentive for Flitedeck.
Hint:
Crowdfunding financing is always associated with a high level of risk. Delays in development or even failure of the project are not uncommon. TOUR does not recommend the purchase of products that are still under development and have not been tested by us.
Kristian Bauer
Editor
