In October 2017 Dave started the set-up process for Zorro Moto. It turned out to be a 3 month marathon with Kyrgyz administrations until the business certificate was given on December 21st 2017 in Bishkek. At the same time, framework and branding for the name Zorro and Moto took place. Looking for a short name, easy to memorize, and at the same time making sure it didn't mean anything bad in those many ethnic backgrounds: Western- Russian- Kyrgyz- and Uzbek people. Without any graphic education, Dave & his wife started drawing the logo on their iPad.

With new year 2018 dawning, the newborn company already faced an unforgiving demand for tax approval. Without employees Dave was forced to outsource a first “Zero-Report” to an external accountant for 2017. Later Dave had been told it wasn't legal but uneducated tax front desk agent demanded so. Setting things up properly, Dave hired an office manager mid January and one month later an accountant. In March 2018, a small shop was rented in the outskirts of Osh with 60 sqm, two metal shelves were bought for the minimum needed items. An old wooden table from Daves house added to the chart. Now Zorro Moto had a residency address, Dave took his Nikon camera, shot some pictures and designed the first webpage marketing.

A month later the first Heidenau tires from Germany were delivered. A neighbor welded two metal shelves and with the remaining pallet Dave and his manager built a sales desk. In the very set-up, Dave focused on only one thing: cash flow as fast as possible – to kick Zorro Moto alive. Dave wasn't able to hire a mechanic upfront, but luckily Dave's former employer (MuzToo) was open to provide some outsourced services for Zorro Moto's first year customers. Partnering up with Iron Horse in Bishkek, Zorro Moto could start tire sales in two cities, promoting Zorro Moto through the biggest rental facilitator of Central Asia. June 2018 was another key date. Half a year of work out finally payed off. After purchasing and delivering, second hand scooters from Japan arrived in a 20ft. high cube container in Osh. The aim of providing mobility to a local market turned out to be difficult. A big slice of our start capital bound to that risky venture, we discovered a local market still in its child shoes. Summer 2018 followed with the first scooter sale and by chance a two-days tour with two excited motorbike travelers. Getting wild in the back country of southern Kyrgyzstan, this two day venture led to the first official Zorro Moto Tour in 2019 for 7 days.

After spending New Year in Switzerland, little did Dave know about what would happen upon his return. "I would have cursed somebody a jerk if he would told me that I was going to have 5 rental bikes in a big facility in downtown Osh" – but that was exactly what happened. Working his way into SWM connections in winter 18/19, the key decision fell in February 2019 to step into motorcycle rental business. At the same time out of surprice, the office manager left Zorro Moto and the accountant asked for replacement due to the complexity of business, languages, currencies and her age. Left alone with a business expansion, another door opened for partnering up with other start-ups in the city center of Osh on a co-working business place. At the end of February after one year, Dave closed the first small shop in the outskirt of Osh for the better. Without any business facility in March 19, Dave hired a new office manager and also created a new job position for a mechanic. Start working was in a coffee shop near by in town. As a new baked team, Zorro Moto crew started to set-up, renovate and shape the future facility. A new accountant then also joined the team. Zorro Moto became the official dealer for Heidenau Tires after a one year approval which was in 2018. Almost at the same time SWM granted us to become an importer for SWM brand for Central Asia.

In May 2019, Zorro Moto re-opened their new facility with a shop, garage and a big yard. The first services were offered soon after to customers in our newly established garage. Also in May, our two SWM Supderdual X arrived at customs. Trucks are not allowed to drive through the city center, so they clear the goods at a crappy old facility of the city water ministry. Our motorcycles were delivered to our facility on the bridge of a recovery vehicle.

Our residency in the city center caused some attention. A tremendous increase of customers and local bikers was the result. For the 2019 season Zorro Moto became the official dealer for retail products from Iron Horse for southern Kyrgyzstan, distributing HiFlo Filters and JTR Products.

By mid August another adventure was awaiting; the first Zorro Moto tour with 4 clients for seven days was a significant mile stone for another new branch: Zorro Moto Tours. The custom designed tour was a success in its diversity.

The ungraceful business environment in the Wild East evidently leads to learning lessons. After a tax raid in fall, Winter 19/20 was marked by some further frame-work in our internal systems. Zorro Moto starts developing a new sales system with stock inventory on time. We hope this leaves us with some more freedom from administrational hassle. Looking back, we are very thankful for a good start, inspiring employees and a promising growth.

Dave & Family went for 2 weeks vacation in March 2020 to Switzerland. Covid went rogue around the globe. Nobody expected travel ban, neither did we. And so Dave & Family ended up stuck in Switzerland for the rest of the year. From the distance Dave had to manage and guide the start-up.

Because Zorro Moto has two branches in different segments (tourism & scooters for the local market), we could make it longer in operations than all of our co labors across the region. Ironically helped Covid to turn a good idea into some sales. After the first two years of experimenting with scooter sales as a beach head market, sales on scooters started to increase in spring 2020. A harsh lock down, road blocks and the complete shut down of public traffic put society into some urgent needs for some mobility, what followed was an unprecedented demand on scooters.

These scooter sales helped us to remain operational, but not for long therm. It was the "assets cash turn over into expense - game". In August Zorro Moto joined the club and went to hibernate mode. This basically meant Zero-cash flow-reporting to government, employees had been released for their own good. Dave in Switzerland having a short-term job, could help out with his own funds to support his staff on a limited basis across winter. Tourism completely shut down in 2020 and was a hard hit for Kyrgyzstan. As if this wasn't enough, there was a "soft" revolution leading to a President change of the Kyrgyz republic as well as a small conflict with some shooting in the Batken region. The Central Asian countries also got lost in a contest of pandemic regulation. All of this clearly didn't add up for travel safety or freedom for border crossing ventures.

January / February remained in hibernate mode for Zorro Moto. Dave & Family moved back to Osh/Kyrgyzstan in February. The fact of no paying customers in the tourism sector leads to serious concern about a stabilized future for Zorro Moto.

At that time Dave expect a restrained prognosis for season 2021 and counted on a reasonable cash flow in 2022.

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"A ship you can steer when it is driving forward." So do we! Foreseeing tight finances during summer with the ongoing uncertainty in tourism, Zorro Moto tried the idea of a crowd funding initiative to get over the Corona crisis, around 4'500$ was generated. Later in summer realy proved this as an exact forecast.

Earlier in Summer 2021 Dave started to envision some changes for the good. Since a while conversations had been taken with Jake Swanson. Knowing each other since 2015 in Osh, Jake opened up durin 2020 for joining the venture in 2021.

March/April marked the start for Dave & Jake working together on the Zorro Moto development. During this time Osh woke up from winter mode and Scooter demand in rental & sales continued as high as the previous year. Due to the remaining global pandemic, less Indian students were in Osh renting scooters. But instead the local appetite backed up. The result was temporarily almost every week a wracked scooter. A society is learning handling an addition vehicle in traffic...

A huge thread came unexpected by the end of April and May. Zorro Moto and colabors, in fact the entire coworking comunity was forced to leave the facility. Although contracts for long therm in place this can happen in a development country. The owner was just in the mood for various reasons. Nevertheless Zorro Moto and the still forming leadership team by Dave & Jake were already forced to swim in the pond to new shores together.

Zorro Moto moved in June 2021 to a new place, it's third recidency, to Lenin Street 126. Ironically because of the ongoing pandemic Zorro Moto was able to move during main season and Jake & Dave had enough time for developming and forming the business into a new shape. There was almost a complete outage of western motorbike customers for season 2021. We could count on one hand how many western customers were served since January 2020.

in June Zorro Moto closed its doors for four weeks. In this time the company was moved as well as the new place established. A complete new work shop was built from the ground. Customers were begging and at re-opening day at least 10 walk in customers kept the staff busy.

July / August were marked with a lot of consolidation work at the facility and structure. A new accountant joined Zorro Moto. Continious high demands with scooter rentals peaked and we hired an extra mechanic temporarily. Also a sales man helped us trough the summer. It was at this time in August the business board with its policy was formed. 23. August 2021 Zorro Moto got re-registered at the ministry of Justice in Bishkek with two share holders.

Jake was handed over the Directors operations at the beginning of September. Dave moved with his family back to Switzerland by the end of September.

October / November the work shop equipped with insolated walls and heating. The shop was equiped with a sales barcoding system.

Zorro Moto managed critical key factors well. In 2021 several transitions took place:

- Leadership Director change from Dave to Jake - Business moved to new facility at Lenin Street 126

- team transition & growth

- market adaption with ongoing tourism flat rate

- accounting revision & financial survival with minimal crowd funding

We are thankfull for our team and the business oportunity in Osh. 13. January 2022 Dave & Jake

2022 was the first full season for Jake as the Director of Zorro Moto, and was the first year to have many tourists after the Pandemic. We are blessed with a good team, Dastan has been the mechanic with Zorro Moto from the beginning and is still doing a great Job and we are thankful for him. Asel as the accountant has been a great addition we are thankful for all she does for the company as well.

We had a couple office managers in 2022 and are thankful for both of them but they were not the long term solution for the company, so we are still looking for one more team member to complete the team in 2023.

The scooter rental market is continuing to grow as well. The market for Scooters in Osh was almost non existent when Zorro Moto started but the market for them has continued to grow. More local people are renting and buying scooters now, but we need to continue to grow the market here for the development of the company.

This was the first year since the pandemic that we had many tourists, and it was needed for the company to survive. Unfortunately with continued border closures business still was not quite back to pre-pandemic levels. One major part of our business is tire sales to travelers, and some were able to make it from Europe to Central Asia in 2022 and it was not easy for any of them. With the war in Russia and Ukraine and with Azerbaijan and Armenia it was hard to find a route from Europe to Central Asia. But some were able to do so and we were happy to be able to service their bikes for them on the way.

The Pamir region in Tajikistan is also one of the places many of our clients want to go but with the border closed between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan it was not easy to get there. One of the most frequent questions I received was about this border and unfortunately I was never able to give any good news about it in 2022. But despite this problem we still had some bike rentals in 2022. And we had the opportunity to work with RoadBook Magazine, they came to ride and have a feature on Kyrgyzstan in their magazine. They are a good group of people and we are happy that we had the opportunity to work with them.

It is a privilege to build this business and help to create a future in Kyrgyzstan.

Jake Swanson, Osh 8. February 2023

The 2023 season started off well. After a good 2022 we were ready to see what 2023 would be like and the season had ups and downs but was overall a good season for us. It started off well with scooter rentals which usually started before our main season. And we also added car rental in 2023 and we had a few rentals to start the year.

In May 2023 we had a motorbike tour, this was the start of the season for us and it was a really good trip. We really enjoyed the clients and they had a great time riding as well. It was also a great opportunity for me (Jake) to go on the tour with a young local guy named Maksat so that he could gain some experience with me on a tour. It was great to work with him and he did a really good job as the driver and helped with all of the mechanic work that needed to be done while we were on the tour.

Unfortunately our office manager had an accident in June and wasn't able to continue working with us and so Maksat began working with us and is now working to be our new manager. Also during the 2023 season we made the decision that we will no longer work with small scooters. Because so many young people wanted to come and ride them we often had problems with them and accidents and so unfortunately there were too many issues renting out the small cc scooters and we do not plan to continue renting them in the 2024 season.

The tire sales were also back in 2023 with many more riders coming on the silk road in 2023. The border with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan also opened for tourists in July 2023 which we are very excited about for motorbike travelers.