Our Story

 

When João was 16, he suffered a huge accident caused by a drunk driver. He tripped, fell on the street and was run over by a car. The driver had the option to stop, but he didn’t. João ended up spending two months in hospital and it took him more than a year and a half to walk normally again.

 

However, the most important issue for him is not what he went through, since he is more or less fine again, but how to avoid similar situations! His experience led him to think again and again about how one could change the bad habit of drunk-driving that many people exhibit.

 

We do know that people will always go to parties in their own cars, promising themselves not to drink, and will end up spontaneously having some beers with friends… This is fine since those are the moments that create memories. But we need to prevent those people from driving home by themselves when they are drunk.

 

The experience eventually led João to come up with the idea for PickUsUp. In the context of our Lean Entrepreneurship course at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, he presented the idea and the rest of the current team was immediately amazed.

Now we are working on realizing the idea in Lisbon!