Mats is the reason I came to Stockholm. We met randomly in his guitar shop in Södermalm where I happened to walk in during my first 3 days trip there.
Chitchating about his business we ended up saying goodbye and promising each other to keep in touch to discuss his web-shop problems and ambitions a bit further. And as I was back in France, we did and after a few emails we figured we’d like to work together so I bought a one way ticket to Stockholm.
He lives a lifestyle that inspires me on many levels. He owns his guitar company, lives in a cosy Stockholm suburb on a hill with a view on the sea where he can go and sail his 1 century old wooden boat 10 mins walks from his place. Living the dream. His dream.
Mats is a guitar and boat enthusiast that owns just what he needs to make him happy and he’s owned them for longer than I lived. That’s a hell of a lot of years that he’s been happy, I’ll tell you that.
It’s not so much that I want the same things as him but through his simple wisdom, he taught me that if you know what you like, you can end up with the great equation : What I want = What I need = What I have. So in the end you don’t own much, but you own everything at the same time.
Thanks to him I have:
- Re-thought the website and his guitar brand to create thetoolguitars.com
- Met Rodolphe (through the almighty Sophie of course) to do a great photo-shoot
- Promoted the Guitar People’s Prize
- Met incredible guitar players
- Took guitar lessons against Mailchimp/Shopify lessons (both of us still have a lot of work on these…)
If you want to explore a bit more:
- TheToolguitars.com — Mat’s Guitar Brand
- Guitarpeople.se — Mats services around guitars
- Guitarpeoplesprize.com — An event dedicated to guitar players
Cyrille.
