Ian Balen and Roko Gligora are two engineering students from Rijeka who turned a simple observation — that most people do not carry sports equipment — into Unlokie, a smart locker network that lets anyone rent a ball at a public court in under twenty seconds.
Founded in November 2025, the startup completed BIRD Incubator’s six-month program in April 2026 and pitched at Demo Day as alumni already operating in the field, with three Unlokie smart lockers installed and running across the Rijeka area.
Who are you, what’s the name and age of your startup, and what problem are you solving?
We’re Ian Balen and Roko Gligora, fifth-year students at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, both originally from Rijeka.
Our startup is called Unlokie, and we formally founded the company in November 2025, although the idea had been alive since the spring of that year.
The problem we’re solving is simple. Public sports courts exist everywhere, but the last step that actually gets people playing is usually missing. Most people don’t walk around carrying a basketball, football, or other sports equipment. We wanted anyone to be able to walk up to a court, rent a ball in under twenty seconds, and start playing. That’s it.
How did you first connect with BIRD Incubator, and what made you decide to join the program?
We first heard about BIRD through social media, and then a friend of ours mentioned we should apply. We applied together as Unlokie, went through the standard application process, and then had a video call with a pitch and an interview.
What pulled us toward BIRD specifically was the breadth of mentors they had on board. We knew that, as two engineers without a business background, we were going to run into questions in areas we simply didn’t know — business modeling, sales to public institutions, regulation, fundraising.
BIRD’s network meant that whatever question we had, there was someone we could actually ask. That mattered more to us than anything else.
Every startup faces challenges — what’s been your toughest obstacle so far, and how did you overcome it?
Hands down, the hardest part has been the early conversations with local governments. We’re offering something completely new on the Croatian market, and municipalities are naturally cautious about innovations that haven’t been proven elsewhere yet. There’s no comparable case study to point to.
We had to keep showing up, refining how we explained the value, and answering the same skeptical questions over and over until we got the first “yes” from the City of Rijeka.
The second layer is that both of us come from a purely technical background. Writing a business plan and talking about unit economics — none of that was natural for us at first.
BIRD’s mentorship is where we closed that gap. Once we got the first city to say yes, the conversations with the next ones got noticeably easier.
What’s one resource, connection, or experience at BIRD Incubator that truly made a difference in your startup’s growth?
Our work with Ivan Bračić was the single thing that made the biggest difference. We had a lot of open questions and uncertainty around the business plan and execution, and through multiple calls he kept guiding us and giving us concrete advice.
Having someone experienced who would sit down, look at our specific situation, and tell us where we were wrong — that’s the kind of thing you can’t get from reading articles or watching YouTube.
Investors and partners are often curious — what makes your business model stand out, and who are your target customers?
Our primary customers are cities and municipalities. They have existing public sports infrastructure that’s underused, and we give them a way to dramatically increase usage without building anything new.
Beyond cities, we’re also expanding toward hotels, resorts, and campsites. Anywhere guests show up wanting to be active but don’t have the equipment with them, or where the rental is far away. The use case is identical: people, a space to play, and a missing last step.
The model has two revenue streams. Cities pay a fixed fee for the installation and ongoing operation of the lockers. On top of that, we have a revenue-sharing arrangement with each city on the per-rental income from end users.
End users currently pay €0.65 for two hours in Rijeka and €0.99 on Platak, which is less than a cup of coffee.
What makes it stand out is that nobody carries the full cost. The city benefits from higher court usage and a more active community. Users get instant access at a price low enough to be a non-decision. We operate the network and grow it.
You’ve recently reached an exciting milestone by setting up two Unlokie smart lockers. What did the preparation process look like behind the scenes?
The preparation took months and looked nothing like the smooth product you see today.
We started with a wooden prototype just to get a feel for the dimensions and physical layout. Through our partner company Alpron, we went through many design iterations before landing on the final version. By late December, we had our first prototype.
Then came the actual installation in Rijeka. Picking the exact spots on Kampus with the City and Rijeka Sport, mounting everything, testing, connecting.
The most surreal part was launch day. The lockers and the app worked fine, but our server went down within hours. We physically jumped in to help users who were mid-rental at that moment — making sure nobody was stuck or frustrated.
We fixed the underlying issue quickly, but what stuck with us is how much fun the day still was despite that. Kids ran up to the lockers. Adults stopped and read the instructions. Pretty much everyone who walked by paused to look at this new green thing on their court.
Since the first installation in Rijeka, we’ve also set up lockers on Platak and in Kraljevica, so the network is already growing.
Let’s talk about the future — where do you see your startup in five years, and what are some upcoming plans you have?
Five years out, we want Unlokie to be in cities across Croatia and the wider region. What bike sharing and e-scooter sharing became for transport, we want to be for casual sport.
The lockers are modular by design, so they won’t just hold balls. Rackets for padel, badminton, and table tennis. Nordic walking poles in parks. Frisbees on beaches. Resistance bands for outdoor training.
Anything people want to use in a public space, available in just a few taps.
Right now our network is centered around Rijeka, but our conversations are already going much further than that. The next year or two will be about proving the model scales beyond a single region.
To wrap up, what’s one piece of advice or wisdom from your journey that you believe every founder should know?
Just start. That’s it.
When we first sat down with the idea, the list of unknowns was enormous. How would we manufacture this? Who would pay for it? How does any of this work legally? It felt impossible to begin until we’d answered everything.
The truth is you never will.
Once you actually start moving, things begin to crystallize piece by piece. You solve one problem, the next one becomes clearer, and the path forward stops feeling like a wall and starts feeling like a series of small steps.
Most founders we’ve met didn’t have more answers than us at the start. They just decided to begin and kept showing up.
If you’re sitting on an idea, wondering whether you have enough time or enough clarity — you don’t. Nobody does. Start anyway, and put in the work.
Follow Unlokie’s journey here.
