Markus started Bolt at the young age of 19. He is from Estonia which is a country that has seen significant growth in the decades after it left the Soviet Union. Villig was frustrated by the local taxi services in the area and came up with the idea to use an app instead to make rides easier and cheaper. He was inspired by the recent blossoming of the Estonian tech scene with the popularity of Skype. He worked developing the original product in Tallin and personally would get into taxis just to pitch the driver to sign up. When he was not building Bolt he was advertising it. As the company grew he found trouble gaining investment for expansion as it was assumed that Uber would destroy any European competition, yet Bolt purebred by focusing on areas neglected by Uber like Eastern Europe and Africa. Bolt outperformed in this areas as the worked harder or adapted the services to the area for example in many parts of Africa the majority of paid taxi rides are on bikes which Uber does not allow so Bolt is more popular. The company hopes to continue to expand in areas overlooked or misunderstood by its competition and want to provide on demand car rentals in Europe to encourage Europeans to not buy cars.