History – the founder’s story

The idea

It all started in 2006, when I was 18 and about to get my driving licence. I read the theory book and wrote my own summary in a notebook. I had been building websites for some time already, and once I had the licence in hand I started wondering whether a driving licence website might be worth starting.

Back then a fair number of domain names were still available. “korkortonline.se” was one of them, and on 2 January 2007 I registered it.

Körkortonline.se became the first fully web-based driving theory service in Sweden. Others in the industry had been online earlier, but they were selling theory on CDs.

The site grew quickly in popularity. One important reason was the language. The authorities wrote “kunskapsprov” and “körprov” – the formal terms for the theory test and the driving test. I wrote “teoriprov” and “uppkörning”, the words people actually use. That made the site rank highly in search engines, because those were the words people searched for.

How the explanations came about

As the site grew, so did the number of support messages. Many of them said the same thing: “I don’t understand the question, please explain.”

All those answers eventually left me with a long document full of explanations to the questions. Why not put an explanation underneath every question, reduce the number of support messages and improve the experience at the same time? Obvious today, but it took me a long time to think of it.

Working with driving schools

More and more enquiries started coming in from driving schools. They had heard from their students that the material was good. A multi-user solution for driving schools became the next step.

Keeping the focus has always felt important, though. Helping students with the driving theory has been the goal since day one – not becoming an internal administration tool for driving schools.

Mistakes and the future

In 2023 it was time for something new: a printed version of the driving theory. Printing and distributing a book turned out to be an entirely different business from running a website. It is both more expensive and less interesting. The printed version was discontinued in 2025.

Körkortonline.se actually had iOS and Android apps as early as 2010. The code became too complex, however, and keeping the apps in sync with the website was difficult. So the apps were discontinued. Through the app boom that followed, this looked more and more like a mistake.

But with the app fatigue of recent years and the arrival of AI, it looks like the web is coming back. Körkortonline.se is ready for the future.

Martin Hagberg
Founder and CEO