Startup Campus founding partner Marie Mostad on making continuous learning a habit
As a co-founder of Inzpire.me, Marie Mostad is working to help the next thing (or person) that’ll influence you, succeed in their quest.
Tell me a little bit about yourself — who are you and what are you doing in the startup world?
I am co-founder of Inzpire.me. Before that, I was creative director for the Boston startup Rest Devices. Otherwise in the startup world — besides being very passionate about making Inzpire.me succeed — I am also very interested in seeing the Norwegian startup ecosystem succeed. I have tried (with the time I have) to contribute in general. I have been a mentor at Katapult, I am a founding partner at Startup Campus, and I am an investor at the micro fund Unconventional Ventures. At Unconventional Ventures I help invest in “out of the ordinary” startups that need funding.
I traveled to Boston in 2013, and then there was very little activity around startups in Norway. I came back to Norway in 2016 to start Inzpire.me, and arrived to a landscape that was completely changed from what I left behind three years earlier. Places such as OHOI (now: Startup Campus) and MESH had arrived to the scene, along with several angel investors, and a wave of startups. I wanted to come back with what I had learned from Boston about a very well-developed startup ecosystem and startups in general, so I was very excited to contribute towards Norwegian startups.
Why did you decide to be a founding partner of Startup Campus?
There are many reasons to why I wanted to be a founding partner at Startup Campus. It’s very nice to look back at our history together: I got to do the very first Inzpire.me pitch at the OHOI house in 2016, when we were among the finalists for 100 Pitches. This gave us our first yes from an investor — Thomas Falck: He has contributed a lot to our journey, and is currently chairman of the board. So pitching at OHOI was a bit of a pivotal moment for us, and since then I have followed the whole Startup Norway community closely, been to Startup Extreme, been a speaker at Angel Challenge and OHOI… I think the niche Startup Campus is building is very close to my own values, which is that we must contribute to a greater culture for sharing of experiences, learning across companies, and making sure these are values we carry with when making the Norwegian ecosystem successful.
I also believe it is with the Startup Campus as it is with all other ideas: Having a good idea just isn’t sufficient on its own, as you also need to have a good team — and there is an incredible number of good people in Startup Norway.
If you can share some advice for how Startup Campus can succeed in the best possible way — what would that be?
I think in many ways the Startup Campus has many correct ideas for how to succeed, by for example being something more than a coworking space. After all, at Inzpire.me we have been sitting by ourselves for two years — and then we decided on moving to an environment. Now we get to see how many synergies you get by being part of an environment, and in Norway we are good at such facilitating for such meeting places. And so, careful consideration is necessary when you want to establish something on top of that — something that takes it even further. Access to capital and talent is a critical aspect for many companies, but Norway is also a tiny country. So if you can help facilitate networking for companies abroad, then that will of course give them great value.
Startup Campus is set to become a meeting point and arena for learning for entrepreneurs, investors and everyone else at different stages. What do you want to learn more about — and who do you hope to meet here?
I began my startup journey in Boston with Rest Devices. I wanted to do a good job by contributing to the success of the company, but also to learn lots of things I could bring back to Norway. My philosophy is that you are never done learning, so there is always knowledge and skills that would be useful to you. You can also learn a lot from the new founders, as you don’t have to be an experienced investor or experienced entrepreneur to know valuable things about the ecosystem and the drive to start new companies. I have no particular goal by involving myself with Startup Campus, but I hope to have some time to get involved in various activities, meet entrepreneurs and investors, and see if there are any interesting synergies going on.
But I do wish to learn about funding: I have now only worked with funding from the entrepreneurial side, so I wish to learn about it from the investor side as well. I already learn about this at Unconventional Ventures, but you know: You can never learn too much! So now this learning is also something I get to do at Startup Campus, and that’s great.
Kindness is generally underrated: But who has helped you in your career and what did they do for you?
For Inzpire.me I would have to say my cofounder Mats Lyngstad, who called me when I was working in Boston and asked if I wanted to co-found a company with him. But for the two of us as a team, I once again have to mention Thomas Falck. He was the first to say yes to investing in Inzpire.me — this was of course a big moment for us, and absolutely crucial. And getting the first ‘yes’ is very redeeming in a fundraising process: Thomas is very good at managing his different roles, so he can go in and out of them with ease. During the early phase of Inzpire.me, he would sit down with us to give us advice on how to make contracts that were startup friendly (rather than just investor friendly), while we were in a phase when we had no prior knowledge of these things at all.
