After 7 days of recording and a one year delay, I’m finally on TV!
Last spring in the midst of launching our first product, raising our Series A and managing a family with 3 young children, I agreed to spend 7 days with a camera crew for a 30 min feature on Swedish public service broadcaster SVT. But why?! Join me behind the scenes for some reflections.
After having founded Videoplaza in 2007 (and sold it in 2014 after having expanded it to roughly 100ppl in 7 offices across two continents) I co-founded Stockeld Dreamery in 2019 to make the world’s most ambitious cheese.
One thing I’ve learnt when trying to build something big is, you have to say no a lot, to allow you to focus on the 10x opportunities. So when Swedish public service broadcaster SVT approached and wanted to do a 30 min feature on my entrepreneurial journey (for a new TV show called ‘The Road to Success’ / “Vägen till framgång”), I hesitated; 6–7 full recording days is a big committment. What made me do this is that I wanted — and still want — to inspire others to become entrepreneurs, and build meaningful things that make a real difference in the world. Almost 18m later, it’s finally airing tonight at 22.40 on SVT 1 and available for streaming here.
Yesterday I found this in my notes when in discussions with SVT about participating and my motivation to put in the hours for this:
I’m not a superhuman. I’m just trying to get the different pieces of my life to work, and to manage my stress, like everybody else. I want to inspire others to be human. To make them understand that I’m busy too, that I too struggle to handle the daily grind, the work / life balance.
So what is it like to have a camera crew following you around all day long? It’s hard work — especially for them! I have a pretty hectic schedule — a regular day can involve meeting our branding agency, talking to investors, trying new cheese prototypes in our test kitchen, doing podcast interviews, joining our R&D team for a key meeting, visiting customers like restaurants and bakeries, and more — it’s intense! And the poor crew have to carry around heavy equipment, secure good angles and audio quality, and often chat with people before and after the main event, to get the full context.
The TV crew traveled with us to our production partner in south Sweden, seeing how the sausage, ehrm, cheese, is made. They joined for several visits to cafes and restaurants around Stockholm, and for meetings with everything from EU politicians to leaders of the Effective Altruism movement in Sweden. They joined my family as we woke up, had breakfast, and got the kids to school in the morning. They covered several pitch meetings we did when we were raising our Series A round. And so much more. We also shot a full day of interviews in my home, asking big questions where I desperately tried to give smart and thoughtful answers.
In total, we shot 6–7 full days, and it was all edited down to 30 minutes. The show is about my personal journey, my perspectives on entrepreneurship and what success actually is.
I hope this TV show will inspire more people everywhere to understand how entrepreneurship, as tough as it is, can also be fun and rewarding, and more importantly help inspire people to work on the most urgent and needed world problems to drive meaningful change. You can watch the episode online here (in Swedish). I hope you like it!
Feel free to drop me a comment with feedback, questions or just some ❤️
