Introducing ‘The Nordic Nine’
Insights from nine of the Nordics most experienced entrepreneurs.
The Concept
A ‘Julekalender’ (Christmas gift) from The Nordic Web.
9 of The Nordics most experienced entrepreneurs share their wisdom and thoughts on a new question put to them every day from the 1st to 24th of December, designed to educate and inspire The Nordics next generation of entrepreneurs.
Get ‘The Nordic Nine’s’ Wisdom and Insight in your Inbox.
The Participants
David Heinemeier Hansson is one of the Nordic’s greatest entrepreneurial exports, having created Ruby on Rails, the open-sourced web framework and founded Basecamp, the World’s #1 project management tool.
David Helgason is Co-Founder and Former CEO of Unity Technologies, creators of Unity3D, one of the World’s largest gaming engines.
Peter Arvai is the the Co-Founder and CEO of Prezi, the cloud based presentation platform. Prezi have recently announced a $57M growth round, as well as the fact they have just passed 50 million users.
Nikolaj Nyholm is a serial technology entrepreneur and investor. He has founded four technology startups (with three exits), is an advisor to Minecraft creator Mojang, and is now a partner at the early-stage venture capital investor, Sunstone Capital.
Hampus Jakobsson has invested in 25+ startups, and previously sold TAT to Blackberry for $150M. He is now working on Brisk.io, which provides a cleaner UI for users of salesforce.com.
Tine Thygesen is the Founder of Everplaces, the travel startup allowing you to find the best places to sleep, eat and play. Tine also co-founded Founders House, Denmark’s first co-working space. Tine was formerly CEO of 23, and previous to that founded and sold an e-commerce company.
Antti Vilponnen is the CEO of Upcloud, who claim the World’s fastest cloud hosting solution. Antti previously co-founded Arctic Startup, an online media focusing on Nordic and Baltic startups.
Nicolas Branas Michaelsen is Co-Founder of Airhelp, helping air passengers get compensation from airlines. They were recently part of Y Combinator where they raised a $1.2M seed round.
Bala Kamallakhara is the Founder of Startup Iceland, a initiative to build sustainable startup ecosystems in Iceland. Bala invested in and was the Chairman of the Board at CLARA, the first Icelandic Startup to be acquired into Silicon Valley.
The Questions
- How did you raise money for your startup?
- I have a great idea for a startup, what should I do next?
- What causes failure?
- How much equity should I give away to co-founders/early employees?
- Who has had the biggest influence on your life as an entrepreneur?
- How much should you pay yourself while bootstrapping?
- What’s the hardest thing you have had to do?
- How did you get your first customer?
- What tools do you use at your startup?
- How did your choose your pricing model?
- What has been your biggest mistake?
- How do you define MVP?
- How do you deal with work/life balance?
- What one piece of advice would you give to young entrepreneurs?
- How do you build a team?
- What is your daily routine?
- How do you set goals?
- How do you become an expert in your niche?
- How do you prioritise?
- How do you build a great company culture?
- How did you validate demand for your startup idea?
- What is the most valuable lesson you have learnt building your startup?
- How do you find a co-founder?
- How did you launch your startup?
