This is a personal blog and will reflect the work I do as an entrepreneur, community leader, angel investor, mentor, entrepreneurial activist and advisor.
My focus now
Rigth now I am busy taking our initiatives Gründerklubben – The Norwegian Entrepreneurs Club and Bangkok Entrepreneurs to the next level. The plan is to grow our network of 180 000+ entrepreneurs and investors considerably in the next years.
I have invested in a few startups, and right now I am advising and helping to grow selected startups, through my program Startup Booster and as a mentor or consultant.
I am also mentoring at a pre-seed accelerator, the Founder Institute. I think this three-month startup launch program could really help many in my network to speed up their business. You can learn more here.
If I was born in 762 and not in 1962 I for sure would have been a Viking, but would have preferred to go to the east for ventures, and not taken part in the abbey’s destruction on the island of Lindisfarne and more violent stuff our ancestors was doing.
But I can not be a hundred percent sure about this because we are all children of our time and influenced by trends, the current trade, parents and our leaders.
My first entrepreneurial experience was when my father and I found a small field of chives, which I bundled with a pipe cleaner and sold it in the neighborhood of my little hometown Øksfjord for 1 NOK with tremendous profit until the source snowed down. I was ten years-old then 🙂
Consider myself as a “self-made man” and an entrepreneur at heart.
A list of some startups and projects I have founded/co-founded;
- Agaton – Rockband (1983)
- Loppakroa – Local pub in Øksfjord (1987)
- Bioscan Project – Large Renewable energy project (1993 – 1995)
- Norbio Energy AS – Renewable energy project sold to Statoil (1995)
- Global Direct Europe AS – Early version of LinkedIn (1998)
- First Tuesday Trondheim (1999)
- Roomaccess Ltd/Ziteco AS – Hospitality in-room system (2002 – 2005)
- Seed Forum – Investor Matchmaking (2003 – 2008)
- 24Seven Office
- Sonitor
- Fundraising coaching and mentoring of over 100 startups
- The Entrepreneurs House – Gründernes Hus AS – Co-working space (2011 – 2014)
- Current projects;
- Berg Moe Media ENK
- Gründerklubben
- Gründervekst
- FirmaAnbud.no
- Ramaas Bolig
My background
I grow up in Finnmark far up north of the Arctic circle, and this has colored my personality and attitude. People have lived in Finnmark for over 10,000 years, and there are many traces of settlements and cemeteries of yesteryear.
In Alta, we have the World Heritage Rock Art and petroglyphs are over 6,000 years old. WWII left black marks in Finnmark. The Allies bombed vast areas of the buildings in Kirkenes, Vadsø, and Vardø. When the German forces withdrew from the fall of 1944, they applied the “Scorched Earth”. Over 10,000 houses, schools, hospitals, and churches burned down.
Also, much of the fishing fleet. About two-thirds of the population fled southwards, and also, my grandmother Thea, my mother Borgunn, and uncle Per and Hans climbed into a small fishing boat at having to leave South. They were refugees in their country.
When they went back in May 1945, to a burned down village, and they had to build it all up from scratch. I think my family history has given me the “never give up” and “come back kid” attitude.
We moved from Øksfjord in 1992 and had lived most of my life after that in Trøndelag and left for Oslo in 2000, where I grow, prosper and had a pleasant life.
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