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ENTREPRENEURS IN DENMARK

START-UP

Meetup for startups

In the latest instalment of our weekly feature series, we speak to Anders Hasselstrøm of Copenhagen-based Startuptravels.

Published: 28 January 2015 21:44 CET
Startuptravels is a new platform that allows you to connect with local entrepreneurs and professionals while traveling. You can find a place to stay, a desk to work at or even meet over coffee.
 

How did you come up with this business idea?
 

 
I travel around the world quite a lot, especially to the UK to meet my girlfriend, and I realised it was quite a challenge to find local entrepreneurs and build a network across different cities. I was often forced to search the internet or scour local directories to meet with locals when visiting a new city.
 
Once, after returning to Denmark, I decided to discuss with some Danish entrepreneurs if a business could be built around entrepreneurs looking to connect and network with their global counterparts. We found out that there were many more people facing similar challenges. That's how Startuptravels was born. We had our landing page ready last July. Soon, a lot of people signed up. Co-founder Rasmus Frandsen and I then approached Henrik Haugbølle to come on board as the CTO.
 
What were the initial challenges? How did you overcome them?
 
The initial idea was to have this as a 'couchsurfing' platform for entrepreneurs. After finishing our customer discovery with more than 250 entrepreneurs globally, we changed the concept to a 'Meetup' sort of platform instead. Entrepreneurs are very busy and would rather spend little, but quality, time to mentor or learn and help other founders facing similar business challenges. This was a big challenge as it changed our basic business idea. Then, getting enough traction to get our CTO on board was another challenge.
 
How has the journey been so far?
 
Overall, it has been a great journey and the idea has been appreciated by a lot of people. I have met some incredible people. So far, more than 10,000 founders as well as startup enthusiasts have signed up since the landing page was up. We now have members in over 120 countries and more than 400 meetups have happened so far, globally. Ups and downs are all part of business but it's all about having a good time and we have had several great experiences.
 
How has becoming an entrepreneur changed you, personally?
 
I have had my share of challenges. Entrepreneurs learn to deal with a lot of uncertainty. Being an early entrepreneur, one of the main things I have learnt is to be able to navigate uncertainty. At the same time, freedom to choose what I do is the most important aspect of becoming a founder and I enjoy that.
 
Any other personal reflections and/ or message to budding entrepreneurs?
 
One of the most important advice I would give others like me is to love what you do and start your company with enthusiasm. And for that, it's important to find a project or challenge you are passionate about completing or solving. Also, choose your team wisely as you are going to spend at least 50 hours a week with them.
 
 

Sparsh SharmaSparsh Sharma holds a Master's in business administration and a Bachelor's in electrical engineering. After having worked in top Indian media companies, he came to Denmark in the fall of 2012 to study at Aarhus University and later worked at Lego. A Danish green card holder, he is currently looking for marketing or consulting opportunities globally, while working as a freelance journalist for The Local Denmark and blogging about his experiences in Denmark. You can follow him on Twitter at @sparsh_s.

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MALMÖ

Is Malmö’s pogo stick e-mobility startup for real?

Cangaroo, the Malmö-based startup offering to hire pogo sticks through an app won viral coverage. But is it for real? The Local tracked down Adam Mikkelsen, founder of ODD Company, the "super-creative PR company" behind it, to find out.

Published: 26 June 2019 16:17 CEST
Is Malmö's pogo stick e-mobility startup for real?
Adam Mikkelsen (centre) with the rest of the Cangaroo team. Photo: ODD Company
The Malmö company's innovative addition to the last mile e-mobility sector has been covered by the The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Huffpost, CNN, and our sister site The Local France, although from the start sceptical voices were raised. 
 
At the height of its viral coverage in May, the company put out a public statement insisting that the company was not a PR stunt.  
 
“With a lot of initial questions along the line of 'is this for real?', we feel the need to underline that Cangaroo is 100% real,” it said in a statement.  
 
But when The Local spoke to him, Mikkelsen admitted that the initial idea had been to make a stir and get a point across. 
 
“It definitely started as some statement, I wouldn't say against, but in the micro mobility movement,” he said. “And a lot of things we do tend to divide the crowd, with 50 percent saying 'is this real?' and the other half wanting to try them out.” 
 
He said that articles talking about the company dumping tens of thousands pogo sticks in cities across the world as e-scooter companies like Lime and Voi have done, are “delusional”. 
 
“With the Cangaroo, I would definitely see it as a success even if we only managed to put out ten pogo sticks in two cities and then we're out of money,” he admitted. 
 
“But we're not about making a statement by just making something up and not doing it, because then we might as well announce that we're doing flying cars or whatever.” 
 
Adam Mikkelsen (right) with a prototype Cangaroo. Photo: ODD company
 
If the handful of pogo sticks the company hopes to release in Malmö in August are well received (and that is quite a big 'if'), Mikkelsen claimed he and the PR bureau aim to stick with the company. 
 
“If everything is running smoothly and the demand and feedback is great, then we would absolutely continue to scale and expand like any startup would do,” he said. 
 
The company, like its 2017 'Pause Pod' relaxation tent, have been developed by the company's ODD lab, which it uses for experimental projects that are not for real clients. 
 
The Pause Pod relaxation tent the company released in 2017 raised 960,244 Swedish kronor on Kickstarter and then sold about 2,500 tents before ODD wound the company up. But it got massive media coverage. 
 
In the past the company has created similar viral 'product ideas' for commercial clients, such as the Somersby grass slippers for Carlsberg, or the Hug Trench for the fashion brand Monki. 
 
 
Mikkelsen said that even though both the Pause Pod and Cangaroo were part of the company's ODD Lab, and not for any particular client, the company aimed to use the buzz around Cangaroo to raise the profile of gay, lesbian and transgender charities. 
 
“We are currently in talks with different Pride festivals, so we aims to use the product in the public space to allow people to take stand on something,” he said. “During Pride week our ambition is that if you jump on a pogo stick, you jump for free love.” 
 
“So we're not going to use it as a campaign for a commercial company,” he concluded. “But if you look at charity organizations, they sometimes struggle to get their message out.”
 
So it it for real? It depends what 'real' means. 
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