I started my first company at the age of 15, selling printed t-shirts to graduate students, and from that moment I became completely encapsulated by the idea of business as an engine of creation. Ever since then I´ve been pursuing the dream of creating something that I can be proud of, a business that not only makes a change for myself, but for others.
Yes, I know it sound pretentious to connect your personal goals to some kind of higher achievement for mankind, but in my mind this is what defines an entrepreneur from a businessman – or woman. If you´re just in it for the money, there are far simpler routes to success than the way of the entrepreneur. I have friends that chose the path of finance and made more money in their first year of their career than I´ve made in 27 years of struggling for my entrepreneurial dream to come true. It´s not that moneymaking is unimportant, only a fool would argue that money doesn’t matter in a material world, it´s just that the money is not the end game for an entrepreneur.
Defined by the objective
The end game of an entrepreneur is the successful creation of something that matters to others – the end game of a businessman is the successful creation of something that matters to himself. For an entrepreneur, the money generated along the way is only one of many measurements of success – important but not decisive.
Finding your calling
In the pursuit of my dream I´ve blazed more trails than most – from running an advertising agency, a pizza shop, a publishing business and a radio station, just to name a few. In one aspect I wish I would have been more like Ingvar Kamprad (of course, who wouldn’t?), who found his calling early on and started IKEA at the age of 16 but as it turns out my story resembles the one of Ray Croc, who after many years of different initiatives without any major breakthrough never gave up on his dream of creating something really successful. He was 52 years old when met with the McDonalds brothers and from that point came to co-create the world´s most successful fast food business. Obviously, I would be lying if I said my story resembled Croc´s in terms of success, but in terms of finding your calling late in life it certainly does.
Today I am part of a company that in my view checks all the boxes required to create a business that has the potential to make a change for others. Freja eID is a mobile electronic identity that gives users the control of logins, payments, consent, signatures and other things that matter as we move our lives from the physical to the digital world. It is still early days, we launched the product three years ago, but we have managed to create a significant stronghold in Sweden as a first step, before scaling the business internationally.
The next big thing?
If you run a tech business out of Stockholm it´s impossible to not being inspired by unicorns like Spotify, Mojang/Minecraft, iZettle, King and Klarna. Every startup in town pitches themselves as “the next (choose your favorite success story)” and obviously that is what every investor is looking for. So, the obvious question is then, if Freja eID is the next unicorn coming out of the Stockholm tech scene? Well, I´ve personally gone all in on the bet that we will become successful and the odds are favorable; at least for our business concept.
In Sweden there is more than four billion eID transactions done annually and its impossible to get through an ordinary day without using your eID. In most other countries eID is not even a novel concept, it´s still unknown. So, my bet is that the five billion internet users of the world will not settle with the hassle of passwords and the constant risk of ID-fraud, and at some point choose the convenient path of using a mobile eID instead. The only question is if Freja eID will be one of the major players in this game or not. The phenomenal team I´m working with and the advantage our product currently gives us, certainly makes it possible that Freja eID may come to change the life of millions. That would certainly be something to be proud of.
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