Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

Fearless Fridays: Starting with the start-ups at #Seedcamp and #StingDay14

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Yesterday, I spent a full day immersed in the #sthlmtech start-up scene.

In the morning, Mini Seedcamp Stockholm involved a panel Q&A with investors, themselves experienced entrepreneurs, talking about the talent, culture, and low-risk welfare state contributing to making Stockholm one of the big start-up centres of Europe, after Berlin and London. We also heard pitches from eight up-and-coming start-ups in the region, with ideas ranging from teaching programming to children to creating an online fitting room to help the customer choose the right fit and style and the retailer to have less returns. In the afternoon, Sting Day 2014 brought even more entrepreneurs together with even more investors.

It’s incredibly inspiring to be exposed to so many creative business ideas coming from young (yes, I feel quite old, but wise too) and energetic entrepreneurs. These “co-founders and CEOs” – because that’s what you can call yourself when you’re launching a start-up, how cool is that? – all believe that their idea is the longed-for solution to a big problem in the marketplace.

In fact, as voiced by one of the experts in the morning Seedcamp session, when I asked about the biggest challenge start-ups are facing today, this confidence can be a problem. If you’re too in love with your idea, with your product, then you won’t be open to feedback and advice. You have to be willing to learn and adapt in order to be successful with investors and, ultimately, with consumers.

That said, self-belief could also be the force that drives you to succeed.

In the first keynote at #StingDay14, the founding CEO of mobile payment solution iZettle, Jacob de Geer, boldly stated that being told that your idea is impossible can actually be a signal to proceed, an opportunity that you have to grab with both hands:

“Nothing is impossible. The impossible just takes a bit longer.”

The harder it is, the higher the barriers of entry will be for your would-be competitors:

“The sum of all the problems you solve is the value of your company.”

Comforting words for those of you struggling in the early days of your business!

This sentiment was echoed in the second keynote by CEO and founder of two-factor authentication solution Yubico, Stina Ehrensvärd, who modestly proclaimed that she had succeeded despite lacking the usual business credentials, as a trained designer and a mother of three:

“I had one thing: I was fearless enough to try.”

Another motivating remark came from Harry Briggs, a venture capital investor at Balderton. Rather than focusing on the product, on the financials, and all the details of the project, you should convince the investor that you are someone they would want to work with. What’s your vision? Where is the world heading? What are the big trends that you’re tapping into? Who is the team that will make it happen?

“Sell us the dream!”

Throughout the day, we were also able to browse the company showcase. Particularly interesting for me were Tailify with its transparent and effective approach to leveraging influencers to reach customers with relevant brand messages, and Relation Desk that provides an alternative to Hootsuite that really allows you to manage your conversations and follow-ups with customers (and, indeed, the CEO Fritjof Andersson won the vote for the best pitch in the afternoon session).

The last session of the day was the most entertaining: a “reverse pitch” where four different types of investors had the tables turned on them as they were asked to convince a panel of entrepreneurs why they should choose this particular investor. The experienced entrepreneurs were ruthless in repeating comments and challenges that they themselves have heard over years of pitching investors. The winner, and the one I voted for, was passionate angel investor Erik Byrenius, though I have to say that they were all pretty convincing in representing why private investment, venture capital or corporate venture capital is the way to go, respectively.

A final chat with the start-ups during a cocktail and buffet dinner, and the day was ended, leaving me freshly inspired in my mentor role to support these start-ups as they grow and develop, and not a little inspired to start my own company! The only thing I’m missing is a business idea…

Out of your comfort zone

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Today we joined millions of other people in visiting Thorpe Park, a theme park in Surrey, on a beautifully sunny Good Friday.

It’s fun to scream, to be a little scared, to set your heart racing.

Of course this kind of screaming, this kind of fear, is completely artificial and controlled: it’s all within certain pre-defined boundaries, the rides designed to push you just enough to feel exhilarated but not so much that you actually fear for your life.

Children love that feeling of danger, of excitement. As adults, though, we tend to mellow out. We like to feel in control, to stick with what we know, to stay in our comfort zone.

As we grow older and settle into a particular way of life, that comfort zone shrinks. We work in the same company for ten years and start to think that we can’t do anything else. We stay at home with the children and worry that we won’t be taken seriously when we go back into the workforce. We think it’s too late to learn a new skill, a new language, to do something completely different.

But we need to keep trying new things, to keep pushing the boundaries, to grow our comfort zone instead of shrinking it. That’s how we learn, how we stay interested, and interesting.

So go and try capoeira for the first time, buy an introductory course to Japanese, book that flight to a country you’ve never visited, go on a blind date, sit in a bar by yourself without playing with your phone, sign up for your first 10k.

A little bit of danger, a little bit of fear, is no bad thing.

View across Thorpe Park, Chertsey, Surrey
For those of you who know Thorpe Park: no, Storm Surge is not the scariest ride, but you try taking a photo when you’re hanging upside down at the top of Stealth…

(Wo)man’s search for meaning

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It’s Valentine’s Day! This February, romance has become even more of an irrelevancy to me than it was in 2013 so I’ll refer you to last year’s Valentine’s post with the remarks that the only things that have changed are that I’m a year older, I now have a gorgeous niece as well as a gorgeous nephew, and I do have a bit more time for dates should the opportunity arise.

Love, though, is an important part of every life, romance or no. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” Love for your family, love for your fellow (wo)man, love of a pet, of nature, of life itself; and, yes, love for a partner.

The natural corollary of this kind of love is having children. This is, or at least has been, a necessary means of survival for humankind. In that sense, it is the fundamental meaning of life. I could never quite get my head around this, though: is the meaning of life really to be born, have children, and die, only so that those children can be born, have children, and die? It seems like cyclical reasoning that lacks meaning in and of itself. And, anyway, if having children were the ultimate meaning of life, what of those who can’t have children? Are they condemned to live an empty life devoid of any meaning?

Of course, having children is not just about perpetuating the human race. There are what one journalist in The Guardian calls “the traditional caveman reasons – carrying on your name, thinking about who will look after you in the future”. There is the incredibly romantic act of producing something that is half you, half the person that you love. There’s the fact that they’re just so darn cute. And there’s the fundamental desire to create something that will live on after you’re gone, a little drop of  immortality in your children’s genes, in their memories.

That desire to create something, to leave a lasting legacy, can take many forms. Such creativity is particularly found in the arts: paintings will remain on display long after the artist is dead and buried, symphonies will be listened to, plays enjoyed, books read. In a way, though, we’re creating a legacy with every action, every interaction. Not to mention our whole social media persona (although the sheer volume of information that is out there makes it all the more difficult to stand up and be counted).

There is an interesting Ted Talk on “The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death”, stories of avoiding death by achieving immortality in some form. Leaving a legacy, an echo in the world – whether by the pursuit of fame, or having children, or as part of a nation or a tribe – is one of these four stories.

So why are we so concerned about tomorrow? Is meaning to be found only in the future? What about that most fashionable of maxims that we must live for today, live in the moment?

There is that quote, now and then doing the rounds on Facebook, that may or may not be correctly attributed to John Lennon:

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

In a recent article in which The Shrink and The Sage tried to answer, Is it better to focus on today or tomorrow?, a study was quoted with the conclusion that “Happiness is about the present; meaning is about the future, or, more precisely, about linking past, present and future.” While worrying about the future is unproductive, as is dwelling on the past, a degree of reflection on the past and planning for the future is essential for making the most of the time that we have.

The importance of meaning, and not ‘just’ happiness, is the central tenet of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Based on his own experiences of Nazi concentration camps, he concludes that the strength to survive comes from having hope, having something to live for, quoting Neitzsche: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How”. According to Frankl, such a “How”, such a meaning, can be found in different ways: (1) by creating a work, i.e. by achievement and accomplishment; (2) by experiencing something – goodness, truth, beauty, nature, culture – or someone, that is, by loving another human being; and (3) by the attitude we take when faced with unavoidable suffering, in transforming a personal tragedy into a triumph. So meaning can be found in deeds, in love, even in suffering.

In that Ted talk that touched on our fear of death, philosopher Stephen Cave offers a final metaphor of life as a book, bound by its covers, by a beginning and by an end. That book can be full of adventures, of different landscapes, of exciting characters; in the end, all that matters is that the pages in between make up a good story.

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”
-Viktor Frankl

Making money and doing good at the same time – is it really possible?

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“Profit’s not always the point,” says Harish Manwani, the Chief Operating Officer of Unilever, in a recent Ted Talk.

Manwani argues against the classic Invisible Hand of Adam Smith, and Milton Friedman’s statement, that “There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” It’s simply not good enough, he says. Companies must play a role in serving their communities, making money and doing good at the same time.

If you have eight minutes, watch the video here:

 

As an anecdote, Manwani tells a story that I recognise very well, of starting out in a multinational consumer goods corporation. His boss asked him why he was there, to which he answered: “I’m here to sell soap.” “No,” replied his boss, “you’re here to change lives.”

This mission is remarkably similar to the expressed purpose of Procter & Gamble and its slogan, “Touching lives, improving life”. And both companies’ claims are likely to be deemed absurd by the cynic who would make the cold observation that the purpose of these businesses is to make profit, delivering returns to shareholders, and nothing more.

unilever-website

Manwani offers an example of Unilever’s contribution in the form of a hygiene and health programme that benefits half a billion people. When I visit the Unilever website, the first thing I see is “Changing the climate for growth and development”, while Sustainable Living is one of the four main items in the top menu.

procter-and-gamble-website

The Procter & Gamble site likewise highlights Sustainability in its top menu, as well as in the carousel on the home page. P&G also has a number of global humanitarian initiatives such as its partnership with UNICEF on the Pampers brand, “1 pack – 1 vaccine”.

Is it all simply about building a brand image to sell more products and make more profit? And does it matter if it is, if they’re doing good in the process?

“Purpose” is a word being thrown about a lot in the last few years, but Manwani argues convincingly that purpose and values really are central to sustainable business in the 21st century. “Brands indeed can be at the forefront of social change. […] When two billion people use your brands […] small actions can make a big difference.”

That seems to have been the thinking behind Axe’s surprising new #kissforpeace campaign (incidentally, Axe is a Unilever brand). The agency responsible for the work says that it wanted to use the brand’s global influence in a positive way. As a marketer, I may well question the change of positioning, the brand character, the tone of voice… but as a human being, I say, good for them! If nothing else, Axe is donating $250,000 to Peace One Day, a non-profit organisation whose aim is to institutionalise Peace Day on 21st September every year.

In another recent campaign, Dove (another Unilever brand) continues to build on its Real Beauty campaign, which started ten years ago and addresses the issue of body confidence and women’s insecurities.

Yet another beauty brand, Pantene (Procter & Gamble this time!), recently aired a campaign in the Philippines that got global attention thanks, in part, to Sheryl Sandberg’s having endorsed the video on her Facebook page. Like Axe, the link with the brand benefit is tenuous at best… but what a powerful insight it taps into.

So from encouraging hand washing to striving for world peace, from boosting female body confidence to highlighting gender inequalities, these brands are raising, and to some extent addressing, real issues in the world. They’re selling products, yes, and they’re making money, of course; but they are also managing to do some good.

What do you think? Are you unimpressed by what these global brands are doing? Should they do more? Or should they stick to what they know, selling soap, and forget all this doing good business?

Of course, the question of doing good and/or making money is not just a question for businesses, but also for individuals, as we make our career and life choices. But that’s a topic for another day…