
Three Qualities Nordic Founders Lack - hajak
https://hajak.se/three-qualities-nordic-founders-lack-f957a22a2209#.g55mwb63g
======
teddyh
Sure, he’s an angel investor, so of course he, like any VC, needs companies to
be big, fast. But this is very seldom what’s best _for the company_. As Joel
Spolsky called it in _Strategy Letter I¹_ , they want to be Ben and Jerry’s,
not Amazon.

① [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy-
letter-i-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy-letter-i-ben-
and-jerrys-vs-amazon/)

~~~
freshhawk
That seems to be the default complaint from investors about the cultures in
non-valley places: "They choose risk/reward balances most beneficial to
themselves instead of the investors. That makes them less attractive than the
firms that structure themselves as outsourced R&D teams paid in lottery
tickets".

------
shae
I'm a US Citizen who was self-employed in Sweden for about six years
(1999-2006). I was very frustrated at how hard it was to get things to 1.
where I was approved to do work and 2. get feedback so I could 3. get paid.

On the other hand, now that I'm back in the US I get tired of the continual
rat race and wish I had as much vacation as everybody else got in Sweden. The
US doesn't give decompression time, but Sweden didn't allow for as much deep
focus time.

Mind you, I also had communication problems. I expected people to clearly say
yes or no and then stick to that. The Swedish politeness took awhile to
interpret.

~~~
daenney
These observations, though perhaps interesting, have nothing to do with the
article from what I can see. They relate more to the immigration process in
Sweden and how to get a work permit and consecutively a personnummer and bank
account.

~~~
the_rosentotter
The 'politeness' he mentioned is very relevant to the cultural issues the
article discusses.

It's a consensus culture. Finland is even worse. Disagreeing with the group is
a huge taboo, something that will make a meeting room go very uncomfortably
quiet very quickly.

Of course it has its advantages, like everything it is a trade-off, but in
terms of being entrepreneurial I think it is a big reason why entrepreneurship
is held back in the Nordics. You can't just fight it out with ideas and then
shrug it off like I see in other places - for better or worse people are more
sensitive and 'correct' in intrapersonal dealings.

Don't know why it's like that, I hear Canada is the same. Perhaps the cold
climate means people mingle less, and so social occasions are meant to
reaffirm social cohesion, to the exclusion of airing differences.

Oh yeah, it's also 'socially correct' to outwardly acknowledge and reject the
Law of Jante-effect - which just leads to criticism being even less tolerated;
you're just jealous, narrow-minded, etc. if you are critical of anyone.

~~~
tominous
As a counterpoint to Finland being a consensus culture, they also have
"management by perkele" [1]. In particular Linus Torvalds has said his direct
style is part of Finnish culture [2].

[1]
[http://www.rmci.ase.ro/no11vol1/Vol11_No1_Article13.pdf](http://www.rmci.ase.ro/no11vol1/Vol11_No1_Article13.pdf)

[2] [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/07/linus...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/07/linus-torvalds-defends-his-right-to-shame-linux-kernel-
developers/)

------
_delirium
The implication that the Nordic region is underperforming in startups, even in
swing-for-the-fences, huge-exit startups, doesn't seem to be borne out by the
numbers: over the past decade, 10% of worldwide >$1 billion exits are from the
Nordic region, despite it having only 0.3% of the world's population, and 2%
of the world's GDP.

Stat from here, which has a decent overview:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11689464/How-
Sweden-became-the-startup-capital-of-Europe.html)

~~~
hajak
No, I agree. The Nordics is swinging above its weight.

But I think all cultures have their reasons to not create more amazing things.
The Nordics have a lot of investors preferring safe returns, and therefore
perhaps the same within the entrepreneur communinuty.

------
Havoc
I dealt with a fair number of founders thanks to my job & I've found that it
comes down to personality more than nationality.

Trust me - you get French A-holes and you get Swedish A-holes.

What I have noticed though is that Nordic founders are really difficult to
contact. I'm in a privileged position in that they don't have much of a choice
- they're required to respond to me. Yet sometimes its difficult...Spanish and
Nordic in particular.

~~~
ggambetta
Spanish? I'm not Spanish, but culturally close, so I'm surprised. What do you
mean by "difficult to contact"? They won't answer your emails/take your calls?

~~~
Havoc
>They won't answer your emails/take your calls?

Long list of issues. My personal favourite being "this line does not accept
incoming calls". Mails being ignored. Or they pass it off to some random other
person. Or they just tell you they don't have time.

------
rb808
I think this could be any smaller country eg Canada, Ireland, New Zealand,
South Korea, Singapore. Its really difficult to build a world beating huge
company from smaller centres. Perhaps dominating local markets or selling out
to a global behemoth are the only successful models.

~~~
benologist
The internet is what lets companies aspire to become global quickly. Lots of
countries have access to it and have fostered hugely popular products and
companies because of it. Many startups in the US are busy dreaming of
dominating local markets and selling out to global behemoths too. Especially
in SV.

~~~
rb808
Agreed, but if you want a large world leading company you need a couple
thousand people skilled & experienced in all sorts of professions. If you're
in Helsinki or even Stockholm you just can't go out and hire such a large
experienced teams let alone expect them to beat the world.

~~~
benologist
Rovio is from Helsinki. King.com from Stockholm. One of the Skype founders was
Swedish and they HQ'd in Estonia. Unity3d from Denmark. Opera from Norway.
Nokia from Finland. It's already happened and unlikely to be isolated
incidences.

~~~
rb808
Nokia is the only company on that list that was large and that didn't last
very long. I'm not trying to did Nordic companies, I'm just saying its
difficult.

~~~
benologist
The billionaires King.com created probably disagree. Skype is still one of the
most popular messaging platforms in the world, having been traded around a
couple times now for $billions too.

USA had a first-mover advantage on internet access, but 20 years later many
wealthy nations now have the necessary infrastructure ... a payment gateway,
appstores, marketplaces, web hosting ... to flourish online.

~~~
rb808
King.com - part of an American company Skype - part of an American company
Nokia - part of an American company Rovio - independent but tiny(?)

I'm not sure what we are arguing about. I think its clear that its difficult
to build a world beating company in a smaller country. Yes they make great
divisions and smaller branches, but I'm still not convinced its a good place
to base an HQ.

------
daenney
This is a very short article with very little to back up the claims that these
things are actually lacking and why it's a bad thing that they are.

I mean sure, it's advise but honestly:

> So, please Nordic founders with your fantastic design and culture skills,
> please have greater ambition, stronger conviction, and ship more often.

Nothing in that whole article helps you, as a (Nordic) founder, to achieve any
of it. Considering this is coming from a VC, maybe a bit more "how to go about
this" would be helpful instead of the blanket "you just kinda suck at this"
statement.

~~~
edblarney
"This is a very short article with very little to back up the claims"

He's a successful Swedish entrepreneur, his insights are built from his
experience and observations.

~~~
hajak
Thanks :)

I didn't want to write a research post. It was actually a rant turned into a
post. I was really tired of asking "so, why are you actually doing this
company?".

------
partycoder
One of the first things I learned when going to Sweden is the history of the
Vasa ship, which was a ship designed to be the most powerful in its time. The
only problem is that it couldn't actually stay afloat due to its weight and
design.

That offers a noble lesson about planning, setting goals, etc., and it has
probably influenced the local entrepreneurial culture.

------
edblarney
Maybe this article is correct, but I would say there are tons of other
systematic limitations of doing a startup in Scandinavia: language, funding,
customers etc.

Given this - I would say that Scandinavian founders probably, on the whole,
'swing above their weight'.

The lack of 'AirBnB' and 'Uber' style successes has far more to do with market
size, fluidity, and the 'mega centre' of the Silicon Valley than anything.

