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Your go-to-market partner.

Your hands-on investor.
  • We spot
  • We add
  • We exit
2

Your go-to-market partner.

Your hands-on investor.
  • We spot
  • We add
  • We exit
henrikstarup-slide

Your go-to-market partner.

Your hands-on investor.
  • We spot
  • We add
  • We exit
Christian slide

Your go-to-market partner.

Your hands-on investor.
  • We spot
  • We add
  • We exit
Mie Slide

Your go-to-market partner.

Your hands-on investor.
  • We spot
  • We add
  • We exit
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Your go-to-market partner.

Your hands-on investor.
  • We spot
  • We add
  • We exit
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We spot

Every startup business story is different,
but here are 46 typical success factors that we believe in:

  • Founders and their cooperation
  • Planning process
  • Business Model
  • THE FUNDING PATTERNS
  • THE BUSINESS MOMENTUM

Founders and their cooperation

  • Preferably at least two founders.
  • If the business idea includes both technical and commercial challenges, there should ideally be at least one founder with each background. Only in cases of considerable network effects can it be an advantage to have a 100% commercially oriented founder team instead.
  • Ideally, at least one founder has ‘star power’, making it easier to attract talent to the company.
  • It is a plus if some or all founders have attended top universities – regardless of whether they graduated or dropped out.
  • Even if the founders have different professional backgrounds, their social and cultural values are compatible.
  • The founders are likely to hold, in part, these characteristics: enterprising, self-motivated, impatient, fast-working, thriving with speed, chaos and insecurity, resistant to adversity, forward-looking yet able to learn from mistakes, persistently thinking on improvements everywhere in life, professional pride, ability to immerse, curious by nature, cooperative, persistent, good at postponing reward, and joyful and optimistic by nature.
  • The founders should preferably know each other well beforehand. Best if at least some of them have worked together before, and even better if this was in a young startup business with considerable growth.
  • The founders agree on the workload distribution.
  • The founders agree on how fast and under which circumstances a possible exit should be.
  • The founders have signed a shareholder’s agreement and agree on the fundamental purpose of the company and their individual role and effort.
  • The share allocation of the founders is distributed partly dynamically, for instance based on some performance criteria.
  • The founders reserve potential ’founders titles’ for most of the C-suite team, although some of these positions are yet to be filled.
  • The founders are well acquainted with the sharing economy, crowdsourcing, productivity-increasing apps and other methods to minimize costs and increase efficiency in a fast-moving, cost-constrained company.
  • Preferably, the founders have an experienced mentor and follow leading entrepreneurs on their blogs.

Planning process

  • Initially, the management team does not develop an elaborate business plan, but rather, a simple business canvas which they often adjust during the first many months.
  • Very likely they make numerous pivots, i.e. high-speed strategic conversions, in the early phases.
  • They develop and test a ’minimum viable product’ before proceeding to a finished product.
  • They outsource activities irrelevant to their core competencies, such as accounting. However, during the early phases they are 100% personally involved in the product development and marketing, and they spend a lot of time with customers in order to learn how the product is received.
  • The product that the company is developing must, as a key rule, be so remarkable that a significant proportion of its users would be ’very disappointed’, if the product was to disappear from the market.
  • They develop well thought-through metrics to make it easier for them to continuously follow to which extent they fulfill their strategic goals.
  • The company does not engage in aggressive scaling until clear documentation show that it has a particularly strong product-market fit.
  • In case they expect numerous financing rounds, they might plan physical presence near a leading venture capital center.
  • When the company scales, there is considerable focus on lifting all elements simultaneously in order to prevent that an unfinished product is oversold, or that a product is overdeveloped without sufficient attention being devoted to product marketing.
  • The management team pays extensive attention to potential challenges regarding  transition from an early adopter to mainstream market.

Business Model

  • The business model contains elements that are highly original.
  • The model enables a stupendous scaling with decreasing or unchanged marginal costs. Likewise, it can lead to a massive return which clearly make the investment and risk worthwhile.
  • Their strategy is probably aimed at a niche market they can dominate. Not until such a niche domination has been achieved do they wish to expand further.
  • If they introduce a new product to an already mature market, their product should be at least 10 times better than its competition regarding at least one major product dimension.
  • It is an advantage if their product is relatively simple and easy to promote – or sells itself through word of mouth.
  • The company offers not only features but a complete product.
  • It is not a question of a product or technology in search of a need, but instead a clearly defined need being fulfilled by the company’s product.
  • The business model contains elements that clearly counteract competition, such as network effects, patents or exclusivity agreements.
  • The company operates in an area dominated by key technologies that evolve hyper-exponentially and therefore provides opportunities for startup companies.
  • The company focuses on locating itself in commercial ecosystems where payments are made.
  • Their project has low capital requirements.
  • The company’s product encourages repurchases and forms habits.

THE FUNDING PATTERNS

  • They have participated in prominent incubator/accelerator programs.
  • They have received funding from some of the most successful VCs, preferably at an early stage in their development.
  • The early investors have participated proportionally in the subsequent rounds. Especially important if these are high-performing, prominent VCs.
  • Their funding has taken place at short intervals, preferably nine months between each round at most. This also means they raised many rounds, if they are no longer at seed stage.

THE BUSINESS MOMENTUM

  • The company is seen as a category winner, thus leading in its space.
  • There is a clear positive momentum in how often they are mentioned in the press and on social media. Better if they had a low profile from the outset and then built it up rapidly as their business evolved.
  • There is clear positive momentum in their following on social media.
  • They have been able to attract more competent staff as they progressed.
  • Their business reach, sales and gross profits follow an exponential path.
  • They have repeat or referral users.

We add

Between us, we have founded or co-founded well over 20 startups and have invested in and advised many more.

After we invest, we really get to work. This is partly to get to know our portfolio companies well, but mainly to add value.

And because we can, of course. Our joint upstart experience cover IT consulting, metadata, digital data, SaaS, big data, property, finance, extensive sales experience, and more.

Our roles in these ventures have covered everything from idea-generation and story-telling to product development, strategic planning, market analysis, partnership building, data monetization, direct-selling, managing and scaling BD and sales teams, sales and marketing, recruitment, legal, finance, trade sale, IPO and more.

And one more thing: We have great networks in international IT, lifestyle businesses, corporate finance and investor circles worldwide.

 

We exit

Our preferred point of entry as an investor is when the company has proven its product/market fit – barely.

And our preferred point of exit is when it has proven it – really.

The difference is implementation of go-to-market strategies, which is our home ground. We have done full or partial exits many times before: mergers, acquisitions, asset sales, strategic company sales, joint ventures, management buy-outs, IPO, earn-outs, reverse takeovers, etc. We are therefore familiar with the terms and the processes, and we know the partners who can help.

Nordic Eye connects the Nordics and California. We help portfolio companies to accelerate growth and increase valuations prior to raising capital or exit in California as valuations are higher in the U.S.

CONTACT US

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