nordgrona.com

Sander Oudendijk - Nordgröna AB

Me and my twin brother Joris started the company MakeMyMosaic GmbH (makemymosaic.de) when we were 20. After 5 years we were searching for a new company to start. In searching for similar products, I came across using reindeer moss as a sound absorptive. The idea was not an "aha" moment, but a careful analysation of various business options. Nordgröna AB was founded in January 2014 and has 3 ambitious founders, Joris Oudendijk, Oscar Pressfeldt and me.

It's difficult to pin me down. At parties I usually give a different answer every time. I'm officially Dutch, but I have lived in Indonesia, Canada, England, Germany, Luxembourg and now Sweden. I studied Business and Environmental Engineering in Germany (Dipl. Wirt. Ing. Umwelttechnik), and as I'm really nerdy about entrepreneurship I decided to do a Masters Programme in Entrepreneurship and move to Sweden before starting another company.

All 3 founders will work on the project full-time. I am responsible for the product itself, Oscar for the sales and Joris for support, especially IT. During the summer we will iterate the product, production technique & marketing materials and broaden our network further. We plan to continue working full-time with Nordgröna after the summer. 

We are developing very swiftly, so it's hard to even predict 3 months into the future. Our current main goals are to make our production more efficient and greatly develop our marketing material and network. We predict 3-5 additional part-time employees up to August.

Sander Oudendijk - Nordgröna AB #2

Since we received leapfrogs many parts of Nordgröna have improved. For production, we heavily increased our supplies and bought more tools. In our organisation, 5 additional students are now working with Nordgröna half-time. Our investment over just the last 2 weeks has exceeded 200.000 SEK as we need to keep up with the developments.

We are working in a structured manner, but not following a detailed plan. Our main plan is to constantly iterate and improve. Easier as expected has been to make internal improvements. Harder than expected is to get products on time from our suppliers, especially now during the summer. 

Our focus is to gain experience as swiftly as possible. With that, nothing has changed. The problems we have and the improvements we need to make are however very different compared to just a month ago.

Sander Oudendijk - Nordgröna AB # 3

It has been an intense summer with a lot of learning experience through trial and error. It has been a great opportunity to spend the summer in Lund and continue with Nordgröna full-time.

The hardest part has been to keep in contact with people as almost all are on vacation. The most enjoyable part has been to work with a material product and executing the iterations and seeing the progressive improvement

The progress went as expected, but entrepreneurs are of course never satisfied anyways. We will certainly continue working on Nordgröna.

Although not a lesson learnt during the last few months, the most important thing is to just go for it and correct on the way.

A tip for new entrepreneurs would be exactly that. Develop and maintain a vision, take actions towards the vision and keep correcting your path. Don't worry about problems you would like to have.