10 days - 10 million
It all started with Tarjei Bø and a shrimp sandwich that went completely wrong.
This is the story of how we started crowdfunding 10 years ago – and how, over the course of 10 days this February, we raised more than NOK 10 million in fresh capital from 400 new owners.
But first, a small piece of news.
We’ve received messages from many people who didn’t make the investment deadline, so we’ve reopened the campaign for seven days – closing Sunday, March 22 at 23:59. Want to become a co-owner too?
Anyways, back to 2016, and Tarjei Bø. Northern Playground was brand new. We had invented the Ziplongs and the Zipbra and were on our way into stores around the world. To make that happen, we needed capital. NOK 1.2 million, to be precise.
So I did what every founder does: I went to the investment community.
Absolutely no luck.
No one was interested in clothing. Or in innovation that didn’t involve tech.
And especially not from me. I had no Olympic gold medals and no followers on social media.
A few weeks before the bank account was completely empty, a friend arranged a meeting with Tarjei Bø and four other young guys from the finance world. It was spring and warm. The plan was shrimp and wine at Tjuvholmen.
I knew this was the last chance to hook someone. It just had to work. Otherwise it would be game over for the company. And imagine how great it would be to have the legend Tarjei Bø on the team.
The meeting went… terribly.
The guys were mostly busy puffing their chests at each other. They forgot about me.
And forgot about Ziplongs and all the strategies I had memorised. (For the record, Tarjei was very nice.)
I felt like the smallest person in the world and walked back across Aker Brygge towards Mesh, already knowing I would never hear from any of them again.
So what now?
There’s a Norwegian saying that roughly translates to: desperation makes you inventive.
I was desperate, and needed to be inventive.
And then it hit me.
What if our customers wanted to own us?
Crowdfunding was practically non-existent in Norway in 2016. But after speaking with a lawyer we realised we didn’t need a third-party platform – we could just do it ourselves.
So that’s what we did.
We sent a newsletter to our customers.
Before we even made it to the office the next morning, the round was already oversubscribed.
In the end, I found myself interviewing the investors to decide who we actually wanted to bring on board. Finally I felt a little bit like a king.
I don’t think I celebrated with a shrimp sandwich at Theatercaféen.
But I probably should have.
Self-proclaimed crowdfunding champions
The rest is history. Or wait – there are a few things worth mentioning.
We’ve repeated the recipe several times. After turning the company upside down in 2020, we really went for it in 2022: 600 new owners joined and we raised NOK 16 million.
This time with a slightly different premise. The pitch was partly about financial return – and just as much about reducing clothing consumption. Finally, we felt like we had found ourselves.
A month ago we raised more than NOK 10 million from 400 new co-owners. All together, over the years, we’ve raised around NOK 40 million from our customers across six different rounds. We’ve more or less crowned ourselves Norway’s unofficial champions of crowdfunding – and we’re incredibly proud to be customer-owned.
But to be completely honest, this year we were very nervous. “Everyone” in the startup world is struggling to raise capital right now. People’s wallets are tighter. And we’ve had four years with negative results.
A lot of good things are happening in the company, and people are finally starting to understand how we challenge an industry full of bullshit. But mamma mia… would it work? We needed at least NOK 7 million to run the company without a constant knife to the throat.
In the first days after opening the round, the first millions came in quickly.
This was going to work!
But then it suddenly slowed down. We got very nervous and started making one crisis plan after another. I was genuinely afraid we would have to go back to our existing investors and beg them to help us get past NOK 7 million.
At one point I even sent an Instagram video to my business partner Marita about a course on how to sell your company.
“We are not selling the company,” she replied firmly.
Instead, we were going to stay calm and trust that everyone who was interested would come.
And they did.
During the last three days alone, more than NOK 4 million came in. We passed NOK 10 million without having to use a single one of our crisis plans.
Now we are 1,100 co-owners. Stronger than ever.
But we still have some fundamental challenges to solve.
Not least, we need to become profitable and prove that our model can scale far beyond one store in Oslo.
I took one day off after the share issue. The choice was between going to The Well or hiking across Nordmarka.
I chose The Well.
I was running on fumes.
Now I’m ready for everything. I’m excited to take on the world, and I hope we manage to do it as a customer-owned company – where the success is paid back to the customers, not to an investment fund.
Peace and love,
Jo
