Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics
Receiving a monthly paycheck is a luxury that most entrepreneurs can’t afford in the early stages of their startups. Renting an office space and paying for a weekly consultancy?, sounds like an impossible dream.
But that is exactly what Jonas Bøgh enjoys. The Bachelor student from Aarhus University and cofounder of the Danish startup Greenticket, says that starting a company while you study is a great opportunity in Denmark “(as a Danish student) you get paid to study and many people underestimate that chance. I am glad I took that decision, I am very happy. I would recommend it to anybody” says Bøgh.
The monthly income Bøgh refers to is given by the Danish government to university students, a similar policy other Nordics countries share. The office space and business consultancy comes from Aarhus University and a program that supports startups called Accelerace
Bøgh created Greenticket in his spare time, working together with the other three cofounders, whom he met through a classmate.
“We started out looking to help high schools to sell tickets for their parties, it was very niche from the beginning, so we had five high schools to use our product. Then we opened it up for everyone that wanted to sell tickets”, explains Bøgh.
“We got a lot of competition from big companies, like Eventbrite from the United States, or the Danish Billeto, among others, so we had to differentiate our product from them, and we actually went back to concentrate on the high schools and the education sector, which we still do today, but we have other activities outside that segment”, says Greenticket’s co-founder.
Right now Greenticket is working with close to 40 institutions in the education sector, not only high schools. The startup won traction in the education segment and Bøgh thinks the word is spreading, and more and more institutions are bringing their business to Greenticket, and they are now growing into different segments, like concerts, handball games, among others.
The consultancies they have received from different experts were key to this grow.
“When we went out to sales meeting (a year ago), we were focusing on the technical aspects of the product, what it does, etc, and we found out pretty fast that people are in the market for the whole package, not the small technical things, and the consultant helped us focus on Greenticket as a brand and not a product that could do technical things, and I think that helped us get a stronger position in the market”, Bøgh says.
About the entrepreneurial environment in the Nordics, Bøgh thinks is not as good as it could be, “but we are getting closer. Initiatives like Copenhagen for the Win is a really good step in the right direction, getting companies and startups together to maximize people’s knowledge and skills in the community, because there is no reason why we can’t work together even as competitors”, he explains.
“Many of the most famous entrepreneurs in Denmark are good at expressing their needs (to improve the entrepreneur environment), and it has been done in a good way, in a constructive way, expressing their thoughts through social media for example or talking to people that can do something about it”, Bøgh concludes.
Bøgh expects to finish his Bachelor next summer and plans to focus on Greenticket 100% after that, along with giving talks about entrepreneurship and consultancies in different fields. “It is important not to close the bridges around you”, he says.
