8/4/10

Finally

Whew .... This has been a long pregnancy! 14 months have passed since Christian Sæterhaug (Marketing Director at Tele2) called me and said that "the two of us should work together."


It was back in June last year that Christian called - almost entirely out of the blue. He had heard about me in an interview by a person who knew of Bipper from the Venture Cup at NHH, and thought it was exciting. Tele2 noticed that more and more children were mobile users, and had begun to get a lot of questions from parents who wondered how they should relate to children and the mobile and asked for solutions that gave better control. 

At that time Bipper was a tiny company.
We had no prototype, but had started development and had big ambitions. Only a month earlier we had been on the brink of bankruptcy (the financial crisis was tough indeed ...) and Olav and I were forced to run to the bank to take out loans - backed by some nice people who helped us raise a few hundred thousand Nkr (which got us back to zero!). A few weeks later our financial situation was under control. Thankfully, investments from Sparebanken Vest and a private angel investor had ensured that we could resume the development again. 

And then Tele2 called! A telephone call led to a meeting, than another meeting, which resulted in a letter of intent, then a contract, an IRD with Innovation Norway, a lot of work for both parties regarding the development and finally a finished product.


It's been a long journey, but we finally crossed the finish line! Finally! Tele2 has been an extremely important partner for us over the past year. Together we are launching a subscription called Tele2 Bipper, which includes all of Bipper’s services, for the Norwegian market. This is an exclusive partnership over the next months and I can promise you that you will notice us in the media. It’s also exciting that we are being contacted by operators around the world that are interested in Bipper.

These are exciting times!

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