I would have loved to attend the Pathway to Exit conference in Barcelona next week, but due to the launch of Bipper in Norway I can't.
Bipper is one of the nominees for the Bully Award - a very prestigious prize for the most successful and promising TMT companies - and in Barcelona all 60 finalists (selected from hundreds of nominated companies) are invited to pitch for the jury.
What to do when you really want to be there to pitch, but you can't? Olav and I spent one very late night at the office and made this video.
Showing posts with label Bipper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bipper. Show all posts
8/4/10
Finally
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.
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!
5/26/10
Strategy meeting - a must!
With both Nils, Are and Roy in Bergen together with the rest of the team, it was time for a strategy meeting. And a bit of fun!
We’ve always held a yearly strategy meeting. This year it was more important than ever as 2010 and 2011 are really important years for us as we prepare for the launch of Bipper both here in Norway and internationally.
I would love to tell you all about what is happening, but I can’t. It’s still too early... What I can say though is that since we won the Mobile Premier Award and since Motorola announced our partnership, the interest in Bipper all over the world has just exploded. We are contacted by huge operators, retail chains, sales people etc. etc. Amazing!
The only issue though is that we were not prepared for the massive interest this early. With the money in place we need to hire more people quickly. I have some good candidates on my list....
Olav demonstrating Bipper on a Samsung Corby.
Kids love this phone!
Looking serious Nils...
Entrepreneurship champagne (Cava) for
all to celebrate the share issue!
Line (our administration and media assistant) enjoying
sun, food and drinks outside the pool in the office.
Ann Elida - our amazing Financial manager
Roy - consultant and member of our board.
A very experienced telecom man!
5/24/10
Welcome to Bergen Nils!
A few months ago Nils and I agreed that he would be based in Bergen for most of the summer so we could have all our resources in one place as we prepared for our big launch. It’s nice to have the whole team together especially when there is so much that has to be coordinated. The first 3 weeks will be spent here without his family so I’m especially thankful to his wife Linda who is back in the US and has to act as a “single-parent” to their 3 year old twins. THANK YOU!
I managed to find Nils an apartment just down the street so we can work 24/7 if needed…. As is needed! Since I don’t have a license I always take the bus to work. However, I had big plans for us biking to the office together, but so far that has not happened as it turns out I’m very comfortable being driven to work by Nils while my husband has taken the bus….!!
Normally I could blame the lack of biking on the rain, but it’s been sunny in Bergen. Bergen is known for its rain, but the weather has been quite nice here and Nils has been pointing out how much he has been enjoying the crisp, sunny weather. I don’t know if I should tell him this is not the norm and that it actually rained for 90 days in a row a few years ago…!!
The view from our office
5/21/10
We are funded!
Today we raised about $ 2 millions! Wow! If you have ever been an entrepreneur yourself you know that it is not a luxurious lifestyle. Now I can finally sleep at night! Both new and old investors and we celebrated with waffles!
I’m so happy that we quickly closed our last round of funding. In total we raised about $ 2 millions.
I’m especially excited that the great people at Holberg Fondsforvaltning, one of Norway’s leading fund management companies decided to invest about $1.1 million and to be part of our venture. They evaluate a bunch of unlisted companies every year, but typically invest in no more than ten of these so I’m thrilled that they believe so much in Bipper.
So all the funding for expansion is in place, now we just need to add some more people to our team. Thankfully we have many interesting and qualified people that want to be part of our journey….
Hogne Tyssøy from Holdberg is happily signing the
share issue papers. Welcome to Team Bipper!
5/3/10
Motorola announcing our partnership
A short while ago Motorola announced their partnership with us. A press release was distributed globally (wow!) together with this video. It's finally happening!
2/18/10
Live demo of Bipper
The MWC in Barcelona, allowed us to demonstrate Bipper individually and in groups in the booth and also in larger gatherings such as the SIMagine presentation where Bipper is one of the finalists! These live demonstrations where helpful for us as a company as it gave us an opportunity to receive feedback from people, many within the industry (and also parents so they can relate) and also observe how they responded to what we have created.
Its a great feeling to receive so much positive comments and people were genuinely enthusiastic about what we have created and couldn't wait to be able to get Bipper for their kids :) Many was also surprised and impressed by how seamless and easy it is for parents to create contact lists, set restrictions and how the handsets are instantly updated when changes are made. This was easily demonstrated by showing myBipper page on a big screen and having a handset available.
Milla’s orange Samsung Corby phone
is working brilliantly with Bipper
Quite a good crowd gathered around to see the demonstration
2/17/10
Making the news
We’re now starting to get coverage in the media, and that is a huge deal. I’m sure many more articles will follow during the year!
Not only did we make the headlines in Nettavisen, a leading Norwegian leading Norwegian publication, we also got coverage in the US in an article called "Wonders and miracles at the Mobile World Congress" (Huffington Post), Netherlands, Brazil and several other countries:
We made French television twice, web tv twice, and apparently I'm among 5 women to watch in mobile 2010:
Interestingly enough we also were nominated as one of the finalists for the SImagine award while in Barcelona, another great achievement that made the news.
More very exciting news to follow very soon!
We made the cover of Nettavisen
2/15/10
We won!
One of the reasons the week kicked of in such high tempo and we are receiving so much attention is because we won the prestigious Mobile innovation Award for Best Start-Up Monday night!!!! This is quite an achievement especially considering 250 companies globally were nominated for this award.
This is almost an all day event that started at 2pm in the afternoon with presentations from the finalists in front of a jury of some of the most respected people in the mobile industry and an audience of several hundred people. I was there with Nils and Olav and Milla- our “kid”. When it was finally my turn to take the stage with Milla, I have to admit I was little nervous, but Olav and Nils reassured my that I had nothing to worry about, just be yourself! After all the presentations, we attended the cocktail/networking event in anticipation of the announcement of the winner, and at 8pm it was announced that Bipper had won J. After a quick celebration and calls to friends’ family and investors we rushed of to the gala dinner where I was seated at the VIP table with all the hotshots in the Mobile industry!! The buzz about Bipper has started, not only in Barcelona, but also around the world…..
My pitch for victory. Was very nervous....
We won! Can't believe it!
Together with two of the jury members. Couldn’t be happier!
2/3/10
Making our Bipper film
It was so frustrating though. Thought it would take only an hour to do the 4-5 minute clip, but I think we filmed for four hours. Saying the same things over an over again. Or at least trying to...
I hope you enjoy the clip!
Make up is done!
Blond hairs on black dresses do not look good...
Grim is ready with his camera
One camera man and one photographer
Grim is happy to be done with the shoot
And so are Olav and I
1/23/10
Voice recordning for our US commercial
For season 7 of New Scandinavian Cooking Bipper will in the whole of North America have a 10 seconds commercial before and after every episode of the show. There are 13 episodes, each airing on average around 1000 times, and this ads up to 260 000 seconds, or 4333 minutes, or 72 hours. Quite a bit of tv time!
I am really excited for it to start airing, and a bit worried that we will not be ready to launch when it starts. As it will be airing for a long period though, we will spend the first 6 months just building the brand and enabling viewers to sign down for our newsletter and get special offers, before we launch Bipper in the US in the autumn.
I will post the commercial on the blog as soon as I’m allowed to. Ten seconds is not a lot of time, so we decided to focus on the Bipper as a brand name and the story behind Bipper. In the commercial you will hear my voice saying: “Created by me. A mother of three. To make mobile kids safer, and your life easier”.
Hope you will like both the commercial and the tv-show!
Our commercial will be shown all over North America
before and after the tv-show New Scandinavian Cooking
11/18/09
Wearing red noses at our board meeting
Support Save the Children and wear a red nose!
Save the Children does tremendous work to better the situation of the world’s children and young people. Since Save the Children is an important partner to Bipper, it only feels right to do whatever we can to support their initiatives. This year Save the Children has a campaign called The Red Nose day, and all the income from selling the noses ($7 each) will go directly to the organization. A lot of activities involving red noses are planned to lead up to the final Red Nose Day!
At today’s board meeting we all wore red noses, each of us paying $100-200 for a nose. All the money is donated directly to Save the Children, and all of us got a good laugh!
To watch top lawyer Morten F. Krohnstad (Schjødt), Olav Balandin (CTO i Bipper), Birgitte Bull (investor) and Svein Johnsen (co-founder of Chess, and Bipper investor) in red noses made the day just a bit brighter.
I recommend all to support the initiative! Wear a red nose, come up with a good project or event and collect money for Save the Children. Their account number is: 8380 08 08033.
And please do watch the Red Nose show on TV3 on November 29th!
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