The Annual Letter (2025)
Dear friends, lovers, haters, and chill guys and girls,
Here we go with another annual letter and life update from yours truly. Following last year’s letter, this makes two in a row which is a new record. One more year then it’s officially a tradition.
For the quick TL;DR version 2024 was overall a great year that like many years went far too fast. After floundering a bit for the last few years I feel this year was all about stability and growth. I lost my passion for startups and the Norwegian startup ecosystem but rediscovered my passion for E-commerce. As part of that, we continued to grow our Byvoks online/retail store and I joined Xplora as their new VP of Global E-commerce. I’m wrapping up the year feeling super optimistic and full of happiness and appreciation for what I have.
Life, love, and happiness
Life = good. I’ll save you the mushy stuff but I’m very much in love and loving life.
Hilde and I bought an apartment in the wonderful neighborhood of Fagerborg. I felt silly waiting until my 40s to buy my first apartment, but living mostly in California that is not so easy. Once I left I also enjoyed renting nice and somewhat luxurious apartments that I could leave on a moment's notice should my path in life take me somewhere else. Now it feels good to keep my feet in one place and have an investment that is not another super risky startup.
Hello Fagerborg
Day one of our very empty but very nice new apartment.
For the last few years, travel has been a major part of my happiness and while I don’t travel as much these days I still managed to visit some great places. This year took me to Berlin, Hamburg, Spain, Estonia, Colorado, Los Angeles, and around Norway. Some of my favorite memories include wandering the old city streets of Valencia, teaching my son to boogie board in Santa Monica (better late than never!), and meeting my good friend’s first kiddo in Tallinn.
Work-life
I guess the biggest change I made this year was deciding to take a break from startups. Truthfully this was brewing for a while and I think my passion for startups was gone a few years ago. However, when that’s all you know it’s easy to keep going and hope things will improve. Upon further reflection, I realized I enjoyed working directly with founders but that was about it. Everything else that comes with the startup experience was, to be candid, a huge drag. I may do some startup things here and there or work with select founders but for the most part, I have moved on. The timing also felt right, as the Norwegian startup ecosystem has basically ‘hit the wall’ as we like to say here. That topic requires a much longer commentary which I may or may not get to in 2025.
Through all this, I rediscovered my passion for E-commerce and this is where I intend to put all my energy going forward. There’s just something beautiful about selling tangible products. Sure it’s not your fancy cutting-edge AI-whatever but sometimes it is just that simple! Make something people want to buy, put it in a box, and sell it for a profit. Rinse and repeat.
Along with our own E-commerce projects like Byvoks I joined Xplora as their VP of Global E-commerce. They make a smart watch for kids with over 2 million units sold. There I manage a portfolio of 14 webshops and have a small but growing team. Unlike your typical startup, they are a super profitable public company with a wonderful and internationally diverse organization. I’m having a blast and very much look forward to the next year here.
Humble candlemakers log
If you read last year’s update you may remember the little candle company that Hilde and I started. I’m guessing this was a bit confusing to some, but as shared above I wanted to return to my E-commerce roots and create a product that people love. Truthfully, and to start, I just asked myself “What do Norwegians buy a lot of? Let’s sell that!”. Of course, the #1 thing is alcohol but thanks to the strict liquor laws that is tough to sell. So candles was a close second.
This year I had much less time to work on Byvoks (just 5 hours per week). Still, we managed about 750,000kr in sales, shipped 1300 orders, and had 129 people attend our Wax and Wine Workshop. We still have a little retail store in Bislett, Oslo where you can find me each Saturday enjoying that simple shopkeeper lifestyle.
Byvoks was always part of a larger idea—a product studio affectionately named Banana for Scale. While some people have real hobbies we spend our spare time thinking about, designing, and sourcing new products. We have zeroed in on creating unique and humorous products as our superpower. Basically putting the comedy into commodities. We are always iterating and using the cash flow from candle sales to try new things.
This year we managed to create a few of those new things:
Bybrygg
A line of funny coffees that you can also customize with your own text. Our Pappaperm coffee was the clear winner and makes a great gift for new dads.
Parental leave is a big deal in Norway as is drinking an absurd amount of coffee so it was a natural fit.
Extra Slutty Olive Oil
As a riff on Extra Virgin Olive Oil, we created the opposite. Our first batch sold out quickly. For the next step, we plan to get this product on Amazon and start selling globally.
Why use extra virgin olive oil when you can choose an experienced olive oil that knows what it's doing?
In closing
Looking back this was a year of stability and safer choices. So for 2025, I’ll take more chances. More specifically get a bit weird. Dare to try more new things that push the boundaries of commodities and commerce.
Those in Oslo, you’re always welcome at the shop on a Saturday to get a sneak peek of that or just enjoy a nice coffee. For everyone else I suppose you’ll hear about it should I manage to get a bit louder and prouder in what I do.
