The Annual Letter (2026)

Dear friends, lovers, haters, and AI agents,

The time-honored tradition of my annual letter is back again (relax, this is only the 3rd time in a row). Considering it's also the only time I tend to both update my website and share an update, I will keep this going (probably).

The TL;DR breakdown for all the attention-deprived and algo-addicted among you: For me, 2025 sat nicely atop the foundation I spoke about in my last annual update. That being one of stability. With that, I was able to find success in my work and also take a few chances. For the work at Xplora leading E-commerce, my team set too many new records to list here. We crushed it, as they say. Regarding one of those chances taken, we bought a 2nd home in Colorado that we use and run as an Airbnb side hustle. After 2.5 years, we closed our little boutique in Oslo, although that business continues to do well online and with new products. Oh, and AI became a pretty big deal this year, I guess you could say. Just recently, I've become less skeptical about the AI hype and more interested in what's possible here.

All that being said…the theme for 2026 will be to create.

Keep reading for the details and the tea.

Life, love, and happiness

Life = very good (dare I say great)!

The hits keep coming, and along with that, the good times. Looking back on the year, I see some hectic periods, but all that running around always seemed to amount to something worthwhile. This has made me super happy, appreciated, and with a few things to show for it.

As shared in the quick update above, we bought a 2nd home in Colorado Springs where I have family. When we're not using it a management company runs it as an Airbnb. Honestly? It's been shockingly drama-free. No horror stories, no nightmare guests, nothing broken beyond the usual wear and tear. The most dramatic thing that happened was finding a mouse. That's it.

The best part about having a managed Airbnb is you just block out your dates when you want to stay, show up, and everything is ready for you. Even clean towels. It's like having your own very sizable hotel that happens to pay for itself when you're not there. We're doing a second round of improvements this winter—facade makeover, more smart home gadgets (because of course), cozier backyard seating areas, and upgrading the small stuff like coffee machines and toasters. We have managed to have very high occupancy (82%), but often very low nightly rates. So time to pimp things up, as they say, to work on that.

After

Before

Drag the slider to compare before and after the Colorado house improvements

Work-life

My team at Xplora crushed it this year. We broke too many records to list, but the big ones: conversion rates up multiple X across many markets, record sales in basically every region, and we somehow pulled off a bunch of complicated infrastructure migrations without breaking everything (but not nothing). The company acquired another large player (Doro, which makes phones for seniors), and together we now represent about 2 billion kroner in annual sales. It has certainly been a change from startup life to have such volume and resources. Bigger, more corporate life hasn't made me too crazy, but I do miss using Slack (shakes fist at Microsoft Teams).

Anyway, check the stock price:

Shopkeeper no more

After 2.5 years we closed our little boutique in Bislett. It was a bit of a tough call because I genuinely loved having it—being a very part-time shopkeeper, running workshops, having somewhere to go do random things. But it was becoming more trouble than it was worth. The rent was the highest cost of the business, and we had to hustle just to cover it. Turns out running a small boutique in Oslo is not very profitable. Who knew?

My favorite memories are definitely the workshops. Almost 500 people came through our Wax and Wine sessions over the years. They'd sell out every time—usually 8 strangers sitting around the same table, drinking wine, making candles, and getting to know each other. Lots of different cultures mixing together made for fun environment.

Even though we closed the shop, Byvoks is doing better than ever. Our Extra Slutty Olive Oil became a massive seller over Christmas and we keep selling out. We think we can scale this one even further, both in Norway and internationally, so that's a big focus for 2026.

Banana for Scale is still our little holding company / product studio thingy where we make these cheeky funny products. Right now, we're focusing less on launching new stuff and more on perfecting what we have—better quality, better gifting options for every holiday from Valentine's Day to Father's Day. Cash flow gets reinvested back into making everything better. Rinse and repeat.

In closing

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but I do like having a theme. For 2026, the theme is create. What does that mean? Honestly, I'm leaving it open and vague on purpose. But it'll show up across lots of different things and mediums.

Writing, for one. I want to do a lot more of that. Building stuff too—and while I was always skeptical about AI seeing what it can do for coding completely changed my mind. Now I can build basically anything I can think of. Case in point: you're reading this on my new website, which I vibe-coded myself. Creating new products with Banana for Scale. And probably a bunch of other stuff I haven't thought of yet.

Looking back, 2025 was a year where things came together nicely. The foundation I built in 2024 held up, work went well, we took some chances with the Colorado house, and I learned a lot from closing the shop and pivoting with Byvoks. For 2026, I'm keeping that momentum but loosening the reins a bit. Less optimization, more creation. Less playing it safe, more making weird stuff and seeing what sticks.

Thanks for reading. See you next year (probably).