Posted on: July 1st, 2024 by Smpl Team No Comments
We’re delighted to announce SmplCo has signed a partnership with Barclays, one of the UK’s biggest banks.
Our UX/UI designers are ready to go!
SmplCo will deliver its services through the bank’s incubator, Barclays Eagles Labs, which has supported over 13,000 start-ups and high-growth businesses.
We will offer our unique, 5-Day Prototype service to firms across Eagle Labs’ UK-wide network, helping start-ups and scale-up businesses to test their ideas, land investment, and win customers.
And we’re in good company… We join the likes of Microsoft as one of only 10 companies taking part in Eagle Labs’ ‘Deals & Offers’ service.
Some of our 5-Day Prototypes in action
“Huge validation”
Andreas Melvær, SmplCo’s managing partner, said too many start-ups and scale-ups struggle with delays, costs and risks, and this partnership was a huge validation our efforts to change that.
“A lot of the problems come from a product design industry that is often incentivised by the hour, while lacking the expertise to support entrepreneurs,” he said.
“We created the 5-Day Prototype so innovators could bring their ideas to life in a week, with support from a team of entrepreneurs who have built and sold their own businesses,” Andreas added.
Andreas Melvaer, Managing Partner of SmplCo
Barclays Eagle Labs’ mission to support the UK’s entrepreneurial community goes to the heart of SmplCo’s own mission to make it as easy as possible for innovators bring great digital products and services to life.
“It’s a perfect partnership and we’re excited to get started,” Andreas said.
If you want to find out more about our 5-Day Protoyping service, or just talk to the team about how you can bring your Big Idea to life faster, more efficiently, and with less risk, let us know.
Click here to email our MD Andreas, or leave us a message here.
Posted on: June 27th, 2024 by Smpl Team No Comments
Meet SmplCo’s new European partner, Axel Thoma, managing partner of the boutique Swiss marketing accelerator, ‘TurbineOst by Die Botschafter’.
Here Axel talks about his quests to far-off lands, making business management ‘spicy’, and almost winning a Europe-wide music competition…
Why did I drop everything to travel the world? Well, there was this girl…
From early on I’ve always wanted to get out and conquer the world and I’ve never taken ‘no’ for an answer.
The first time I really went for it was when I had a Filipino girlfriend and ventured to the Philippines for an MBA-level exchange at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila.
Asia captured my heart and mind and I longed for more. I asked my university for a second exchange.
They said ‘no’, so I just organised it myself. It seemed the obvious thing to do. It was an opportunity to experience another unique culture and go on a quest into the unknown.
I just did it and – as often happens with these things – the journey took on a life if its own. It led to an exchange year at the exclusive Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India.
But none of it would have happened if I hadn’t seen a problem in front of me and just got on with sorting it out. (And if there hadn’t been a girl, obviously…)
Axel says: “My superpowers lie in my brains, not my muscles!”
My company was born out of a bad PowerPoint presentation
TurbineOst is a place people come when they have demanding communications tasks; when strategy, marketing and sales need to come together, and do so fast.
But it was born out of a bad PowerPoint presentation.
The story starts when we were asked to make a sales deck “cooler” and we thought that was a really bad idea.
The client needed to different tool, not just a more expensive presentation. They needed something to make the sales force more entrepreneurial.
That led to us developing an app called Storyteller, to help the client and their sales teams create their own stories and inspire customers, while also giving them the tools they needed to up-sell, cross-sell, and close deals.
“We often talk about hidden champions”
Axel Thoma
The Storyteller app was few years ago now, but that project gave us the inspiration to think about a delivery model that’s very different from most marketing/strategy/sales agencies.
It taught us that solutions that really worked were the ones that:
were personalised and values-based;
gave customers the opportunity to rethink, recalibrate, and prioritise what they wanted to achieve and why;
simplified complex ideas and established “message-to-market-fit” – AKA unravelling value and translating it to the target audience
When we talk about finding ‘hidden champions’, this is how we do it.
It’s a philosophy that came out of developing the Storyteller app. And it’s the reason we teamed up with SmplCo. They think just the same.
I came 4th in a Europe-wide music competition
I have always had an interest in composing music, but not mainstream styles. I’m more into acid, hard house and 90s techno.
Once upon a time, I got to know a Swiss TV producer. I spent time with him and was fascinated to see how his studios worked.
I learned as much as I could and started collecting kit to build my own studio.
Axel’s homemade studio
Once I built it I wrote and recorded a song that I submitted to a Europe-wide contest.
It was called “Higher” and was a percussion-led techno tune, with South American influences.
The jury was made up of famous techno producers, like Ralf Hildenbeutel who, at the time, was working with famous DJs like Sven Väth and also created the Trance genre.
They really liked the rhytmn and the breaks, and it came fourth out of thousands of entries.
It was recorded on DAT tapes, which are locked away in a box somewhere. I’ll see if I can find them for dust them off for this!
[SmplCo Editor: AND HERE IT IS! Freshly digitised and dust-free! Enjoy.]
I came across it in a dark, dusty back street bookshop when I was in India.
I settled down in the shadows with a cup of coffee and loved it so much I went on to write a thesis on it!
What’s so great is the authors combine sales and marketing and business development, but in a way that works in the real world.
It’s a mix of everything that makes business management spicy and tasty.
The book Axel calls ‘life-changing’
The authors talk about having a ‘differentiated view’. That means, rather than trying to get people buy your products or services based on what you think is most suitable (that’s known as ‘value selling’), you focus instead on ‘value creation’.
That’s much more about being a partner; about helping them open up and navigate their problems, and then recalibrate their expectations so they get the best result.
When you focus on value creation, you find much better ways to serve customers’ needs – and it’s often in ways you or they would never have thought of.
The new partnership between TurbineOst & SmplCo is all about helping you sharpen value propositions, turn them into winning value messages, and letting you deliver them in ways that will help you to conquer the world yourself.
If you’d like to know more send us a message or email SmplCo’s managing partner, Andreas Melvær.
Posted on: April 30th, 2024 by Smpl Team No Comments
Here are the extended highlights of our co-founders, Lasse and Michael, rocking the Impact Awards in Norway’s energy capital, Stavanger. (🍹 And let’s not forget the true star of the show… Tiki barman and SmplCo founder, Bjørn Ivar. 👏)
In this talk, Lasse describes his rules for digital success – and he should know, having taken his software firm, ForgeRock, from nothing to a $2.8bn valuation.
Watch the film to find out:
🚀 Lasse’s rules for digital success, no matter who, when, or where you are
2️⃣ 0️⃣ 2️⃣ 4️⃣ : How you can get investors/colleagues/customers interested in your ideas in such a tough environment
🤖 Where you need to focus to be in with a hope of succeeding
☠ Which AI firms will live and which will die in the next 9 months
… and much more. Enjoy!
If you want to get more advice from our resident Unicorn – or talk any of our team of successful innovators about bringing your Big Idea to life faster, more efficiently, and considerably less stressfully than anywhere else, we’d love to hear from you.
Click here to email our MD Andreas, or leave us a message here.
Posted on: April 22nd, 2024 by Smpl Team No Comments
Meet Line Hjartarson, design thinker, leader, and new Chair of SmplCo. Here, Line talks about her eclectic career, the wild experience that introduced her to the world of entrepreneurs, and why the sound of cowbells makes her shiver.
“I love to throw myself into new things,” says Line
I’m a bit like Pippi Longstocking
My career has been one happy surprise after another. I never really planned it out. Instead, I’ve just been led by my curiosity, a love for tackling challenges, and a knack for jumping headfirst into new adventures.
I guess you could say I’m a bit like Pippi Longstocking; super curious and never afraid to learn something new if I find myself stumped.
I started off my studies in something similar to computer science and my first gig was creating interactive learning tools for the offshore industry.
Then, almost by chance, I found my way into the creative world when an ad agency was on the hunt for someone with my digital skills.
I spent years coding, animating, designing, and doing all sorts of digital work, before shifting closer to the tech world – where I got to flex my project management muscles – and then into full-time design work.
Each time it was a case of getting an itch and wanting to learn more.
After all that, it wasn’t a big leap to blend my tech background and design skills and jump into the world of data and industry, which is where I am now.
My first experience with entrepreneurs was WILD
… It also opened my eyes to the entrepreneurial mindset, which is an amazing thing.
My first start-up project was with a couple of eccentric pilots who were dreaming big about launching a platform for selling planes.
During a trip to an industry event, one of the pilots offered us an aerobatic flight. The thing is, I have an awful fear of flying and he was a stunt pilot!
He assured me he’d be cautious and we agreed he’d give me a taste of it, teaching me about G-forces along the way.
It was wild, like being in a super-fast car, way up in the air with the most stunning views.
Line, feeling the need for speed
I don’t know how many Gs I hit, but my colleagues who opted for the full stunt experience came close to five… and ended up green-faced and rushing for the nearest bushes.
The project gave me my first taste of business and product development, as well as working with creative, entrepreneurial types.
I loved it, and lot of that joy came down to the entrepreneurial spirit.
Whether they’re in startups or big companies, entrepreneurs’ energy and positivity are just contagious.
Mastering the Art of Simple
Solving complex problems and finding simple solutions is my jam. I believe you should be able to explain even the hardest things so that your Mum gets it.
School wasn’t my thing. Not because I wasn’t smart, I just learned differently. I’d spot patterns to simplify things to make it stick in my mind. I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and, in hindsight, that makes a lot of sense.
In the big tech world it often feels like you need a PhD to follow along. A lot of times people don’t understand and, because no one likes to feel or look stupid, they often don’t ask for clarification.
That gap in communication is a missed opportunity when it comes to everything from selling a product, to just getting people on board with your vision (and making them ambassadors for it).
That’s exactly why I joined SmplCo. Firstly, there’s a genuine need for fresh perspectives to perfectly capture market fit, customer journeys, and so on.
Secondly, you have to be able to present these elements in a way that’s both visually appealing and easy to grasp.
And those are two areas where the SmplCo team shines.
SmplCo in action
The sound of cowbells makes the hairs on my neck stand up…
Travelling is my greatest passion, especially when it’s solo and totally spontaneous. It’s led me into some crazy situations, but I always come back with stories and lessons learned.
One of my fondest travel memories is a trip I took to a tiny village in the Swiss Alps.
Getting there was an adventure in itself — a train, a cable car, and a hike were just the start.
I stayed in this charming old B&B run by a 95-year-old guy named Walter and it was straight out of a scene from “The Sound of Music”.
Mornings meant fresh bread and local cheese, and nights were for cozy bonfires with a few other guests. It was magical.
Alpine cows… who knows what they’re thinking?
Hiking in the Alps one day, I ended up alone among these HUGE cows, each with a giant bell around its neck.
The noise was unbelievable, and walking through them felt like navigating a bovine minefield.
They were just chilling and munching on grass, while I was trying not to get bowled over by them. I made it through, but the sound of cowbells still gives me goosebumps!
If you want to catch up with Line, or talk to the team about how we can bring your Big Idea to life faster, more efficiently – and considerably less stressfully! – than anyone else, we’d love to hear from you.
Click here to email our MD Andreas, or leave us a message here.
Posted on: March 20th, 2024 by Smpl Team No Comments
Meet Vibeke Lavik Bjaanes, Innovation Manager at SR-Bank. In this interview, she shares how the bank became so good at digital innovation – something many big corporates struggle to do.
Firstly, why do you think you were the right person for this job?
I studied economics, then spent six years as a consultant at a leading global consulting company.
I think innovation was always the way I was going to go. I have a need to create things and I want to see new ideas come to life. That’s what drives me.
And, just as importantly, I like talking to customers and getting their feedback. You’ve got to have that passion if you’re going to create the right things in the right way for the right people.
The Innovation Department: (l-r): Pia Fischer, Ramtin Matin, Karl Arne Tveita, and Vibeke (not pictured: Simon Havnen Ullsfoss. Credit: Mari Løvås)
How is your team set up?
SR-Bank has an Innovation Department, and within that there are four full-time employees dedicated to digital innovation. We have the main responsibility for innovation in the bank.
In addition to that I’ve teamed up with colleagues from different departments across the bank to focus on one specific innovation project. We named ourselves the “Taskforce”.
This is a great set up; it means we can tap into people with different skills and perspectives – for example one is a designer, another a bank advisor, others in business development.
So, it’s a diverse group with lots of different backgrounds.
This is important because we bring different mindsets and perspectives. The thing that unites us is a serious customer focus and a desire to solve problems for them.
Another thing that’s unusual about it, is we’re all women.
The Taskforce team: Linn Skundberg Jensen, Lene Skjæveland Bø, Lena Mangersnes, and Vibeke
How did you get executive buy-in for it, in the first place?
We invented this set up ourselves as the best way to deliver innovation in the bank. Then we took it to the bank’s leaders and asked them to bless it.
Importantly, we didn’t promise a lot of money to start with. The money comes after.
What we did make was clear there was a problem with the bank’s growth ambitions, when you looked at them through a digital lens.
The leadership team agreed with us that the business needed scalable, innovative digital solutions to meet its growth plan.
We offered to prove our concept by taking on a project. They were very happy with how that went, so we got another project… and it just went from there.
It’s crucial when you pitch something new to align it to the wider business plan. Show leaders what’s in it for the organisation and for them.
Now, that’s some clear messaging…
Where did you start?
We brought people together who we liked to work with; people who were creative, but who also triggered ideas and discussions. Also, we chose colleagues who were quite new to the bank so they had fresh perspectives on how things could be done.
Once we found the right people, we knew we had to start working in a fresh way. After all, we wanted to try something that no one had tried before.
Within the Taskforce, we have set our own culture that has proven to be a smart move.
We have primarily worked in locations outside the bank, we have worked long-days together, and we know each other very well.
This has allowed us to create an atmosphere and a psychological security where we can share crazy thoughts and ideas.
Vibeke talks about our first – TOP SECRET! – project, together
What was the biggest obstacle you faced?
I think there are two big ones: history and prioritising resources.
Banks – like a lot of big companies – have special areas that they are very good at and which they have been very successful in for a long time.
If you have a business model that has worked well for 100-years, then being an innovator will always be a challenge.
On top of that, to carry out a digital innovation project, you must have dedicated resources from the organisation.
If that comes at the expense of daily operational activities, it’s hard to persuade people to prioritise setting aside those resources.
All that means – particularly early on – you have to tell a great story.
We had to make leaders see the potential for making money and for saving money. Then we had to show it would make life easier – for customers and for bank staff.
Prototyping can really help with this, by bringing ideas to life very quickly.
I took one of your [SmplCo] prototypes into a leadership meeting and they were blown away by it. It was really cool and only took five days to complete it.
‘Just act casual.’ The SR-Bank Taskforce, with SmplCo’s Jingjing and Andreas
How do you know which ideas are good and which aren’t?
We have a very structured innovation process, which has six steps. It goes like this:
Generate ideas: we find as many ideas as we can from inside the team and from around the business; opportunities and problems that need to be solved, either internally or for customers.
Evaluate ideas: we worked with the organisation to choose strategic areas to focus on. We use these as guidelines to prioritise ideas that hone in on both customer and business needs.
Score the idea: next our team looks at the proposal and evaluates it from the bank’s perspective, scoring it based on desirability, feasibility (can it be done?), and viability (will it live and grow?). That’s up to us. If the idea gets a good enough score, then it goes on for further investigation.
The problem/solution phase: here we look at whether this is a problem that needs to be solved and ask if we can provide enough evidence that the solution is viable. Now, talking to the customer becomes important. We either share the idea itself, or we go further and conduct user testing with a prototype.
The Product/Market phase: If the customers like the value proposition we’ll create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that delivers the core value of the product or service to the customer and get feedback on it.
Scale and hand back: If the testing all goes well, we will build the product or service and hand it over to the owner to roll out.
Are there any big wins you can talk about?
I think we are the only bank with our own AI GPT – it’s called SR-GPT.
This is an internally developed GPT, made for SR employees, and is an alternative to an Open AI solution.
It helps employees in the bank to find and share information quickly and efficiently, improving productivity.
Hello, there.
Another win was a chatbot, which came from investing in an early-stage start-up.
You don’t always have to create everything yourself. Someone else might be able to solve the problem for you. The key is to pinpoint the right problem and best solution in the first place.
Are there any lessons from projects that didn’t go so well?
Problems tend to come when there are two things wrong.
Firstly, you don’t have stakeholder alignment. We had one project where people got really upset when they weren’t involved at the right time.
Secondly, you must convince people to have a customer mindset. These days you can’t simply dictate to the customer – whether they’re internal or external. You’ve got to test and get feedback.
What you give them doesn’t need to be perfect, but it can be too late if you don’t involve the users from the start.
However, if you do test and listen and learn, that’s when the magic happens.
If you’d like our help with your innovation agenda, let us know. Our SmplCo strategists and designers have helped numerous clients find their market fit, get stakeholder buy-in (& budget!), and win the first customers for their new products and services.
To find out more, can email our MD Andreas or just leave us a message here and we’ll come straight back to you.
Posted on: January 3rd, 2024 by Smpl Team No Comments
SmplCo partners with tech incubators to bring entrepreneurs’ ideas to life, delivering a higher return on investment and getting results faster than ever before.
Here’s one example of how we’re doing that in the beautiful city of Trondheim, Norway’s tech hub.
The Incubator
Proneo is one of Norway’s leading incubators, fostering innovation and sustainable growth in both existing businesses and start-ups.
The incubator has supported thousands of start-ups since it was founded 15 years ago.
Proneo: the big numbers
The Challenge
Our goal is to:
give Proneo’s start-up clients the strongest possible chance of success in their early stages
give Proneo a higher return on its investment in start-ups
boost the incubator’s enviable reputation for innovation
To do this, SmplCo needs to help Proneo’s digital start-ups to:
Rapidly define a version of their idea that is most likely to succeed
Create tangible evidence of their value, to win over stakeholders (who range from investors to wider team members, beta customers, and more)
Save time and money by promoting a ‘fail fast or succeed quickly’ approach
To deliver doing this, we aim to remove many of the barriers that plague start-ups in early stages of development. Our partnership with Proneo is designed to:
Cut out lots of meetings and discussion time
Remove confusion, misunderstandings and misinterpretation
Enable start-ups to quickly get market insight, then adapt their ideas accordingly
Cut the number of iterations an idea needs before it is proved or disproved
Trondheim: where tech and tradition go hand-in-hand
How’s it going?
SmplCo’s advisors have all walked in the shoes of Proneo’s start-ups, having built and sold our own companies (including a $3bn tech unicorn).
We know how to find where the true value of ideas lie – something the team at Proneo quickly recognised.
‘Getting ideas out of entrepreneurs’ heads can be really painful,’ says Jørn Engvik, an advisor to Proneo whose own start-up, Hoopit, will soon reach one million members.
‘But SmplCo doesn’t just do that; you help the start-ups find what’s most important and where they should focus, then help them define their vision and decide how bold they should be.’
What you guys are doing is brilliant
Jørn Engvik, Proneo advisor and renowned entrepreneur
Jørn smiles as he recounts the story of a (top secret!) AI education service we worked on together at Proneo.
‘When you presented your prototype, I thought [the start-up client] might start crying!’ he says. ‘They had this idea in their head for years and you really caught the essence and value of that idea. It was amazing to see.’
Jon-Ivar Holmslet, Project Leader at Proneo, said our approach – which focused around our 5-Day Prototype service – had an immediate impact on that start-up.
‘We were struggling to get someone on board with this idea; someone with a big network that we needed to tap into,’ he says.
‘Then I showed her the prototype you made, and the discussion totally changed. She saw the value immediately, and started listing who we should be talking to about it.’
Jørn Engvik, Entrepreneur and CEO of Hoopit
The Deep Dive
What the big problem for incubators?
‘When you start working with start-ups you have to get over a big hurdle,’ says Proneo advisor Jørn Engvik. ‘That hurdle is how to get ideas out of an entrepreneur’s head and down onto paper, because that can be really painful.’
Often these ideas come spilling out in a confused way, with gaps in logic, process, who the audience is, what they need… and more!
Many promising start-ups fail at this stage because a simple lack of clarity around the founders’ vision means the value of a product can be easily lost.
This can be fatal to start-ups trying to trying to get stakeholders on board, whether for investment, user testing, or any other number of things.
Jon-Ivar Holmslet, Project Leader at Proneo
‘With software, you often succeed because of who you get onboard, not because of the software itself,’ explains Proneo project leader Jon-Ivar. ‘To do that you have to be able to demonstrate what that value is and how you’re going to deliver it.’
‘The thing is, the people who have ideas for digital start-ups often find it difficult to explain them and demonstrate what they want to achieve,’ he adds.
‘At Proneo, we have all these models for value and delivery and stakeholders, but they don’t help the start-ups explain what the user experience will be like.’
It’s around this time many digital start-ups suffer death by PowerPoint, when their confused and confusing visions are presented to stakeholders.
And there’s another big problem that hits entrepreneurs hard at this stage.
‘Many companies haven’t even thought about how they’re going to deliver the product,’ says SmplCo’s General Manager, Andreas Melvær, who leads our Proneo partnership.
‘We’re talking about the flows and structures that are going to deliver the service, and which are the most important things – particularly if you want to prove to stakeholders your idea will succeed in the real world.’
Andreas Melvaer, Managing Partner of SmplCo
How are Proneo and SmplCo fixing the problem?
It all comes down to expertise, both SmplCo’s and that of Proneo’s advisors.
Andreas from SmplCo explains our own approach is based on the deep experience within our consultancy.
‘Our advisors are all entrepreneurs themselves, who have built businesses,’ he says. ‘That means we’re very good at taking ideas, understanding where the value lies – even if the entrepreneur can’t explain that themselves – and then filling in the blanks.’
Two entrepreneurs preparing to present ideas at one of our Proneo workshops
To bring that value to life in a meaningful way, our immediate focus is on the core user journey.
‘First you must ask “what will be the beating heart of my service?”‘ Andreas says.
The answer to that will be based on who you are creating the earliest version of your product or service for.
‘You will make something different if you’re creating something to woo investors, than you would if you were aiming to align teams, test with users, or something else,’ Andreas says.
This is when having the expertise to fill in the blanks becomes crucial.
Andreas says entrepreneurs tend to fall into one of two categories:
The Techies: those with technical knowledge but not the domain knowledge (i.e. they have a good idea on delivery mechanisms, but little insight into the what the customer wants)
The Subject Matter Experts: those who know what the customer needs, but has little or no idea how to deliver on that need
‘Once we’ve recognised where in that spectrum they lie,’ he says, ‘we can tailor our approach, starting with the most important user journey.’
Andeas and his team ask key questions like:
who are the users?
what is the core thing they’re trying to achieve by using this product?
what are the three pieces of functionality you want to deliver that are unique to you, which will help the user achieve their goals
By following this process we get a great sense of what the product or service should be and how it should be delivered.
Then it’s time for the next round of magic as our designers begin our unique 5-Day Prototyping process.
In a week’s time the start-up will have a clickable prototype that showcases their vision and let them tell their story in the best possible way.
And, don’t worry… It’s OK to cry when you see yours!
An example of one of our 5-Day Prototypes (not a Proneo client)
If you are part of an incubator and want to supercharge the progress – and success rates – of your clients, get in touch.
We have offices in Norway, the UK, the US, and Hungary, but we operate all round the world. You can drop our MD Andreas an email here, or leave us a message and we’ll come straight back to you.
