As an 18-year-old living in Norway, Håvard Lillebo wanted to attend high school in the US for a year, to soak up the culture and entrepreneurial mindset.
But the school systems in Norway and USA didn’t have a reciprocal agreement, and Håvard would have had to to repeat his final year of high school in Norway instead of being able to start his MBA.
So he turned to his father, himself an entrepreneur and someone who had ingrained in Håvard the idea that just because something’s not possible now doesn’t mean it’s not possible tomorrow.
Håvard’s father said, why don’t you ask The Norwegian School of Management if they can make an exception: “What’s the worst that can happen – they say no? Well, then you would be no worse off than you are now…”
Håvard called the director to make his case.
And a few weeks later, he received a letter saying he was approved under “special circumstances” to start the MBA program.
In the 20 years since, Håvard has leveraged this ability to challenge the status quo, becoming a serial entrepreneur and launching multiple deep tech startups – often simultaneously! – in clean energy, robotics and nanotechnology.
I spoke with him to learn more about the power of mindset and how it makes the difference between success and failure.
Renita Kalhorn: You have a wealth of experience in scaling businesses, with €140 million in funding and two exits. I’m curious, what’s been one of your most important decisions in building a startup?
Håvard Lillebo: When I was 28 years old, I founded my second company, Innotech Solar, a venture-backed company. When the chairman of the board suggested we bring on someone with more experience in the solar energy industry to replace him as chairman, my immediate gut reaction was, “Actually, why don’t we hire him as CEO?”
This was literally two months after launching the company. But I had been working with Thor Christian Tuv previously at a publicly listed solar energy company and really admired and looked up to him. Back then, because of the company hierarchy, I wouldn’t have been able to be his right-hand man. But now I was in the position to bring him on as CEO and do just that. Normally, most founders don’t just give away the top position in the first three months. But for me, it felt like a step up. And working together, we built and scaled a company to 180 employees, €35 million in revenues and multiple factories.
Renita: Wow, that took a lot of clarity and humility to see that opportunity.
Håvard: Well, I always remember what a successful entrepreneur once told me: the five first hires will make or break the company.
Renita: So on that note, what’s a mistake that’s given you valuable learning in building startups?
Håvard: So many mistakes! Well, they’re only mistakes if you don’t learn from them – they’re actually invaluable gifts I take on my journey.
We had worked for months with two top-rated investors to secure a term sheet for €18 million. But the board decided to turn it down because the valuation was too low. I was furious. This funding would have helped fully finance a €25 million factory expansion.
Renita: Which is very capital intensive.
Håvard: Right. And even though we only had partial funding for the project, €13 million, we continued with the expansion with the belief that we’d get more funding in the next six to nine months.
But then the market went sour and it was difficult to raise. So we went from having a very good offer on the table to going into this negative liquidity spiral where we were strapped for cash.
Renita: In hindsight, it’s easy to see the mistake of going ahead with the project before it was fully financed. But what was your logic at the time?
Håvard: Well, the investors were confident we were going to raise at a higher valuation. And maybe I thought, well, if they’re saying no to this, they must be able to actually give us funding.
Renita: Right, and you can’t take the knowledge that you have now and say, oh, we should have made a different decision.
Håvard: And that’s why I think it’s actually a huge gift. Because today I’m very focused on liquidity management. Lack of liquidity kills probably 95% of startups. As an optimist, you have to believe in a better future. Everything that is wishful thinking has to be outside the model.
Renita: So let’s talk about luck, or how you optimize for serendipity.
Håvard: Identifying brilliant people and finding worthy problems to solve together is my mantra. So earlier this year, I reached out to a LinkedIn connection. I didn’t know much about his specific background but it turned out it was the best you could imagine for one of my projects. He, in turn, got super excited about this new technology and now, we’re in stealth mode working on it together.
So are you lucky when you meet people like this? Sure. But you can also put strategies in place to increase your luck. You can be active on LinkedIn, you can create a personal brand, you can proactively reach out to people.
In the last four years, I raised €8,3 million in equity for five startups, and 87% came from people I met on Linkedin or where Linkedin played a key role.
Read the full article here
