The story an entrepreneur would tell

“You could come up with a really great story,” says Emma Grönlund, Managing Director and co-founder of Freyja Agency. She has just been asked how she became an entrepreneur. Emma laughs a bit, takes a sip of her glass and starts anew.

“It’s been quite a long time, maybe 15 years since I chose the entrepreneurial path. Entrepreneurship was something new and great then. It was just the rise of the startup scene. It was something different and interesting,” she explains.

Emma has always been a builder. In the beginning of her career, Emma felt a role in a big company would have meant limited possibilities to make an impact. Reflecting that, she thinks the root cause for choosing entrepreneurship must have been the desire to build and see concrete results. For her, starting from scratch appealed very differently than jumping in a role in a running business.

Emma’s first company was a webshop selling pilates and yoga equipment. In 2010, she was still finishing her studies at Aalto University. It was the time when there was less competition in the market and the huge global players weren’t so dominant. 

“As a student, it was easy to take the entrepreneurial leap. Well, there was no actual leap. If we would have failed, then so what? In a way there was zero risk. I was still in university studying,” Emma recalls.

Soon later, big online stores started to appear also in Finland. Emma and her peer entrepreneurs faced the question to start building the infrastructure needed to run a competitive online business or do something else. Jumping in the webshop competition would have required heavy investments and significantly changed the tone of the business. The team decided to sell the company and do something else.

“Entrepreneurship requires an open mind. The more you build pre-expectations and pre-set paths for yourself, the more likely you are to feel like failing. And those stories are often the ones that actually end up in a failure. Being open-minded brings opportunities in your way,” Emma says.

Emma continued her path as an entrepreneur. Next, she ended up founding a company that built a platform marketplace for running events. The company gained international traction with over hundreds of thousands of registered users and well over 1000 events in 30 countries. Step by step Emma went forward on her entrepreneurial path gaining experience in the gaming industry, venture building and startup coaching.

“Entrepreneurship must be very fun because I’ve enjoyed being an entrepreneur for so long. Entrepreneurship is definitely a journey and not a destination,” Emma says smiling.

Then came her current company Freyja, a digital growth consultancy. Emma had gained most of her previous experience in product startups. Freyja in turn is a professional services company. Product companies tend to be built on a strong vision of a product and the focus is heavily on product development. In these kinds of companies there is always a remarkable risk that a product-market fit is never found. Emma understood that in a professional services company, the product development component does not exist in the same way. Yet, there are similarities.

“It has been kind of funny to realise that this is also a startup, even though our product is the know-how of our experts. When you set out to build such a company, the definition of product-market fit and ideal customer profile is surprisingly similar, but all ideas and concepts can be tested and iterated more quickly,” Emma reflects.

By the time of this interview, Freyja has celebrated its first birthday. Right now, Emma says she is excited about their accomplishments in shaping their own digital sales process. The team has researched and tested the market, redefined service offering and identified ideal customers. 

“It’s exciting to see that this is resonating with customers. It’s starting to feel like this concept of ours is starting to take shape from the top-level idea into what Freyja at its very core is.”

The interview ends. A couple of hours later Emma sends a Slack message with a smiley:

“The original urge to become an entrepreneur was probably the desire to build something own and make an impact. But then, maybe the true reason why I stayed on that entrepreneurial path after the early enthusiasm, was that as an entrepreneur I could constantly challenge myself. That’s the best part. The fact that there is always something I can improve on and I never feel like ‘hey, now I know everything’. That is the most rewarding part of it all. And that is the story I would tell to everyone who thinks about becoming an entrepreneur.”

Explore the full series for more co-founder stories:

1. Finding meaningfulness in entrepreneurship – Jani Kallio
2. Curiosity leads an entrepreneurial path – Mikaela Nyman
3. Courage, smart risk-taking and a club – Vesa Härkönen
4. The story an entrepreneur would tell – Emma Grönlund
5. Building a company is a journey worth experiencing – Jaakko Karhumaa
6. If you can do it for someone else’s account, why not make it your own business – Ilkka-Cristian Niemi
7. On a mission to transform learning through a purpose-driven business – Marjut Sadeharju
8. From corporate world to GenAI pioneer – Daniel Arroyo
9. The converge of art, people and data – Kira Sjöberg