#36 Thinking big from day 1 to Unicorn | Pål Næss (Gelato, a Norwegian Unicorn)
Afonso Franco · podcast · 2026-04-20 Reader 🖥️
Building a globally significant company requires setting outsized ambitions from day one, staying hands-on through every stage of growth, and treating every operational constraint as a future competitive advantage — and the Norwegian ecosystem, despite its strengths, needs better role models and policy reform to produce more such companies.
practical · mixed — A founder interview mixing narrative (Gelato's journey) with practical guidance (how to think about ambition, internationalization, partnerships, boards). The host steers toward extractable lessons; the guest delivers them through anecdotes. Ultimately argues for a set of behaviors founders should adopt.
Structure
| Part | Role |
|---|---|
| The power of thinking big and role models (opening through Henrik/Stenbeck stories) | Establishes the central thesis through the Tele2 revenue-doubling anecdote and the Stenbeck lineage — ambition is learned from role models and is self-fulfilling |
| Hands-on founder leadership and founder mode | Provides evidence that operational immersion generates both competitive advantages (Gelato Connect software) and cultural resilience |
| Business model evolution and adaptability | Shows how Gelato iterated from B2C to corporate to creator/B2B software, driven by circumstance (pandemic) and curiosity (AWS early adoption) |
| Internationalization lessons | Practical guidance on going global — localization, VAT, cultural adaptation, the premature US launch as a productive failure |
| Partnership philosophy | Prescribes win-win partner relationships with escape hatches — don't become dependent |
| Founder traits and investor relationships | Identifies persistence, storytelling, and FOMO-creation as key founder capabilities; describes good investors as team members |
| Norwegian ecosystem critique and boards | Diagnoses exit tax as damaging, calls for more cross-pollination from established companies (Jotun, etc.) into startups |
Key terms
- perfectly understaffed Small Teams & Compression
A deliberate operating philosophy inherited from Stenbeck/Tele2 — keep the team intentionally smaller than the work demands, so the company is forced to prioritize ruthlessly and focus only on what matters most - luxury problems
Problems that arise only because the company is growing — e.g., needing to automate address labels because volume has outgrown manual processes. These are desirable problems to have. - founder mode Founder Mode
A leadership style where the founder remains deeply hands-on in operations even at scale, as opposed to delegating to professional managers. Referenced as an industry debate. - role models (in the Stenbeck sense)
Not just inspirational figures but people whose specific operational mentality — thinking globally, setting 10x goals — gets transmitted through close working relationships to the next generation of founders (Stenbeck → Ek, Zennström, Henrik) - exit tax
Norwegian tax policy requiring tax on unrealized valuation gains for founders/employees who leave Norway, creating a 12-year lock-in effect that discourages international talent recruitment
Propositions
- explicitSetting an ambitious target (even an unreachable one) forces fundamental rethinking that produces far better outcomes than incremental goals wouldconf: high
- explicitThe importance of role models in startup ecosystems cannot be overcommunicated — Sweden's lead over Norway in tech is largely due to the Stenbeck lineage producing founders like Daniel Ek and Niklas Zennströmconf: high
- explicitFounder-led companies are fundamentally different from and superior to professionally managed companies because no hired executive will match a founder's willingness to struggleconf: high
- implicitBeing hands-on in operations generates proprietary insights that become the basis for entirely new business linesconf: high
- explicitA company should be 'perfectly understaffed' because resource constraints force focus and prevent premature expansion into markets you cannot yet winconf: high
- explicitIt is not automatic that a Norwegian company must expand to Sweden first — founders should think bigger about which market to enter, not just which is geographically closestconf: high
- explicitMaking mistakes in a new market early (even before you are ready) creates learning that makes the second, serious attempt far more likely to succeedconf: high
- explicitNorway's exit tax is the single most damaging policy for the startup ecosystem because it makes it nearly impossible to recruit international talentconf: high
- explicitGreat founders create FOMO — they are storytellers who make customers, employees, and investors feel they must be part of the journeyconf: high
- explicitEstablished Norwegian companies (Jotun, salmon farming industry) contain deep internationalization competence that is underutilized by the startup ecosystemconf: medium
- explicitBoards are overvalued in early-stage companies — if founders own the company, they need good advisors, not a formal boardconf: high
- implicitcorroboratedThe complexity and administrative burden of international expansion is itself a competitive moat for companies that invest in getting it rightconf: highsupports ←Travel Through the Lens of AI with Booking.com CEO Glenn Fogel · p13 — Both treat the operational and regulatory complexity of operating at global scale as a genuine competitive barrier that outsiders underestimate.
Arguments
Audacious goals produce better outcomes than realistic ones, even when they are not fully achieved strength: high
Explicit premises:
- Henrik set a goal to double Tele2 Norway revenue (100% growth)
- The team did not reach 100% but achieved 40% growth
- A realistic 12% target would have yielded only about 8% growth
- The ambitious target forced the team to 'rethink the entire company'
Implicit premises:
- The causal mechanism is that stretch goals change the solution space — they make you reconsider approaches you would never question under incremental targets
- The team would not have rethought the company under a 12% target, even though they theoretically could have
Inferences:
- The optimal goal-setting strategy might be to aim for unreachable targets, accepting predictable shortfall — the 'miss' is still far above what conservative planning would yield
Hands-on founder involvement generates emergent business opportunities that no amount of delegation or strategic planning can produce strength: high
Explicit premises:
- Gelato founders had no printing background but were physically present at production sites
- Their fresh perspective led to efficiency improvements in production workflows
- Printers noticed their Gelato production was more efficient and asked to use Gelato's software for all production
- This became Gelato Connect — now one of three major business lines
Implicit premises:
- Outsider perspective plus hands-on presence is more innovative than domain expertise alone
- Business model innovation often comes from customers volunteering demand rather than from strategic planning
Inferences:
- Companies that delegate operational work to domain experts too early may miss adjacent business opportunities that only emerge from naive, hands-on engagement
Sweden's startup ecosystem outperforms Norway's primarily because of a role-model transmission chain originating with Jan Stenbeck strength: medium
Explicit premises:
- Jan Stenbeck founded Metro, Tele2, and mentored a generation of executives
- Daniel Ek (Spotify) came from a Stenbeck company
- Niklas Zennström (Skype) had the same role as Henrik close to Stenbeck
- Skype founders went on to back and create more companies
- This is analogous to the PayPal mafia effect
Implicit premises:
- The critical ingredient is not capital, policy, or education, but exposure to people who have built large companies — ambition is primarily transmitted through apprenticeship, not instruction
- Norway lacks an equivalent founding figure or lineage
Inferences:
- If this theory is correct, Norway's best intervention is not policy reform but ensuring that its first unicorn founders actively mentor and invest in the next generation
A good investor functions as a team member, not a monitor, and the best investors bring domain-specific operating knowledge strength: medium
Explicit premises:
- Good investors think about your company, ask the right questions, and guide toward right answers
- Good investors understand metrics and can advise on resource allocation
- Bad investors expect things to go smoothly and withdraw support when they don't
Implicit premises:
- The primary value of investment is not capital but the investor's operating experience and active engagement
- The founder-investor relationship is fundamentally collaborative, not adversarial or supervisory
Norwegian startups should not default to geographic proximity when choosing expansion markets strength: medium
Explicit premises:
- Curipod prioritized the US and is scaling fast
- Health tech companies went to Canada first, skipping Norway
- A French company doesn't have to go to Belgium first
Implicit premises:
- The default Nordic expansion path (Norway → Sweden → Denmark → ...) is a form of small thinking that limits ambition
- Market size and strategic fit matter more than geographic and cultural proximity
Narratives
- Henrik Müller-Hansen, at age 29, took over as CEO of Tele2 Norway and immediately scrapped the 12% growth budget, demanding 100% revenue growth. The team achieved 40% — far exceeding what the original target would have produced (estimated ~8%). Revenue went from 1.5 to 3 billion NOK in two years.
→ Core evidence for the proposition that audacious goals produce disproportionately better outcomes by forcing fundamental rethinking - In Gelato's early days, the team handwrote address labels, did customer service, and delivered products on the way home from the office. They called these 'luxury problems' — the day they had to automate meant they had enough customers to justify it.
→ Supports the founder-mode/hands-on proposition and illustrates the 'luxury problems' heuristic — defer scaling solutions until manual processes break from growth - Gelato founders, with no printing background, spent time at production sites observing and suggesting efficiency improvements. Printers eventually came to Gelato asking to use their software for all production — not just Gelato orders. This became Gelato Connect, now a major business line.
→ Demonstrates that hands-on operational involvement by non-experts generates proprietary insights and emergent business models - Næss flew to Atlanta to set up US production with a partner printer, but they hadn't thought through inches vs. millimeters, Atlanta's geographic limitations, or marketing budgets. The launch failed quietly. Years later, the US became Gelato's largest market — but only because the first failure taught them what a serious launch required.
→ Supports the proposition that early, low-stakes failures in new markets create learning that enables later success - Henrik read a small article about AWS before it launched in Europe and redirected Næss (who was in Holland shopping for physical servers) to go with cloud instead. Gelato became possibly the first European company on AWS.
→ Illustrates the value of founder curiosity and willingness to bet on emerging technology; supports the vision/hands-on duality - During the pandemic, Gelato lost major revenue (invitations, business cards), but pivoted within weeks to wall art and home decor products. Being the only company able to produce inside locked-down Italy became a competitive advantage.
→ Supports both the adaptability thesis and the proposition that operational presence in many countries is itself a moat - The Uber first-ride analogy: you order your first Uber, feel smart, brag about it at a party. Everyone at the party then does the same thing. Meanwhile the driver is also evangelizing. The product creates its own word-of-mouth from all sides.
→ Illustrates the FOMO/storytelling proposition — great products create self-reinforcing social proof loops - Norway invented putting salmon on sushi — Japanese salmon is unsuitable for sushi, so Norwegian farmed salmon became the global standard. Used as evidence that Norway can do global B2C.
→ Counters a potential implicit objection that Norway can only produce B2B/commodity exports; supports the 'think bigger' thesis
Questions addressed
- ✅ Why do some startup ecosystems produce more large companies than others?
Role-model transmission chains — ecosystems like Sweden's benefit from a founding figure (Stenbeck) whose mentees built large companies and in turn mentored the next generation. Norway lacks this chain but Gelato and similar companies could start one. - ✅ Should founders stay hands-on as companies scale (founder mode)?
Yes — hands-on involvement generates proprietary insights, emergent business models, and cultural resilience. The most successful large companies still have founder CEOs. - ✅ How should startups approach internationalization?
Think globally from day one, build systems for multi-market operation early, don't default to geographic proximity, invest in getting legal/tax/cultural details right (it becomes a moat), and accept that early market entries will fail but generate learning. - ✅ What role does goal-setting ambition play in company outcomes?
Outsized goals force fundamental rethinking and produce better outcomes even when missed — the gap between an ambitious miss and a conservative hit is enormous. - ⭕ What is holding back the Norwegian startup ecosystem?
Exit tax is identified as the primary policy obstacle; lack of role models is the cultural obstacle. But no concrete mechanism for change is proposed beyond hoping for policy reform and more unicorn founders. - ⭕ When should a startup iterate its business model versus stay the course?
Gelato's core (local production via partner network) never changed, but customer segments and product lines shifted multiple times in response to opportunity and crisis. No explicit framework for deciding when to iterate is offered.
Gaps
- incompleteSurvivorship bias is unaddressed. The entire argument for audacious goals, founder mode, and hands-on leadership is drawn from Gelato and the Stenbeck lineage — all successful cases. No discussion of companies that thought big from day one and failed, or founders who stayed hands-on and burned out.
Read next: Ben Horowitz 'The Hard Thing About Hard Things' for failure narratives; research on stretch goals that backfire (e.g., Sitkin et al. on when stretch goals harm performance) - incompleteThe role-model transmission theory lacks mechanism. Why does proximity to Stenbeck produce great founders but proximity to, say, Statoil or DNB does not? Næss even wishes Jotun would engage with startups — suggesting the mechanism is not automatic. What specifically must a role model do?
Read next: Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems (Endeavor's work on mentor density); Saxenian 'Regional Advantage' on Silicon Valley vs. Route 128 - incompleteThe 'perfectly understaffed' philosophy is presented without its failure modes. When does deliberate understaffing lead to burnout, quality failures, or missed market windows? The US launch was pulled back as a positive example, but no negative consequences of understaffing are explored.
Read next: Literature on organizational slack (Cyert & March); counterargument in Blitzscaling (Hoffman) that sometimes overstaffing is the correct move to capture winner-take-all markets - incompleteThe conversation does not address how Gelato's insights apply to software-only or digital-native companies. Much of the discussion (local production, VAT complexity, physical delivery) is specific to companies with physical operations. The transferability of lessons to SaaS founders is assumed but not examined.
Read next: Contrast with pure-software internationalization stories — e.g., Notion, Linear, or other companies that went global without physical operations