Oslo Innovation Week was last week. For a few days, the Norwegian startup ecosystem came together to talk about innovation, ambition, growth and what it will take for Norway to produce more growth companies.
I didn’t hear anyone mention successful companies that last. I’ll come back to that.
There was plenty to celebrate. And plenty of familiar demands.
More early-stage capital. More late-stage capital. More ambitious founders. More funds. More exits. More people willing to take risks. And, apparently, more of the courage they seem to have in Sweden and Silicon Valley.
Everyone has a diagnosis. Almost everyone has a solution. Usually, it involves someone else doing more of something.
Founders say investors don’t understand their businesses. Investors say founders burn money without listening to customers. They tend to say that in private, mind you. Both complain about Innovation Norway, openly. The public debate swings between celebrating entrepreneurial courage and questioning what all this money is actually achieving.
There is some truth in these complaints.
However something is missing from the conversation.
An investor once laughed and made an observation that I found both true and funny.
The best moment in the life of a founder, and perhaps a VC fund too, seems to be when a funding round closes. Everyone takes some good photos, sends out the press release and celebrates.
Then what?
I see talented founders building real technology, backed by serious investors. Years of work and significant amounts of capital have gone into their companies. Yet some struggle to explain their sales. They cannot clearly tell you who buys, why they buy, or what makes the business work.
And then comes the hiring frenzy. The talk about going international from day one. They attend seminars on how to scale.
Scale what, exactly?
It is easy to point at founders who burn money, investors who push for growth, or public funding that does not deliver the expected results. But pointing at the problem does not tell us how it developed, why it persists, or what would actually solve it.
When things go wrong, we often explain why that particular company was an exception. Then we move on to the next company, the next investment and the next funding round.
But what if some of these outcomes are not isolated exceptions? What if there are patterns in the decisions companies make, the assumptions they act on, and the way capital influences what happens next?
These are the questions I want to focus on. Not to assign blame, but to understand what is happening and why.
Of course, we may need more. More capital, more ambitious founders, more talent, better support. But before we ask for more of everything, why not start by looking at what is already in the funnel?
We have founders willing to take the risk. We have talented people, technology, investors, public funding and support systems. We have years of effort and significant capital going into building companies.
Are these resources producing good enough outcomes?
Where are they working well? Where are they not? And what can we learn from the difference?
I am examining these questions through a study of Norwegian fund-backed companies. I will share the findings in November.
My point is not that we have enough of everything. It is that we should understand how well we are using what we already have before deciding what we need more of.
Because if we don’t understand the outcomes we are getting today, how can we know what to change tomorrow?
The Avoidable Startup Failure explores how decisions made long before the money runs out can shape a company’s eventual fate.