Erik Granholm

Jason Miller 00:01
Hi. I’m Jason. I’m

Nicole 00:02
Fran. This is Bo Peter and I’m Nicole. And this is marketing for what matters, where we explore how marketing paired with a regenerative mindset can uplift humanity, heal the planet, and still achieve profitable business growth.

Bo Peter 00:14
Hello and welcome. My name is Bo Peter alanen, and today I am hosting Erik Granholm, Digital Marketing Manager at the norskin Foundation, Eric shares his journey through the creative industry and how he came to work at norskin in this podcast, he discusses the various initiatives at the impact ecosystem that norskan is creating, and the importance of impact and sustainability. Erik emphasizes the need to inspire and motivate people to take action through marketing and lifting up entrepreneurs as examples to follow, versus leaning on the shaming tactics that we have long seen in the debate around climate change and change in consumer behavior. Erik also highlights the role of storytelling, the importance of in person, events and meetups, and how all of that crosses over to sustainability. If you haven’t heard of the norskin Foundation, it is focused on building a thriving impact ecosystem in different hubs around the globe in order to empower entrepreneurs to solve some of these global challenges at scale, they want to support entrepreneurs and founders to build that impact on the planet, society and the people around them. So without further ado, listen further from my lightning interview with Erik Granholm. Erik Granholm is the Digital Marketing Manager at norskin Foundation, impact ecosystem, supporting entrepreneurs who aim to solve global challenges through technology and innovation. Eric has played a crucial role in promoting nor skin’s mission and expanding its digital presence. And today we’re going to discuss Erik’s journey through the creative industry, how he’s come to work at narscan, and we’ll discuss their dairy initiative, various initiatives in the impact ecosystem, and how it might apply to you. Erik, welcome to the show. Thank you, sir. It’s a great to have you here. So Erik, like I just introduced you before you started working on North King, you were working in the creative industry already. You had your own creative agency already focused on impact startups and venture capitalists. So let’s guide me through this journey, your story, what inspired you to focus on this world impact, and how did you get here today? Cool. So my background is a little bit it’s quite diverse in that sense. I started off very early on I wanted to become a professional football player, and that was the that was the dream. And then when I was around 1718, I tore some ACLs, and I needed to kind of shift, shift my focus. Had a lot of people telling me that I was good at talking with people and working with people, so I kind of lean myself towards sales, and spent, so yeah, around six years selling everything from insurances through via the phone as a tele broker or selling beds, ended up selling cars. And then around 25 i

Erik Granholm 03:08
i felt like, yeah, this this avenue, this trajectory that I’m having now, I love sales. I love helping people from A to B. I’m not necessarily the one who sells the most, but I do really help that, that I enjoy that relationship, but I don’t want to sell cars for the rest of my life. I want to do something creative, move to Stockholm, thinking that, okay, I’ll go to this school called Hyper Island, where I’ll get a cool job at Spotify after two years, and quickly took it into that educational journey. I I was presented with something called ikigai, which is a model where you basically, and maybe, if you know what, they can help me out here. But in a way, it’s mapping out what you can do, what you love doing, what can you get paid for doing? And there’s, I think there’s a fourth.

Bo Peter 04:02
It’s, what does the world need, right? So world need, yeah,

Erik Granholm 04:05
yeah. And listing that down, we have support from the from the Swedish government called CSN, where you get so we can during this education, I get, yeah, I get granted some some money, which is basically the best risk capitalist kind of budget you can have. So I started a creative agency within three weeks of that, because I realized that this is what I want to do. I have two years of learning what I what I can do, become good at that I can use my kind of quickly realize that sales skills is quite close to marketing and communication, and what the school taught me was processes. So now I know how to do that, and I had a bunch of classmates who I could work with, and all of a sudden this former student came to school. So he worked at Norman Foundation, and he presented basically this idea where we’re going to save the world through entrepreneurs. I was like, well, that’s my target audience. That’s how I’m going to help the world. So that guy connected my my ikigai and my business idea of, okay, let’s provide creative services to these entrepreneurs where I, over two years, will actually just work on my hard skills. So I also myself, can be a UX designer if needed, or, yeah, go into projects and serve as well. So that kind of set off my, my creative agency pattern. So six years in sales, and then 655, years in as an entrepreneur running creative agencies, and North Korean was part of it from the start, in that sense, leading up to this job.

Bo Peter 05:54
Awesome. Well, thanks for bringing me through that journey. First of all, I love that you were able to go through the series of pivots and find your way into something that you really enjoy doing, especially around the ikigai, sort of the personal development world as a personal passion, next to my marketing as well. So I totally get that, and love that you were able to really attach to this mission of, yeah, supporting entrepreneurs, and through that, be able to impact to the world. Now, maybe this is too much of a why question, but what, what drew you into that mission, what wouldn’t spoke to you, what inspired you and and hopefully with that, we can see like, how it might inspire, inspire other people who, who might be listening

Erik Granholm 06:39
here, what inspired me to, kind of, like, the pivot towards impact then, or towards,

Bo Peter 06:44
yeah. What attracted you? Like, when you heard this, this former student who came and talked about this, you’re like, Yes, this is what the world needs, and this is what I’m attracted to. Let’s Let’s go, yeah.

Erik Granholm 06:56
I think it was the statement that they had running for them then an open I mean, the nonprofit organization founded in 2016 This is around 2019 early 2019 where the student comes and lectures for us. And the the phrase and the taglines that you’re working with then in Stockholm, is to let everyone know and educate everyone that impact and profit goes hand in hand. You know, you can build a build a business with this from the start, and that’s what we should have done, and that’s what we should do, should do now. And that, I think, just clicked in me, saying, Okay, this is, yeah, this is where I if this is possible, and this is what these people are doing. That’s where I wanted to be so, I think. And I started with people. There was this great saying that so, and another lecture at this school came to us saying, people need people. So that was kind of the fundamental base for me. Think I’m quite the extrovert as well. That’s where. And then finding, finding, figuring out, okay, here’s a lot of like minded people that share my share my values, and that I can get energy from, which makes it fun. And for me, at the end of the day, being a creative and want to finding, finding it meaningful and fun to create, and that’s what I get paid for. I mean that that’s the icky guy, right? I need energy to do that. It’s an energy game, just like sales was an energy game. So I think that finding the people who I had shared values with that could offer me that exchange of energy, and I could provide energy to them. That was the foundation that I was looking for. And then, of course, part of that is to explain what my values are, but as you maybe, as we can figure out, one of those was to have a positive and make a positive dent in the universe when it comes to social impact and the environment and the society, if I couldn’t do it as a football store, then I won’t be able to sell master cars or diesel cars or post a few cars then make that, you know, then, then maybe my own pocket, or someone pocket, is going to get it richer. But this is, this is my tribe that the North Wind managed to kind of like gather here.

Bo Peter 09:16
Yeah, amazing. My, my, my personal theory on fulfillment in life is that we definitely need to have contribution be part of that and ongoing personal growth or just continuous development. And it seems that, well, when we’re able to do these things as well as meet our other human needs, that we’re going to get a lot of energy out of that. So I really like that you used to work, you know, you’re giving energy, you’re getting energy out of it, and that kind of continues to fuel you. And that’s a very like clean source of motivation for you, because it just yeah, it keeps you motivating you see the impact that you’re making, and that just keeps you fueling you to keep to keep going further.

Erik Granholm 09:52
Yeah. And then I have to say as well, used to give you the full spectrum here, that the macro kind of. And of money and capital moving towards impact Stockholm being kind of one of the it’s a small scene in that sense, but big in the tech and innovation. And seeing that trend going there also made it feel like from if we remove the kind of the what really what sounds really nice, to make this about the personal development and how sustainability and impact usually only have to come from an almost an emotional place to say that, yeah, this is what I stand for. It was also a smart like, like I said I was, it was smart moves put myself on that corner. But it’s, it made sense from a business perspective, you know, it’s like Niklas all about co founder of clown, I say I’m going to put all my money towards this lane. And the industry responded very well to that. And now, and like doccom was very mature for for that scene to kind of grow. Then I was like, Okay, this is, this is interesting from a business perspective as well. This is early on where you can establish communities or new types of funnels, maybe, or position negative agency as the we are the best working with impact startups. What is an impact startup? Okay, this is what we’re gonna from a we’re gonna own that SEO,

Bo Peter 11:18
Yeah, amazing. Now it’s, it’s, I like that you talk about the cultural, the business, cultural identity of Stockholm, and wanting to grow into this impact, into sustainability space, and that you see that trend going towards this area, because that certainly will motivate you a lot more. I’ve lived the majority of my life in Bay Area, Silicon Valley. Everyone knows it, of course, but it’s very, you know, growth driven, and not always growth for impact. But like, how can we build better software, solve more solutions? And those solutions or create more solutions, aren’t always, you know, defined or even considering the impact aspect or the people aspect. It’s from my perspective and my experience. I’m not going to say this is universally true for every startup or every company, but there seems to be certainly a profit motivation over looking at the triple bottom line or looking at this broader thing. So that’s certainly something I think that Silicon Valley can look for, but that’s just my personal opinion. Yeah, awesome. So you’ve been working with North skin for, I believe, nine, nine months now. How has your perspective on on impact or your role in this world developed since, since joining?

Erik Granholm 12:35
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it’s one of my biggest learnings that I kind of or biggest insights that supports me to learn and develop a little bit in my both in my content development, straight up, you know, like how I speak to the to the audiences, to how I work with my team members in in various entities of the Northern ecosystem, because we have a couple of funds in various stages placed around the world. They also have different hubs in one in Stockholm, yeah, one in Spain, Barcelona, and one in Rwanda, Kigali and the world, it’s the definition of impact means something completely different in Rwanda Kigali, as it does in in Stockholm, for instance, or in Barcelona, so and it was basically, for me as a on a more individual level, it was the first time where I working a lot, been working a lot of startups and VCs, course, that is, everyone wants to have a global perspective and start from that point of view. But it’s quite local and quite niched audiences that you want to kind of connect with, whether that investors or talent or Yeah. So no point was a nine months in. It’s it’s a learning a learning journey to talk to a broader audience, but you need to do it and establish and become very relevant locally. At the same time that your brand needs to have a global kind of red thread and the taglines to the content on the website, everything needs to come together. And of course, that’s the theme work here. But my learnings was definitely around. Well, for instance, you I read in or listened to your episodes before when you talk about sustainability, and sustainability can mean so many things, just like impact, which is still a fairly new I mean, it’s getting bust up now, like the impact is starting to to become almost a little bit mainstream, at least in my LinkedIn feeds and so on. But it means something completely different in one of your as it does here. And to to then have some patience in how you how we establish that, and that is really coming into the shape now, 999, months in for me to see, like, Okay, this is a i. This is a long term game, and to adapt to that, I’m also the guy, have you done that marshmallow test? Do you know what that is? Yeah, that’s

Bo Peter 15:08
the marsh word.

Erik Granholm 15:09
You know, as a kid, they test the test that if you were provided with the marshmallow, and if you would wait by a minute and not eat it, you will get a second one. Me as a personality type, I would eat it right away. So I like the short term wins. So I think that was a part of why this is the spin, the learning to kind of I need to have a more long term perspective on this.

Bo Peter 15:36
I’d love to unpack this a little bit more. Where are you seeing these challenges coming up where you’re like, Okay, maybe this isn’t gonna I’m not gonna get the result that I’m looking for in the short term. Let’s stick more long term. Is it certainly on the Norse can grand global strategy, or is it even for the startups that you’re working for on an impact level that they have to think long term? Help Me, let’s unpack this further. I’m so interested.

Erik Granholm 16:01
Yeah, cool. I think it’s, yeah, it’s very different from from a startup point of view to Norway, and in itself, I would say there is quite the momentum here in Stockholm, where we last year saw, for instance, 75% of VC capital being invested was towards impact startups. Mean, 75% which for us is basically, does that mean that we made it, you know that? Or, like, are we getting close to where we to a big milestone here? No. I mean, that’s the straight up answer, but that’s such a such a signal to the work that has been done over the years since 2016 here, and then assuming that, yeah, we can then impact means the same thing. For instance, in Kigali, Rwanda, where, here it could be a giant drone that there’s historical air forestry that does, instead of ruining in the ecosystems, I’m going to ruin their pitch now. But instead of ruining this with forests to for through the depot the normal forestry that is today, and they developed a giant drone that comes in and cuts down a tree and picks it up and moves it, which is looks amazing. So that is quite a niche and innovative and and tech approach that we can see in startups here, that kind of offers because of the maturity in the landscape here, which which is also present in in Rwanda Kigali, for instance. But impact would maybe mean to create more jobs in that or to, yeah, activate the economy at a broader scale. We have in I think they’re located in Nigeria, an accelerator alumni and portfolio company called sunfy, they are handling blackouts through renewable energy. So it’s, I like to think things in a linear way. It also aligns with the, I think all the creators hearing this like the Double Diamond process. I think I’m a process geek in that sense, seeing it in a linear, linear way. So I would say Stockholm, if we have Stockholm in the in the kind of in the front, almost as a lighthouse, saying, like, this is, this is where we’re heading, even if Barcelona and YALI are on their own journey, then in this on this linear process, probably going to look different as well. It’s not going to be the same as as Stockholm at all. And the idea of an open is to have 10 houses in the next upcoming years. So it’s going to be interesting to see, then how the local markets are kind of responding, and is that mirroring the countries or the areas of its own. And then, yeah, the creative for startups do um, it’s, it’s, there’s one thing kind of that we both share, that’s the challenge of impact and talking about it and talking about sustainability in that sense, I’m gonna, I’m gonna park that, and then the like, the key challenge for startups is to budget their creative needs. It’s usually something that comes very late. If you also know, if you have this on a linear scale, you have a startup going from an ID on a napkin to early stage to see to series eight to then becoming a scale up or growing their marketing needs and how they communicate changes throughout their brand does as well. They say they want a brand in the early stage. That means a logo, a couple of colors and so on. So there’s a need to properly budget, put creative services within the budget of that so DCS can respond to it early on. I think that’s the. Yeah, that’s a challenge and a casual solution. The challenge that we both have is that people are not at the end of the day. We’re talking about wanting to everyone wants to here in this community, at least, or Naric system wants to help their customers, or people in general, to transition from one type of behavior to learn this new way of acting. Or if, either, if that’s through a product of having something that someone, a client or a customer, have a more sustainable behavior, or if it’s for us, at no point, we want people to get educated about the meta crisis that is happening and then to kind of support our startups or solutions, or just basically be part of the solution that we talk about. Work for one of the impact startups, like use your career for good, but impact and sustainability and these metrics, the challenges that started with a long buildup is that it’s boring and people are not rational. So there’s so many information campaigns, you know, say there’s this amount of plastic in the ocean, there’s bullet points of data points, like talking about their problems. And then we can come up as creators. We can come by marketers. We come up in with the most creative ways of explaining this. It’s usually the ones that is a bit irrational or very close to the actual behavior, the one that is ruthlessly true and that kind of connects with the audience and makes them maybe then change, become a customer or buy something that then makes this shift. And yeah, it’s it. Usually it tends to get boring. I mean, we have bunch of information campaigns talking about what is bad in the world and what is what is burning and what is melting, and what is how are we, yeah, in what ways are we living beyond the our planetary boundaries, from a business perspective, but also as human beings. So this change, we’ve been talking about it. A lot of people have been talking about it for a long time, that we need to kind of do and pursue. So we share that same challenge in how do we how do we make this cool? How do we make this cost, have fun and people have Yeah, no control to just ride with it and see, oh, it wasn’t that much friction in my Yeah, in what I was already doing. Maybe

Bo Peter 22:32
great. So I mean, there’s a lot of what you said, and I want to get back to some of the points. I’ll start with just how we communicate to end consumers or end clients for these impact and sustainability businesses, because this is a big question mark that we have here at peaceful media, and a question that we’re trying to uncover with this marketing for what matters podcast is, how do we as marketers, as creatives, deliver this message in a way that will motivate and inspire people to either adopt new products or services and make that transition from what might have been a default, potentially non sustainable process or focus, or whatever it is that is being used towards something that is potentially more, yeah, sustainable, or at least Carbon neutral, or whatever it is, every little step helps. So on with another guest, his name’s Andrew Sims. He has written a book called bad advertising, bad advertising, and with it, he makes a very convincing case, like you just pointed out, there’s tons of information out there, and information campaigns and say, you know, the world is burning to do its plastic in the oceans. We’re using too much energy or and we need to develop more sustainable initiatives, etc, that all of this is being drowned out by advertisers who represent companies with carbon heavy lifestyles, whether it’s more cars, more travel, you know, fast fashion, all sorts of different ways there that are just flooding the airways being ever present, even in the Euro Cup, which is coming to a close soon. You know, some of the main sponsors are people. Are our Qatar Airways and other companies that are certainly not helping make the environment a better place. So his, his his campaign about advertising is that we should ban companies that are responsible for high levels of carbon emissions from being able to sponsor sporting events or even be able to advertise in like, the middle of the city, for example. And it’s through his campaigns that there are actually now local councils that are considering this. Hey, yeah, these advertisers do not represent our values. They don’t represent the mission that we have as a company, or not as a company, as a locality, or something like that, and we should stop allowing them to. You know, basically put this message out there that is directly counter to what we’re trying to accomplish in the impact and sustainability space. So I think that’s that’s super interesting on the one side, and then on the other side, it’s, yeah, I mean, people are so used to the message these days of the world’s burning, everything’s going to shit. You know, they so far the what I’ve been hearing is that, instead of trying to say that, you know, to shame people into doing something different, that we got to find ways to inspire them to take action in different ways and see that they can actually have have that impact. Yeah. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about that is how, how next to the information campaigns, how are you looking to move the needle for for consumers there?

Erik Granholm 25:55
Yeah. So I think one of the privileges that I have as a marketeer is at Norman Foundation, is that we’re we don’t do performance marketing, and what I mean by that is that we don’t do paid ads. So it’s a straight up organic growth game, which then, yeah, forces us to focus on on the content and the storytelling of it, and kind of our brand and brand positioning is always at the table. We I don’t have to, as I did as a car salesman, hang off my conscious with, like, with a with a with a coat hanger, you know, saying, like, yeah, now it’s all about sales and bottom line, no, it’s always about brand positioning and and, yeah, the quality of the of the content and what we do, and what has been successful is to never really talk about us. Yeah, we someone. I don’t know who it was before I started figure out that maybe it was the I’m going to give Daniel and Nina and my team this credit to figure out that it was all about the role models, and to tell the stories of our founders and to celebrate them and push them and support them in all the ways that we can together with having dedicated teams who do everything they can for the communities in terms of Yeah, events, partners, services, meetups, or intros to investors and so on. And when I say that we do focus on doing good events, I talk about, yeah, let’s, let’s make really good, good events. That kind of makes this the go to. What is a place to be proud of, to be be a part of. So it when we do highlight the role models of the founders and tell the stories of them, we have, we have the founders feeling like we they are backed and at the end of the game, at the end of the day, for instance, LinkedIn, if you want to do an algorithm kind of connection here, it’s all about network, right? So I think that’s in the win for norfren To have a good connection early on with their founders, who we then tell the stories of in various ways. So we have formats that is called member stories, where we highlight them just quite we just pick a member in the in the various houses or hubs or portfolio companies and tell that. Tell the story through through social media. It’s running an accelerator program which ends up with having a stage which is basically as big as it for rock stars, but it’s impact founders who is on that stage, getting that attention, where they do the their pitches, which is another way of telling the same story and connecting them with speakers like Donald schmattenberg or Nate Hagens or Kate Raworth, who then connect theories, philosophies around the meta crisis, the donut economy, planetary boundaries with these, these experts and other people around it, connecting them with the with this, the narrative of these solutions and that are coming out of this and the latest. And then we tried to put them on put them on screens everywhere. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but we’ve put a lot of startups on the NASDAQ tower in York. We just recently released a podcast with Alexander scored and Spotify, where we had eight startups and impact startups being the topic for each each episode, which is a new platform of telling the same the same story. So we are we keep on learning. Kind of try to push find new ways of how do we Yeah, how do we put our founders and impact service on this pedestal that makes them become the role models for others? So we hopefully inspire others to use their career as force of good, or to start something up, or in that sense. But it’s also that by doing that, we are allowed to, we talked about the there’s so many information campaigns, we are then allowed to put in these impact metrics or impact targets in the in the narrative, saying, yeah, it’s part of a business case. Now that these there’s this amount of plastic in the world, for instance. So we talk about a successful startup being an impact unicorn, where it has supposed to be impacted 1 billion people’s lives, instead of having that value of its company. And yeah. Having these different formats and these different initiatives allows us to in in our storytelling and in our copywriting, or in our yeah content development, feel it with nuggets of education about we’re basically, in a way, saying the same thing like this, is this fit that is going on. Here’s we’re optimistic. Then I take openness and here’s someone who’s dedicated their life and all the other they have to solve it. Here’s their innovative ways to do Yeah, of solving it. Yeah, I got carried away now,

Bo Peter 31:39
yeah, no, it’s amazing. I love, I love the enthusiasm and the energy. So, I mean, for me, it serves as another data point to what I was getting at earlier, is that we can’t just tell people a, you know, from the world’s the world’s not doing great, you know, and expect them to do something with that information. And that’s what I really like about that, how we fix this podcast from from your company, from North skin, and then also you have the impact 100 list, the 100 startup founders, I believe, or startups that are doing great impact in the world. And I love the way that you share this like it’s you’re telling a story to inspire others, to showcase the role models and showing other people, Hey, you can do it too. And maybe that doesn’t mean you have to start your own company, your own impact startup, but you can go work at one of these. That’s a great another resource that you have on northscan website is you’re listing the jobs at all of the companies that you’re supporting. So for anyone that’s listening and you’re like, hey, I want to work at an impact startup, go check out that resource. Certainly put it in the show notes. But I think that’s, you know, these are the sort of the ways that we can each help as individuals, also within our career. You talked about your ikigai, but we can also find a job at one of these places and do that work as well. So, yeah, no, I love, I love that you’re supporting my theory of like, we need to find ways to inspire people to take action, and you’re doing that with the podcast, the list and all these other resources that you have fantastic. So I think towards, you know, building this brand, you’re, you’re, you’re building the brands of these companies, but you’re also building nor skin brand at the end of the day. And how is that helping you then get more fuel in terms of maybe VC funding or and other measures to help do this mission of you know, impacting 1 billion people’s

Erik Granholm 33:28
lives. The mission of of Norfolk is to yet build thriving impact ecosystems where where global challenges are sold by entrepreneurs at scale, and then making the entrepreneurs and founders have a positive impact on planet and society and people, where the impact unicorn would be by the 1 billion people impacted positively metric in that sense As a brand, then it’s and the brand then it’s the brand development that’s happening now. I think it’s super for the brand management or brand geeks out there, if you look at no now something is happening where it’s going from a local presence in local from East and Stockholm and and then Sweden, and then to have both quite a development to be a bigger player. Now, you know, with the various it’s gone from one nonprofit organization and one fund and VC to five funds and three hub. So right now, the brand also needs to kind of recommit to a more of a global presence and that matches our initiatives, and kind of can continue, yeah, we can continue to have this organic growth that has been the legacy and that I’ve been been carrying on here now for my my period. It, but yeah, the so what’s what’s happening now is that we need to have need, we need to take a little bit of a larger jabs globally. I think we need to connect to a broader audience, also, to make sure that we are if a member from Kigali, or a member from Barcelona, or member from Stockholm comes to North Korean or, like our various touch points digitally or in the real world, that needs to be aligned. So we need to, but also for since we’re not talking to a larger audience, we need to have a narrative that both a lot of people can connect with and at the same time, we need to be locally relevant, or to be, as I said, before, impact means something else in all these different markets, and for the funds who act in different markets and stages across The world as well, to be okay, how do we this ecosystem is quite diverse. It’s focused, but it’s also has a lot of different touch points. So we think we found a found a way, and I can see that as well, being that I’m fairly new to the organization, still that I have this, I still have some outside in perspective, but I can see how all the foundation of the brand is spot on, like we’re since we don’t do performance marketing, the organic growth is just this curve that goes like this, and contacts and followers, and I don’t know if, but if, if, if you feel the same, but as a marketer and like give from a data point of view, and seeing reports that goes like this over time, over years, and just that’s the best graph for me. Like, I don’t rather that than this, yeah. So it’s about maintaining that and the pieces are there. Like, we know how to do our content works. You know, the flow is working, and the momentum that comes from having a lot of dedicated and good teams in the different funds and the different programs and the influx of startups is is creating this momentum and our storytelling that comes with that, with Yeah, role models, and that’s in various ways as lift and talk about these problems and solutions. Now is the time where we need to talk about, I think maybe it was your last guest, the guy who had done some work with Nike also talked about the I think there’s a need for a new kind of narrative. There’s there’s a need to redefine what success means and redefine for us that means, I think, how we’re going to approach it is by storytelling now that we need to embody and talk to and connect to a broader audience is talking about redefining what progress means and talk about this. It’s little bit the same like the success of a business shouldn’t be your goals, growth goals. It should be connected to some impact targets as well. And there’s this, do you know who Nate Hagens is?

Bo Peter 38:15
I don’t tell me more. I’m gonna read this

Erik Granholm 38:18
quote for you. I think that’s going to be the challenge that our brand now has, because we’re quite ambitious. I think this is what we and we’re not going to do this alone, where they’re radically transparent, and that’s one of our values as well, and we are open to collaborate with everyone. But what Nate Hagan says he’s a director on the of the Institute of study and energy and our future. It’s a long title, but he says there are two main stories in our modern world, the money, technology story that sits a cop and ecologically and natural systems Foundation, and linking these two into a coherent whole has not really happened in any meaningful way, but it’s imperative for livable futures for our and other species. And over at the Stockholm resilience centers here, that’s working with the theory of us overshooting our planetary boundaries, there’s nine of them, which is a really interesting theory to kind of incorporate in our in the communication. For anyone who’s creating content around sustainability and impact. And this, I think, is what we’re going to do now, and this is going to be the challenge of our brand to Okay, let’s talk about progress in a new way. And how can we use our platform now to also bring in expert beakers? How do we take Yeah, bringing new role models to this that also same same mission that we are on our own. And I think that what Nate talks about, about marrying, you know, we have the economy story on top of the natural one is kind of it suits my visual point of view as well. Of so. We are in the world saying, like, yeah, these need to come together and work as one for this to this to work a lot. But yeah, I think that’s going to be our next, next jab to take at norcon in a brand positioning point of view. And yeah, again, having a privilege of as a core, the no point. Foundation is a nonprofit. So we don’t do paid ads. We need to. This is a, and if you would hear from our founder, he would say, this is a, this is a for life type of thing that we’re doing. You know, it’s not a big commitment, it’s a long term thing. So we also have the privilege of working more long term and organically with our content. In that sense.

Bo Peter 40:48
Well, you certainly have that privilege. If you continue to see the metrics that you’re looking for climbing upwards on a at a at a steady pace. That’s great to see. So I mean, I think especially with the how we fix this podcast, from my perspective, looking at the work that you’re doing, it’s putting you in, certainly in a more global audience. I think I’ve seen that podcast hit the top 10 list for podcasts on Spotify in multiple countries. So it’s certainly giving you that much more global audience. And I think you know, as you’re describing, the different touch points for narskin is that you’ve got those localized houses for people to for entrepreneurs to step forward and get the resources that they need to get going, and, of course, also inspiring about a global level. So I think that makes it very tangible, is that someone actually can go to a physical place, maybe not everywhere in the world yet, but at least some of these, these houses, and start making that impact at that local level, or at least start learning about it. So it’s fantastic. I definitely think you’ll continue to progress forward. And I like the story that you tell her, what how that narrative needs to change? Yeah, I hope that you’re able to get that mission going as soon as possible, of course. Now I was curious. You talked about impact metrics. What are some of those impact metrics that you think companies should consider when they’re setting up their business or shooting for some goals? What metrics should they measure themselves by? So

Erik Granholm 42:19
yeah, that’s a super interesting question. I think we are in the kind of midst of really, it gets better defined by each year, but impact, whether that is impact investing impact startups, or building a sustainable organization as a whole, or taking what is not a sustainable organization and making that shift to become a fully sustainable organization. Still, we’re still kind of in the early days. I think we’re coming. We’re coming a long way, but also when it comes to impact metrics and targets, I would say, from a get go, if you’re we’re talking from this from to entrepreneurs or startups in general, the to incorporate it in your business model is, for instance, a need for you, for you to become a Norfolk portfolio company at Norway VC, their impact targets, such as a CO two emission or Yeah, straight up data points that has to do with sustainability or the environment, that the product or service, the outcome or result of it will entail it demand, if that is part of the business case, that is part of the investment. And so from the start, I would say that we usually say we look at the early stage startups that comes in and vet them to define if they’re an impact startup or not. Usually comes down to if they have the goal to would be to it’s equal in English, un GDP goal, like the development was, yeah,

Bo Peter 44:00
the Sustainable Development Goals, right? SDG,

Erik Granholm 44:03
yes, yeah, that that is actually part of your pitch deck, and more, most importantly, part of your idea business model, not only as a as a vision, but what is when it when can you hit? What target in that so it becomes a because business case, business lingo, and business seven is around sustainability and impact targets in that sense, connected to your pitch deck, connected goes to it, and all of a sudden you’re very you stand out in a crowd, and you are very on the radar, for instance, for from the Norman funds and then moving forward and kind of progressing as zero, as an impact startup, and that needs to trickle down into more detailed metrics, of course, that has to do with the product or service. Sector that you’re in that kind of changes if you’re in AI, or if you’re in energy, if you’re a FinTech, health, tech. We don’t have a specific focus here, so we it’s quite broad. But yeah, I would say that SDG goal part of the business model, together with looking at the impact targets, not as a slide of its own, but connecting it to to the traction and roadmap slide in your pitch deck, I will be the challenge and go to.

Bo Peter 45:38
So let’s say there’s someone who’s listening, who’s an entrepreneur, or wants to become an entrepreneur, and they want to do more in this impact space. You’ve already given us some great metrics. Does Norris can offer any resources where they can start learning about this, or how to incorporate this into their vision for their company, or into their pitch deck, or any of their, you know, business assets?

Erik Granholm 46:01
Yeah, cool. I think on on our YouTube, there’s various pitches where you can get depending on how you get inspired, how you learn. So you have the pitches there where you can see it from a stereo, on how it’s part of not only like business model, but the whole narrative, the whole idea behind the company, and then you have on open VCs, either social channels or their website, and you have an have there or like our impact report, which does exactly this, talking about the impact targets and how it’s connected to their investments, and what the impact that we actually achieved, not only in the sense of a startup, for instance, like focusing on energy, but also other types of impact, which is around diversity, having tackling the gender gap in payment or in the amount of female founders, for instance, also the amount of jobs that has been created is different type of impact metric. So I would say the impact report will be a little bit juicier. I think that 60 pages to go through, highly recommend it. And then, for the more visual learners, look at the checkout or YouTube channel for some pitches from the accelerator companies. I think that they are three minute long, so filled with energy. So I would, I would say those two for, for that

Bo Peter 47:33
awesome we’ll certainly link some of those resources. Are there any of the companies that you see nor skin working with so far with our startup, or something that’s scaling up a little bit that you’re particularly fond of, or that you feel like has done a good job of integrating sustainability into their core business?

Erik Granholm 47:53
Yeah, I think it’s interesting when you ask me the question in that way, because I feel like we have again. Now I’m going to check this. I think we have a couple of. I need to double check my number here. Let’s see. I’m going to say, I’m going to say, we have over 3000 entrepreneurs. I think it’s more, but we have 3000 let’s I think it’s close, closer to five. But around 3000 entrepreneurs, everyone has, then ability as part of their core business model. So either if you check our impact 100 list, you would see 100 ways solutions that’s going to fix the future that kind of the idea, and they all have this Incorporated, I would say some startups that we are particularly proud of. I’m kind of, I’m proud of them all, and I feel like that’s the easiest answer, but I would Yeah. If you look at brimstone and semvision, two different startups that both go about tackling concrete and the CO two emission, the concept of that which is twice the bad effects to the world that the aviation industry has, and they’ve, you know, come up with a new way of constructing and doing concrete, which is just crazy when you think about it, How you can reduce CO two emissions in at such a scale, and quite rapidly they’ve come up with this process, and now they’re scaling it into larger factories. So it’s not only like impact startups are getting fairly big. You have ironride, you have North voltage, also part of our ecosystem. Ein ride is autonomous trucks. That was two siblings who walked into the northern house here, the OG house here in Stockholm, and they had big ideas, and they came with their roll ups, and all of a sudden, now they have, I don’t know, over 500 employees. And yeah, it’s the leading autonomous trade work provider in the world. So it, yeah, there’s quite a there’s quite a bunch that I’m particularly proud of. And then, for various reasons, there’s some cool tech ones like that, the flying giant drone that’s going to pick up trees air forestry, or, yeah, you have a little bit more close to heart, maybe as as what has happened, been happening over the years. You have kultra in in Spain, which is kind of covering Europe’s e mobility in terms of scooters and electrical article scooters as well the two wheel kind of you had boy and lime, and I don’t know if you had us in the in the States, yep, such a peak trend or hype around that. But yeah, cool tries coming around in Europe. And then, yeah, there is ocean eco structures in Spain. They are reconstructing the Marine, very biological kind of life in ports and harbors, which is amazing. You have a Kling who’s being building with vinia, who’s building a an online kind of digital mine to make the most out of lithium and batteries. And he was an internet at North vault works with lithium batteries. And then took an idea that said, okay, we can connect the world and make sure that these resources don’t end up at because there’s going to be a boom in electrical cars. So, yeah, he built a company around that. Well, yeah, no, I have a lot of there’s so many startups here,

Bo Peter 52:12
so many examples. So I suppose, I suppose you direct people to the impact 100 list if they want to get more inspiration for themselves. Can it

Erik Granholm 52:20
be anything different when two marketeers talk to each other like, I’m always gonna go come down to a call to action?

Bo Peter 52:26
I mean, there has to be a call to action here. You know, there has to be somewhere for people to get more of this inspiration. But, but, but, Thank you, Eric for listening at some of these examples. I know I’m forcing your hand here a little bit, but I do appreciate it. I know we’re getting towards the end of our time here, so I’m just, I’m curious, you know if you could make one bold prediction, or where you see trends going in terms of the future of marketized marketing, and maybe, I know you said, you know, do performance marketing, but also advertising. So where’s the future of sustainable marketing and advertising going? What? You know, if you could make a prediction, what? What might it be?

Erik Granholm 53:11
Oh, that’s a really good question. I think. Okay, so a bold statement, I would say that there’s going to be I think there’s two things that’s going to happen. I think there’s going to be a realization that physical events and meetups people going to realize that that is worth that’s going to be the work. One of the marketing initiatives, or like tactics to build an audience and build a tribe that has been a little bit lost. I think there’s a lot of talk about building online and digital communities, and how you do that through marketing. I think has been a lot about focusing, yeah, on content. And a lot of business ideas starts with content. I think that’s still correct. But I think a tactic that’s going to jump to the shorts, it’s, it’s the physical events that I think is a little bit untapped. Now, if you become really good at running physical events, that, and why I saying this is that I think we’ve talked a lot about how we build relationships online, and for me, the strongest kind of outcomes, and how we see we see what people are engaging with, our content and so on, and where we have the best results is through the people that we’ve met and built relationships with. So I think that’s going to be put on top or like, that’s going to be, that’s a that’s a tactic that’s going to grow more and more, and then and on on advertising. I think advertising is dead. I think, I think there’s going to be a riot. I think there’s going to be people realize. Saying that we are paying. I mean, there were so many business models that came up with the idea of, like, we’re going to build, like, Spotify, for instance, we’re going to have this platform where you can listen to music. We’re going to put ads in it, and then you can pay to not listen to ads. And then, like, Okay, we’re going to, how long are we now going to get different subscription models or other models where you, you’re you have to pay to get rid of ads. For me, I’m getting to a point where I’m, like, I don’t want ads at all. Like, I don’t want any ads. And if I do get ads, why is it that I am working with I’m spending quite a lot of time online, not only in my work, but also outside of it, just because I am who I am, and this is what we do these days. And why is it that I’m trying to at work? I’m trying to work with this algorithm, why it should be able to work for me? And I think there’s I’m hearing a lot of it around me, and I’m like, control of my data, control what I see, and, yeah, that advertisements is moving into spaces where it shouldn’t be. I think there’s going to be a, yeah, that’s my bold statement. There’s going to be a riot. There’s going to be anti, anti advertisement. I think it’s going to start from people wanting to have more control of their data and their detail, to have more ownership of their online presence. Then I think it’s, yeah, now I’m getting quite meta, but it’s, I think it’s a fundamental thing and that, and if you we need to accept that we have a life online now, as well as part of our lives. And like people who haven’t accepted that, yeah, it’s going to be a couple of generations in, then it’s it’s there, and then I think there’s a lot more ownership to have in our in our online presence than is today. And I think those, when those realizations comes in, and there’s, for instance, in Sweden, I know there’s going to be some movements in school, limiting when you get access, when you can bring in a phone to or, like, access internet in school environments and so on. So it is going to happen over time, but yeah, in the next decades or so. I think this is going to be an interesting space to to watch. And yeah, but let’s see money, money, money talks, market talks. And as long as that is the case, yeah, ads might be there, and I’m not going to, I don’t, but if I see an ad from an impact startup, I’m probably gonna be haps

Bo Peter 57:41
celebrate it, yeah. Well, certainly some bold predictions there. I think that the collaboration aspect, when it comes to having in person meetings, is certainly going to continue being there. I know that creatives for climate, an organization based in Amsterdam, is doing events all over Europe to help connect and collaborate marketers in the end, creatives in the sustainable space, because truly only if we can collaborate like we are doing right now, we can highlight some of these key stories and find ways to to continue building momentum there. And as for advertising, I mean, I love this very bold prediction. I think there’s always going to be, if not, digital advertising, out of home advertising, you know, so certainly different, different models for working with it, but kind of goes back to bad advertising. It’s I would like to see a lot less advertising promoting carbon heavy lifestyles, and more towards impact and type of messaging. So Eric, great. Thank you for those insights. One of the things that we like to do here with the podcast and in this for peaceful media is to invite every guest to plant some trees. I don’t know if you already had time to consider it, but we’re working with one tree planted, and we’re giving you the opportunity to choose either an area or an impact to to invest in, or that will plant some trees on your behalf. Did you have a chance to look at take a look at this already?

Erik Granholm 59:17
Yeah, I did. I did. I found. I think it’s a project. Then it’s called Urban Forestry, all right, so that’s where I would love to see this. I think it was, it will mirror the how we connect. You know, these two narratives of Canada people with the capitalist kind of growth. So we need to get nature back into to the city. I thought about it as much, but yeah,

Bo Peter 59:51
well, I love that. You thought about it. That’s That’s fantastic. You’ve got this, this reason for it. So we’re going to put, put in that donation of. On your behalf, and so you’ll you’ll get a confirmation for that. Thanks so much for choosing or before. Sure, I like the reasoning, but behind that, for sure, awesome. Well, Eric, this has been a really wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it. I’m going to tell everybody to go visit North scenes website. Listen to the how we fix this podcast, check out the impact 100 list. And of course, you can also connect with Eric on LinkedIn. Eric, anywhere else that people should connect with you? Look for resources, etc. This is your chance to put in one last call. Back,

Erik Granholm 1:00:35
no, I then come, come visit us in November in Barcelona. We’re doing an event called Impact week, where we’re bringing together everyone. So yeah, meet us, meet me in Barcelona, in November.

Bo Peter 1:00:49
All right, well, I think that’s an invitation I might just have to take you up on, so that should be awesome. Eric, thanks so much. Once again, it’s been a pleasure talking to you today. There are so many different ways that we can have impact as entrepreneurs and marketers, so I’m really excited to get this episode out and share all these wonderful resources out into the world. Awesome. Thank

Erik Granholm 1:01:11
you, sir.

Bo Peter 1:01:12
Esteemed us very much. Thank

1:01:14
you for tuning in to our podcast. Marketing for what matters. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, Google or Pandora. Love the show, leave us a review and follow us on social media, at peaceful media to stay up to date about new episodes and as always, thank you to this earth for giving us all we’ve ever needed. See you next time you.