Jan Dal Lehrmann, serial entrepreneur and investor at LoveMondays, joins this episode of the Danish-language podcast Den Nye Standard. The conversation covers building a successful business, his approach as an investor and the lessons he has taken from his own journey as an entrepreneur.
Jan opens the interview by describing himself as a decent man who thinks strategically and has more fire in his belly than most. He gets up every day wanting to be a good person, and those qualities have shaped his career and his success.
Dyslexia set the direction for his career
Jan talks about the road from struggling at school to building several successful companies. When he was about eight, Jan discovered he was dyslexic, which would turn out to be an important factor in his career choices. The challenges forced him to find his own way of thinking, and thinking differently took him to TV 2 Reklame. Jan talks about his first entrepreneurial project at TV 2 Reklame and how he met Johnny Laursen, who introduced him to Benjamin Media and became a co-founder of Bilbasen.
But despite several successful exits, doubt still creeps in for Jan time and again. Asked about his success, he says that to this day he can still catch himself thinking, “when are they actually going to work out that I can’t do a bloody thing?”
From Lehrmann Ventures to LoveMondays
The conversation then moves on to what Jan does today. When he started Lehrmann Ventures, the idea was to be able to bring partners into the company. It mattered to the team to show that they are a team, not just the founder. So in February 2023, Lehrmann Ventures changed its name to LoveMondays. As an investor, Jan cares a lot about a company having a strong purpose, and that is also the thinking behind the name LoveMondays. In the episode, Jan explains that at LoveMondays they have built a culture where people love coming to work, Mondays included. The team behind LoveMondays helps its 19 active investments put that purpose into practice and live up to it.
A successful team and how Jan has grown as a leader
Jan doesn’t think he’s a fantastic leader, and the way he leads has changed over time. As a student, he found out he was good at selling subscriptions and could easily make the case for them in his sales pitch. Through his 20s and 30s, it was all about making companies grow. Today Jan knows he has to build a team that can make the company grow, because he can’t win on his own. The change came the day he became a father. Before, he was more blunt and tough. Since then, he has softened around the edges.
Even though Jan focuses on the team, he still hasn’t found a balance between work and his private life. He calls himself a workaholic and wishes he could switch off from work. His dyslexia taught him that he has to work harder than others, and he thinks that is still what makes it hard for him to let go.