From selling tools on a street corner at the age of 8 to founder and CEO of Amplify. My talk on entrepreneurship is about keeping going.
My journey as a young entrepreneur
Why do I talk about entrepreneurship? When I was 8, I got my first taste of life as an entrepreneur. I’d sneaked my dad’s tools out of his workshop and sold them on a street corner. I sold every single piece at ridiculously low prices. My dad had to say goodbye to his tools, and yet he told me he was a little bit impressed by my work ethic.
That story was the starting point for my interest in creating something, and at 23 the time had come to do it for real. Today I’m a little bit prouder of that than of my performance on the street corner. In July 2015, I started the digital marketing agency Webamp from a shared flat in Nørrebro with DKK 40,000 from my childhood savings.
In 2024, Webamp changed its name to Amplify, where I’m founder and CEO today. We’ve helped more than 350 companies and have turned over more than DKK 80 million since the start, without investors. From 2021 to 2024, I also hosted the Danish-language podcast Den Nye Standard, where I put the spotlight on the stories behind some of Denmark’s most talented entrepreneurs.
There has to be room for brains that work differently.
The ups and downs of entrepreneurship
Passion, ambition and dreams are some of the things that drive us as people. But is that enough when you’re the only one calling the shots? My journey with Webamp, now Amplify, has had both tailwinds and headwinds. At first I took no salary for two to two and a half years, and in the end I moved back in with my dad because I couldn’t pay the rent.
I wasn’t the obvious entrepreneur on paper either. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, went to a special needs school and have no school-leaving exams. Today I see that as part of my strength, which is why one of my principles is that there has to be room for brains that work differently.
As an entrepreneur, you have to be ready for what you can’t predict. You have to adapt quickly, and you can’t do that if you’re always looking at what everyone else is doing. It’s about getting a little better than you were yesterday, every single day.
What is an entrepreneur?
We spend a lot of energy saying that everyone should grow as much as possible. To me, a pizzeria owner is an entrepreneur too, and you don’t need to build a big company to be one. I’ve learned that quality beats quantity, and that a business doesn’t have to get big to be good.
Entrepreneurship doesn’t stop once the business has started, either. Since March 2026, I’ve been rebuilding Amplify with AI while the agency keeps running. We’ve got an AI colleague in Slack, and every morning it goes through the ad accounts, but a person approves before anything happens. It’s reminded me how much it takes to start over with something that already works.
What can a talk on entrepreneurship do for you?
My talk on entrepreneurship is meant to raise your expectations of what you can do yourself. Many people who are interested in entrepreneurship either don’t trust their own abilities, or they dive in headfirst before they know how deep the water is. You shouldn’t hold back from jumping, but if you don’t know the depth, it’s a good idea to arm yourself with a few simple tips.
That’s why it’s full of concrete advice on what to do and what not to do. Whether you have a small startup or are already well established, you’ll walk away with new energy to get going.
Book a talk on entrepreneurship
My journey as an entrepreneur has taught me a lot about company culture, leadership and marketing. If your company, school or network would like to hear more about entrepreneurship, write to me and book a talk. Tell me what your audience is dealing with, and I’ll build the talk around that.
Until then, you can listen to the conversations with Danish entrepreneurs on Den Nye Standard. All 41 are on the Den Nye Standard page and on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
More talks
I also give talks on:
On the talks page, you’ll find all the topics, including “AI transformation, from the inside”, “Performance and wellbeing” and “Marketing and brand”, and what a talk can look like.