The entrepreneurial journey: “We’re just getting started. In 5 years, we want to be Denmark’s first female-founded unicorn”

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It quickly became clear to Nanna Bach Munkholm that technical co-founders are in high demand in the entrepreneurial community. She decided to become one of them, as she had already learned complex engineering calculations and thought she could learn to code as well. Her first challenge was to create a platform that could match users with products, which led her into machine learning and eventually into a furniture recommendation system – DecorRaid.

She found it natural to dive into machine learning and AI – it was tangible and could be used on many different platforms – it became her path into tech. Since then, Nanna Bach Munkholm and her co-founders, Nanna Ulsøe and Jane Ulsøe, created the AI startup Roccai, where she is CTO.

When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I think the first sign came during my studies as a civil engineer. I started a small business, which was really more of a hobby business, producing handmade bags. It was something I was good at, but it wasn’t necessarily a business I saw as scalable.

I was then introduced to Startup Factory, which is an environment for engineers who want to be entrepreneurs. It was the first time I felt at home in an environment where there were others who had crazy ideas and the same creative drive as me. That’s when I decided that I wanted to take entrepreneurship seriously and try to create a real business out of my hobby business.

In the beginning, I tried to make my hobby business scalable. But the more I participated in the entrepreneurial community, the more I realized that tech was a better way to go, especially because tech is easier to scale compared to physical products. This led me to start my first tech company, DecorRaid.

What has been the wildest moment in your entrepreneurial journey?

Without a doubt, the wildest moment was when we closed our first investment at Roccai. To get money in your company because investors believe in you as a team and in the idea you’ve created was a huge moment for me. It was something I had struggled with a lot in my first company, where it was hard to close an investment. So when we finally got there with Roccai, it was a big milestone for me both professionally and personally.

It was the first time I closed an investment and it also meant that for the first time I could go full-time as an entrepreneur without having to have a side income. It was a huge change in my life – now I was a full-time entrepreneur.

As all three of us had experience of starting businesses before, we already had a network and knew people in the community. This made a huge difference compared to the first time when I was brand new and didn’t know any investors. This time we had a lot more experience and network to draw on.

What is the most important thing you’ve learned about yourself?

My basic philosophy is that there is nothing I can’t learn. It’s about having passion and a clear goal – then you can learn anything. Every time we face a challenge, we know that we will learn what it takes to solve it. This gives us peace of mind because we don’t panic about things we don’t know yet. We have learned from past experience that we always find a solution.

It has also become easier over time because our network has grown significantly. Now we can always reach out to people in our network for sparring or help. If there’s something we don’t have the skills to do ourselves, we know someone who can help us. The access to knowledge and help that we have through our network makes a huge difference compared to how it was in the beginning, when we didn’t have the same contacts. It makes us stronger today.

Where will you be on your entrepreneurial journey in 5 years?

My entrepreneurial journey will definitely continue with Roccai. My role has already changed a lot in recent years and I’m looking forward to finding out where that evolution takes me. As we scale the company, it will be interesting to see if my leadership role will become more strategic or if I will go back to code and work more hands-on. It’s an exciting journey.

In five years, we will be the first Danish female-founded unicornA unicorn is a term used to describe a startup company that has reached a valuation of $1 billion or more. More, and we are ready for the growth journey that awaits us. We have only just begun. We’re at the beginning of a growth journey where we need to grow significantly, and I’m excited to see what challenges await us. Running a company with 100 or 1000 employees is very different from being a small team of 9 people as we are now. Our daily roles and skills will change a lot, and it’s important to be open to that evolution so you can keep up.