This is a raw and unfiltered conversation with the legendary Unicorn founder ($2.9B exit with ForgeRock) Lasse Andresen.

Every founder in Scandinavia should listen to this.

We talked about why Norwegian startups need to stop thinking small, lessons learned from an IPO at Nasdaq and from the painful early days without funding, what Norway’s startup ecosystem needs to do to truly compete on the global stage, what Founders in Scandinavia should consider - and what the typical traps they fall into are.

It’s a punchy chat - A La Lasse - with tons of great stories, insights, and advice.

We discussed:

* Why Lasse only has a Plan A, never a Plan B

* What it really takes to go from zero to unicorn

* How he validated his idea before building anything

* Why ForgeRock went horizontal instead of vertical niche

* Hiring and Firing

* How boards can slow you down if you’re not careful

* Why Norwegian startups need to think global from day one

* What Norway’s startup ecosystem need to do

* Advice for Founders in Scandinavia

* And more!

I loved this conversation, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too :)

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Brought to you by:

Gnist - Gnist is a leading boutique consulting company in Norway that helps companies reach their full digital potential. Whether you are a developer, product lead, tech lead, or business leader - Gnist can help you with the tools and practices you may need.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

Brought to you by:

Gnist - Gnist is a leading boutique consulting company in Norway that helps companies reach their full digital potential. Whether you are a developer, product lead, tech lead, or business leader - Gnist can help you with the tools and practices you may need.

UX Signals - Don’t let your busy schedule stop you from talking to users.

Automatically recruit interviews and user tests with people who are using your product. Talk to them while their user experience is still fresh in their mind. Used by big companies like DNB Bank, Vipps MobilePay, NAV, and many more.

Tell them Afonso sent you, and get 50% off your trial.

Know more here

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My guest today is Morten Rand-Hendriksen, one of the clearest voices on tech ethics and AI in the world, author of multiple AI & Tech courses on Linkedin Learning - as a Principal Staff Instructor at LinkedIn.

In this conversation, we unpack:

* The hype and the harm behind AI agents

* Why startups are building on dangerous ground

* Why language models are being misused

* The hidden risks of outsourcing decision-making to machines that don’t understand context

* The future of content creation: the ridiculous state of the current business models

* And much more

Whether you’re a founder, a business leader, a product mind, or just AI-curious - this one will make you pause and rethink.

Enjoy!

Check out Morten’s courses on all things Tech & AI here: Linkedin Learning courses

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guests today are Martin Spinnangr and Shubham Bhattacharya, CPO at Munu and former CPO at Favrit - two Nordic rivals in the world of hospitality SaaS.

We talked about what it takes to build and scale a vertical SaaS product, the challenges of defining your ideal customer profile, why most product validation efforts fail, acquisition vs. retention, the real cost of poor strategic alignment, and more.

Shubham is currently a Lead PM at Xeneta and Martin has been a Product leader in Laerdal Medical and Easee before Munu - so this conversation brings different perspectives to the table and it was good to connect with these two again!

Enjoy :)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Ninni Høver - Head of Product at Vipps MobilePay, the largest mobile wallet in the Nordics.

This conversation is part of my series of talks with more than 20 product leaders in Scandinavia. Make sure you subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss out!

This episode is packed with lessons learned from both scaling and going through a large merger.

I don’t know a single Norwegian who doesn’t use Vipps. So how does Ninni's team decide what to build? How do they balance priorities between different markets? What has changed in her leadership style before and after the merger with MobilePay? We cover all of this and so much more:

* How Vipps MobilePay became the Nordics’ #1 mobile wallet

* Leading Product through a merger

* The power of simplicity and other product principles at Vipps MobilePay

* How to navigate different market needs

* Where most PMs and teams need to step up

* How to test and kill a bad idea fast

* And more

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Tor Erik Skårdal and Stian Øien - two former product leaders at Easee, once one of the fastest growing tech companies in Norway and the largest platform of EV chargers for homes in the Nordics.

This is one of the most vulnerable conversations in the podcast so far.

Most people in Norway and Sweden know how difficult Easee’s journey has been.

From being one the fastest growing tech companies in Europe, to having to layoff most of its people after a sudden sales ban in a crucial market.

Tor Erik (former CPO at Easee), led Product in the company at a very challenging time.

Stian (now CPO at Futurehome and former VP at Easee), led Product at Easee from the early days and all the way to potentially even becoming a new Norwegian unicorn. Speaking of hyper scale…

So how does a crisis like this impact your leadership approach and how product teams are led? What’s the reality inside a company that is hiring several people every week versus a company that’s forced to let go most of its people?

We talked about that and much more:

* Leading teams with outcomes

* Killing ideas fast

* Lessons learned from hyper scale

* Managing hardware products vs software

* The reality for Product teams in times of extreme crisis

* And more

This episode is part of a series where I interview 20+ CPOs across Scandinavia. Subscribe for free so you don’t miss out.

This conversation was extra special in many ways, and also nostalgic (I worked with Stian when he was leading Product and with Tor Erik who was a PM in one of my teams).

Happy to be able to share this special chat with all of you.

Hope you enjoy it! :)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Francesca Cortesi, former Chief Product Officer at Hemnet - the largest housing marketplace in Sweden.

This is a deep dive into Hemnet's journey into adopting the Product Operating Model and Francesca's product and growth leadership journey.

Francesca shared deeply insightful stories, practical advice, and her perspective on driving change while keeping teams aligned and inspired.

We talked about:

* How Hemnet moved from features to outcomes.

* Why Strategic context is the most important thing for a CPO

* Why incremental changes beat big revolutions

* The surprising power of revisiting your business model and internal incentives

* Why asking for help can be a leadership growth hack.

* Product Leadership lessons to recognize and adapt to new growth phases

* And more

This was a joy, Francesca's journey at Hemnet is a very interesting, practical, and real case and she's also a great human being.

Enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

My guest today is Cecilie Skjong, Investment Manager at Skyfall Ventures - a Norwegian early-stage venture capital fund.

As a founder, nailing your pitch, thinking big and challenging yourself to be more visionary, and quickly testing your ideas to get a sense of the market pull are crucial.

And the same applies to a cross-functional team building a new product in a scale-up. The same applies to a product leader leading a new opportunity in a large organization.

After being exposed to hundreds of pitches and investing in several early-stage ventures, Cecilie shared with me:

* Characteristics of great founding teams

* The importance of drive and resilience when testing ideas and building products

* Early signs of market pull

* Thinking big and the importance of Vision

* How to craft a great pitch

* The power of Founder-led Sales

* The importance of understanding your macro trends (Waves)

* The state of the Norwegian startup scene

* And more

If you’re a founder, I recommend pairing this episode with:

* Episode 1: Testing Ideas with David Bland, co-author of the book Testing Business Ideas written together with Alex Osterwalder

* Episode 9: Understanding Jobs to be Done with Bob Moesta, co-creator of the JTBD framework together with Clayton Christensen

* Episode 19: Nailing your Positioning with April Dunford, bestselling author of one of the most well-known marketing books out there

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

Today's episode is with my friend Frederik Hansen - CPO at Ignite.

Ignite is a leading sustainable procurement platform that enables companies to take control of their purchasing from suppliers, comply with regulations, and reduce costs, emissions, and risks - all in one place.

Before Ignite, Frederik was CPO at Bookis.

He is also the co-founder of Produktleder.no - the largest community for product managers in Norway - and a co-organizer of the ProductTank in Oslo. A true contributor to the product community in Norway.

In this conversation, Frederik and I discussed:

* Starting a CPO role with a 1-month grace period

* Healthy principles in strong product teams

* Cross-functional collaboration in practice

* Making time for discovery at Ignite

* Creating an environment for product teams to thrive

* Examples from Frederik’s journey on how to test ideas fast using different techniques

* What Frederik looks for in a PM (traits)

* And more

Enjoy :)

Hey there, Afonso here 👋

I've interviewed more than 30 Product leaders in Scandinavia, and this is one of those conversations. Subscribe for free so you don’t miss out on future interviews!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

Today's guest is Melissa Mills, VP of Product at Ardoc, former Director of Product at Kahoot!, and former Global Product Lead at Google in San Francisco.

Ardoc is a fast-growing scale-up in Norway, recognized by Gartner as a leading Enterprise Architecture Tool.

Their Series D raise is one of the five largest private funding rounds by a Norwegian tech business.

Many enterprise companies like Carlsberg Group are choosing Ardoc, and this episode will give you an insider view of how they build their products.

Melissa and I talked about:

- Ardoc's growth and product journey

- Product management in big tech, startups, and scale-ups

- Product Managers' valuable traits according to company stage

- The importance of domain knowledge in B2B

- How Product and Sales should partner

- Onboarding product teams

- Cultural differences between doing Product in Norway versus Silicon Valley

- And so much more

_

💪 Companies I think you should know about:

UX Signals - Don’t let your busy schedule stop you from talking to users.

Automatically recruit interviews and user tests with people who are using your product. Talk to them while their user experience is still fresh in their mind.

Used by big companies like DNB Bank, Vipps MobilePay, NAV, and many more.

Tell them Afonso sent you, and get 50% off your trial!

Know more here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com

Would you like to know how Norway's best mobile bank builds its products?

Today's guest is Thomas Allan Nygaard - Product Leader at Sparebank 1, one of the largest banks in Norway and named Norway's best mobile bank.

Thomas and his team are constantly trying to push their boundaries and this conversation walks you through their ongoing journey into adopting and continuously adjusting their product operating model.

We covered:

* Sparebank's journey from breaking the monolith

* How their teams approach discovery and risk reduction

* Balancing just enough discovery and risk-taking

* The power of small autonomous teams

* Why feedback from Beta users can be dangerous

* Product Strategy as problem-solving

* Using OKRs and other techniques to increase focus

* Why organizational and team focus start with each individual

* And more

Listen now: Apple | Spotify | Youtube

_

💪 Companies I think you should know about:

UX Signals - Don’t let your busy schedule stop you from talking to users.

Automatically recruit interviews and user tests with people who are using your product. Talk to them while their user experience is still fresh in their mind.

Used by big companies like DNB Bank, Vipps MobilePay, NAV, and many more.

Tell them Afonso sent you, and get 50% off your trial!

Know more here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afonsofranco.substack.com