Anyone can become an entrepreneur
Jón Ingi Bergsteinsson believes that entrepreneurship requires self-confidence and a stubborn disposition.
Jón Ingi Bergsteinsson
- Age: 29.
- Educated from AAU with an M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering & Informatics in 2013. Three months before handing in his thesis, he founded the company MEDEI Aps with a fellow student and a medical specialist. The company sells software solutions to the health sector and has grown from 3 employees to 13 in 2016, half of which are students working part-time. His clients count Nordsjælland’s Hospital, LINAK, KMD, Icelandic Ossur and the American Vital Go Systems.
While Jón studied at his eighth semester, he met a project manager from a company that took part in a university collaboration. “Is your product good enough?” Jón boldly asked, then suggested a smarter solution in the shape of an app. The next day he received an order: He was to develop an app for LINAK. Jón had met his present partner in MEDEI Aps – Páll Jóhannesson – through Icelandic friends in Aalborg, and they decided to establish a company together. From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., they worked on their thesis and from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. they worked on developing their business.
“Many of our fellow students didn’t understand why we never joined them for a beer on Friday afternoon. But we were very very happy once we mailed our first invoice,” says Jón when asked to look back at the initial phase four years onward.
“Back then I never considered myself an entrepreneur – I just had a good idea that I managed to sell to a company. But today I realize that it required a certain amount of stubbornness to keep going,” he says, referring to the fact that not all good ideas turn out to be marketable or durable.
Jón mailed his first invoice three months before handing in his thesis. This was possible because he and his business partner
decided to work on their thesis from 8 a.m to 4 p.m and on their business from 4 p.m to 10 p.m.
Why become an entrepreneur
Jón does not necessarily think that it requires a particular mind-set to become an entrepreneur – but you must believe in your product to keep working on it for years without making any mentionable profit.
“Páll and I had a mutual passion, and we knew that the health authorities were in need of some more efficient methods for applying and storing health data and research results. Our motive force was producing something different and better.”
Once they graduated from AAU, they moved to Novi Science Park – an office hotel for start-ups in need of a cheap space with access to meeting rooms, reception and the sort, while working on their ideas. Amongst other things, they have developed a research portal named “Smart-Trial” – in fact, it was not a new idea to organize health data, this was just a different way of doing it. As of now, Páll is meant to stay in Aalborg as the CEO, while Jón is moving to Copenhagen to tend to the clients on Zealand, and in Sweden, England and the USA.
