The Danish citizen Dan Eisenhardt has done what most tech entrepreneurs are dreaming of: sold a tech company on the good side of one billion DKK.
Techhub Nord had it’s formally kicks-off when the tech entrepreneur Dan Eisenhardt was keyspeaker at a so-called Startup Talk for just over 250 attendees and entrepreneurs in Aalborg in december 2018. Dan Eisenhardt is originally from the city himself, and this was the first time he told about the development his company Recon Instruments has been through in Denmark. The idea for the company began in a swimming pool in Aalborg, where Dan Eisenhardt saw the possibility of creating a swimming goggle with a built-in display, so that as a swimmer could see information about his own performance.
Sold for 1.2 billion. DKK
Recon Instruments was founded in 2008, and after an almost cinematic journey and a myriad of problems, the company ended up being sold to Intel in 2015 for 1,2 DKK.
– We actually ended up developing a ski goggle with a head-up display that shows the skier’s speed, pulse and incoming SMS messages. The goggle was already a boy who had a patent. It has been a tough and sometimes quite impossible battle to get there, where we could sign the contract with Intel. But it has also been extremely instructive, and we have succeeded with what many entrepreneurs dream about every day, Dan Eisenhardt told Techhub Nord’s first Startup Talk.
According to Dan Eisenhardt, an entrepreneur needs three things: a hipster, a hustler and a hacker.
– When you are up and running, it does not really need the hipster. But without a hustler to turn doors in and a hacker who can develop all that the housewife promises to the customers, it does not, it was said from the experienced entrepreneur, who himself was the marketing man, salesman and hustler – in Recon Instruments.
Dan Eisenhardt
The meeting between the three person profiles is exactly what Techhub Nord hopes to contribute.
– We look a little too many tech startups move out of North Jutland to be closer to like-minded and closer to some venture capital. Therefore, lots of talent disappears from the region and ends up in Aarhus, Copenhagen or abroad. Our foreign students are moving in the same direction, and we want to try to curb this up a bit.
Jakob Neua Nørgaard, businessdeveloper at Erhvervshus Nordjylland.
– If we succeed in creating a strong tech environment, there is no need to move. But it requires that someone takes the lead and puts turbo on creating the framework. We have a really good starting point and some strong business partners, so we believe that this will succeed.
Jakob Neua Nørgaard
Techhub Nord aims to inspire and contribute with knowledge, network or money. Therefore, there will be various events throughout the year, where the goal is inspiring lectures with entrepreneurs such as Dan Eisenhardt; events where participants can find co-founders, trainees or student employees; events where concept developers and software developers meet, or events where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas and business plans for a panel of investors.