Hannes Rydell runs the SaaS company DropInGolf Sweden AB. He runs this company with the same business idea he had when he was getting started at just 18. With his team at DropInGolf Sweden AB, Rydell has connected over 40 golf clubs from just 2 in just under six months. Hannes and his team also increased the company’s user base from around 1,000 to over 15,000. These achievements saw him get accepted into Business Sweden’s Leap Accelerator and Web Summit ALPHA startup-program. Hannes Rydell may have just been 18 when he started DropInGolf Sweden AB, but he had his eyes set on so much more. Today, he is also the founder of another company, Startup Rocket Academy, which helps young people start a business. “We cover everything from creating a business idea, taking a product to market, building your startup network, etc.,” Hannes said in a recent interview.
But how did he get to this point at his age?
A Good Start Goes a Long Way
Hannes always liked two things related to entrepreneurship from a tender age — making money and building stuff. “Whether it was to build a treehouse, a full city of lego or selling old tech devices to friends and family to gain a profit,” Hannes recalled. When he was around 15, he was introduced to the real entrepreneurship world and got hooked right away.
Then at 19, his first company won “Best Business Idea” at the coveted Creative Dragons. Armed with just a business plan, Hannes Rydell won the approval of multiple well-known entrepreneurs who ended up investing his newly started business with more experience and money than he could have ever imagined.
According to Hannes, “When you’re a young first-time entrepreneur, you usually don’t have a lot of credibility, money, or connections to show others. However, the good news is that you don’t need these resources yourself. You just need to find other people who have them and that are willing to give you access to some of it. This can be achieved through either investors, mentors, or partnerships. The hard part is to get that first-person onboard; when you have overcome that first step, the spiral will just keep going up and up.”
Leveraging the Power of Youth
Hannes would never let age come between him and success. “As long as you’re able to communicate the right things and display a high level of knowledge in the areas that you’re talking about, your age will actually become the one factor which stands out the most and make you a lot more interesting to potential investors or mentors.”
When you want to create a network successfully, you will need to know how you communicate your ideas. Hannes advises that entrepreneurs should be able to communicate the right things and display a high level of knowledge in the areas they need investment help. Once you do this, other ultra-successful entrepreneurs will not only be amazed at how you can do it at such a young age, your age will be on your side in this case.
Hannes Rydell refers to young age being the most significant advantage that entrepreneurs have if they know how to position themselves correctly. He has also launched a program called Startup Rocket Academy, which teaches you how to do precisely that. Hannes founded Startup Rocket Academy, intending to help ambitious entrepreneurs get past the initial stages of starting a business. It doesn’t matter what stage of starting or scaling your business you are in, as long as you have youth to your advantage.