Emil (18) and Henrik (23) have given up safe jobs and school - their venture is selling for several million a month

In a short time, the founders built their own company with eight employees.

STAVANGER (Nettavisen Økonomi 🙂 About a year ago, 18-year-old Emil Nygård sat on a school bench and dreamed away. He wanted to do something completely different.

If he quit, the 18-year-old imagined he could take his computer anywhere and just work on something he was interested in. Fast forward one year, and Nygård is ready for a business trip to France.

The 18-year-old adorns himself with the title of Marketing Director and will be exploring new markets for business company Cool Commerce Group (CCG).

– I finished high school. I don’t want to glorify abandoning VGS, but for me it was true. I would probably have done it whether or not I had CCG. Nygaard says I didn’t regret a second.

Together with COO Henrik Berge Syvaldsen (23) and Managing Director Morten Gilje (21), Nygård founded Cool Commerce Group earlier this year, significantly increasing activity and revenue.

The founders employed five people and had revenue of up to three million per month from sales from the online stores created by the company.

“If you ask us in twelve months, I think we’ve sold between 30 million and 50 million since last,” Cevalsen says.

Found the tune in Elkjøp

Cool Commerce Group, the holding company started together by Gilje, Syvaldsen and Nygård, owns online stores Vivvoe, Enavia, Tanglow and TrainX. The founders invest heavily in marketing and selling household items, beta-carotene, blue light glasses and training jackets.

Vivvoe acquired its first investor in Frode Øvrevik and Equity Capital in March.

Syvaldsen and Gilje met at Elkjøp in Stavanger, where they worked as salesmen. Syvaldsen was eager to start a company, and Gilje already had experience as an entrepreneur. The duo wanted to check out the interest in blue-light goggles in Norway – and they started the Vivvoe online store. The entire range sold out in one month.

Through Gilje, Syvaldsen met schoolboy Nygård, who was also eager to start himself. Cool Commerce Group was set up earlier this year – and the learning curve has been steep for the group of young entrepreneurs.

Getting started with myself is like being thrown into a daily life out of the ordinary. You don’t get income if you don’t work hard for it yourself, says Cevalsen.

– I can’t go back to a normal job. Gilji says the ups and downs go up when it comes to something we made ourselves.

Many people think of entrepreneurs as young, forward-thinking who want to challenge the established. But only a small percentage of Norwegian entrepreneurs are under the age of 25:

Of the 34,986 joint stock and publicly traded companies newly established last year, people aged 16 to 24 accounted for 1,545 of them, according to the SSB. It represents just over four percent of all startups.

When Gilje started a clothing company with some friends when he was 16, it was very much about how fast they could make money. Now the 21-year-old says he has matured and is ready to build and develop strong brands that challenge the established market.

– We are not full or satisfied, and at the same time we are proud of what we have achieved in a short time. Success did not come without a lot of effort and time. We built a good foundation and expected to do well,” Gilji says.

No plans to spend sales on parties and fun

numbers from SSB It shows that Norwegians spent nearly NOK 60 billion on online shopping in the second quarter. Online shopping has not been high in Norway at all, despite the easing of coronary restrictions. grapes He is among those who believe that consumers’ shopping habits have been permanently changed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

E-commerce company CCG is among those who are benefiting from the increase of e-commerce with the active use of social media and influencers to market their products.

But what do a business run by one teenager and two young adults do when sales revenue for a month is six figures? The trio maintain that they have no plans to lose ground contact.

– We do not go to the city and drink this money. We’re reinvesting, looking at who we can hire and what we can build on. Now turnover is a tool, and later on we hope to reap the benefits of the work we’ve put in now, says senior manager Gilje.

COO Cevaldsen acknowledges that he has lost some connection with revenue.

– One day you get 100,000 kroner and the next you get 50,000 kroner. I get kind of a breakup for the money. Instead, a lot is about building the company and building a team, says Cevalsen.

seas: Nordic Unmanned with triple-digit growth and billion ambitions: – Ellevilt is a descriptive word

Elon Musk as a role model

In the meeting room in Stavanger, lines are fast and ideas are loose. Gilji on video from Tjuvholmen in Oslo. Entrepreneurship is intense, free and demanding. 18-year-old Nygård describes himself as the “all in” type who does things completely and completely, or not at all. currently He is It begins with his whole being.

The next step is internationalization. Online stores will be marketed in other European countries next year. But first, entrepreneurs have to wait for the big parties and the new set of self-made scenes.

Do you have an entrepreneur or company as a role model?

Elon Musk built Space X, Tesla, and Open AI. Nygård says his mentality inspires me and that he built something that might have seemed impossible before he created it.

– I am inspired by Askeladden & Co. Procter & Gamble says it’s challenging the US market.

I love Google for the work culture they created. They have a seemingly humble environment where managers sit with employees and where employees have a lot of freedom, Cevaldsen says.