SMAU Stockholm 2026 | Interview with Charlotte Ekelund, Microsoft

At SMAU Stockholm 2026 we interviewed Charlotte Ekelund, Account Executive Nordics Digital Natives Pursuit, Microsoft and we asked her what are the main characteristics of the swedish innovation ecosystem and to give a tip to start ups who want to emerge:“I think the Stockholm ecosystem, I get that question a lot, like what's the secret? Why do you have so many unicorns? And I think there's a couple of things. First of all, not so easy to replicate, but a great trickle effect once it's happening. So the first unicorns that were in the market, they were breeding the generation of angel investors who would then be financing the next generation of startups. Also, it's quite inspiring. When I went to business school SSE here in Stockholm, we were about 5% of the people who wanted to be in entrepreneurship. Now it's 95 because they've seen what's happened and this is a 15/20 year development. Now, on top of that, when there's money in the ecosystem enough for everyone, and it's a small enough ecosystem for everyone to know everyone, you start helping each other because everyone is just one or two steps away. So if you need an intro to someone, me as a former founder, if I knew, I don't know, an investor or a customer, I would help my founder friend to get in touch with them and it was quite smooth and easy. The good thing also about a small ecosystem compared to, let's say, London or Paris, is that what goes around comes around. So if you behave badly, people will know. So it has a self preserving effect. So I think that would be the uniqueness of the Stockholm ecosystem. I have three hats. As the former founder, I have the former accelerator and incubator deputy CEO and head of financing. And then now I work for Microsoft. But what I've observed from the various seats is the same thing. The closer you can get to multiple type of potential customers or prospects, the faster, the better you will succeed. So especially maybe with scientific cases or when you start from the tech, If you can't after half year answer who are your dream customers or whose problem are you solving, then you need to start focusing a bit more there. Because that's what will make it commercially viable. And being commercially viable will in the end make or break your startup. No matter how good the tech is, unfortunately. So I would say if you can co-create since day one and not just with one customer, it could be multiple ones, then you will save a lot of time. Yes, it might seem annoying that corporates have long processes and what is the purchase order and how does procurement work? And you don't have to do it with corporates. You can do it with SMEs, but just involve your customer in your product development and you will know for sure that you are building something that the market actually needs”.

Видео SMAU Stockholm 2026 | Interview with Charlotte Ekelund, Microsoft канала SMAU