The story behind Startup Central

Anders Fogh, CEO and founder of Startup Central, has throughout his youth and time in school (business college) known, that if he was to have success, it would be because he became a good salesman and through that chief of sales, or he would have to create something of his own. But since Anders has always been a gambler who dares take a chance, he chose the latter.

Therefore, he has made an attempt at clothing businesses, design, etc., unfortunately without a whole lot of luck. Anders was less than 18 when he tried to start clothing companies, but back then he did not have overview of many of the aspects that are needed when starting a business. It was the lack of interest in doing the groundwork, exploring the market and getting an overview of the legal matters that were to blame for the lack of success – it definitely was not possible to bring his ideas fully to life.

While he was busy creating these businesses, he had no thoughts of a concept such as Startup Central. The reason for this was that he was concerned about telling others about his idea, worried that people might steal it. On top of this, he was also the typical ‘I can do it all myself’ kind of person. Since then, he has gotten more life experience and realized that he cannot do everything himself. This recognition is what made Startup Central a reality – the recognition that you cannot do everything yourself.

Anders has become a lot smarter since the first time he made an attempt at entrepreneurship. He has found that there are many people out there who are better than him at a lot of things. What Anders is good at is organizing and registering, which is why he thought; if he assesses that he is not the best at everything, there must be more people who think the same way. And those who believe they can do everything themselves, they do not dare realize that they cannot – this is why he started Startup Central.

- Therefore, Startup Central was created based on “I do not believe that everyone can do everything”.

Aside from the recognition that he could not take care of everything himself, his wife, Nanna, and her hobby at the time, was a big influence on the creation of Startup Central. His wife’s hobby was to do nails, but this was awfully smelly. When Anders and a friend were sitting and enjoying a beer together, they could not avoid smelling it. Therefore, they agreed to solve this problem. Anders was to be the businessman behind the idea, and his engineer friend was to design a table with ventilation so they could get rid of the smell.

Anders began searching for help for their business idea. But after a few months of research, he had to give up. There were no places to find help. The only thing he could find was counselling from a few business websites, but as a budding entrepreneur it is hard to know what to ask about.

This became the start for Startup Central. Anders wanted to gather everything entrepreneurs and self-employed need in one place, and make it simple, easy to understand, and for a price that everyone can manage. A place where likeminded entrepreneurs could connect and spar with each other, as one should not be alone on one’s entrepreneurial journey – in Startup Central, one would have colleagues.

Therefore, Anders started by doing some market research, where he found that he was not the only one suffering with this issue. It was hard to find answers and help, so Anders got to work.

At this early stage, Anders had an entrepreneur for a boss. He helped Anders, telling him about how to raise capital. Anders kept building on to his business idea and spent a lot of time on it to eventually have a pretty sharp business plan and budget. Several times, he tried to get investors, but the answer was no every time. This was a hard, but insightful challenge to get through. On the 13^th attempt in January 2018, Anders managed to get a yes. On the 8^th of February 2018, he went live with the forming of the company Startup Central, with 1 million kr. in equity/investment as a start – we both were and are super proud of this.

The team behind Startup Central is definitely very happy that Anders formed Startup Central. If you want to see the team behind Startup Central – the so-called ministers behind the ministry of entrepreneurs, see here.

Success
Anders Fogh does not necessarily have the same perception of the term ‘success’ that many others do. To him, success is fleeting – a temporary stage of satisfaction you experience in a short period before it is over and the hunt for a new success begins. What makes a success today might not be what you will be living of tomorrow – you might ride on the wave of success for a while, but then it disappears and hopefully a new one takes over, or else you are on the hunt for the next again.

Anders is therefore unsure if he has actually reached success yet. But he gets a lot of satisfaction as well as a great sense of honor from what Startup Central does. His big feeling of success comes every time he helps a member along. Helping them reach their success is a success both to him and to the entire Startup Central team.

Whether or not Startup Central is a success is something Anders and all of Startup Central will leave up for others to decide.