Anne started with 15 other students on the incubator’s introductory course, Lead-In. The course took place every Tuesday afternoon over a period of 5 weeks. It lasted for 3 hours each time, and the participants worked in between each session to discuss progress, successes, and struggles with fellow peers. The course was mandatory to anyone who sought to become part of the incubator and use its resources, such as access to advisers, work desks, lawyers, accountants, and so on. The only prerequisite to attend the course was having an idea or concept to develop throughout the programme. There was no judgement with regard to the perceived quality of the idea. The course was designed with lean start-up principles in mind. Participants developed hypotheses that they either confirmed or disconfirmed by talking to potential customers, users, and stakeholders. Preferably, they also developed a prototype, which served as a basis for the dialogue with potential users and customers. Based on the feedback they received, they iterated and changed their concepts accordingly. In addition, the curricula involved the business model canvas, effectuation versus causation, and sales. Throughout the course, participants pitched their idea almost every time they met. The content of this introductory course may at first glance look very ‘start-up’ and ‘business’ focused. However, the two facilitators’ ambition was to introduce a broader perspective of entrepreneurship, which included debunking the myth of the hero entrepreneur and highlighting that everyone can behave in an entrepreneurial manner. In other words, the course was intended for people like Anne, who were seeking to advance their entrepreneurial toolbox but were not necessarily settled on a solid business concept.

The facilitators’ take on entrepreneurship played out in various ways throughout the course. There was a great emphasis on the five principles of effectuation and the need to ‘define success in your own way’. This allowed participants to take a reflective stance on what success meant to them. It could be to build the next unicorn, but it could also be to learn specific skills and gain experience, as was the case with Anne. A solid focus on the ‘bird-in-hand’ principle, which extended to a talk and an exercise about the entrepreneur’s values and expectations for the project, was applied. The intention was to view these values as resources for the potential future start-up rather than a ‘You’ve got to do what it takes’ attitude towards creating a profitable start-up. The goal was to introduce entrepreneurship as an activity in which anyone can engage, regardless of the goal.

On the last day of Lead-In, in an informal setting, Anne presented Aarhus Blend in to an audience of approximately 40 people, consisting of her peers from the course, external advisers to the incubator, the incubator staff, and entrepreneurs already enrolled in the incubator. She did well and received positive and encouraging feedback from the audience. However, despite the facilitators’ best intentions of giving a soft start to the entrepreneurial mindset for all, Anne felt that she had to forcefully fit her concept into the structure of the course. For instance, when asked to fill in the business model canvas, she struggled to complete the revenue stream—as there was currently no revenue in sight. Nor were there any costs apart from her time spent. Anne also found the intensive focus on pitching every time stressful. She felt that the pitches throughout the course ought to show progress towards a paying customer, but Aarhus Blend in was far from offering a service that customers would pay for. By and large, Anne was grateful for the opportunity to attend the course as she had learned a lot about entrepreneurship, and she appreciated the two facilitators’ professionalism; however, she still felt a bit out of place in the incubator space.

Anne enjoyed the progress and the daily work of exposing the hidden secrets of Aarhus to an increasingly broad population. To expand her activities in Aarhus Blend in, she recruited additional tippers from the growing group of people who followed Aarhus Blend in. They would tip Anne by writing and submitting a short text about a place. Anne, with her advanced writing skills, would improve the language and flow while maintaining the authenticity of the original text. She would also hire a photographer to take professional photographs of the tipped locations.

By autumn 2019, Aarhus Blend in had 1,800 followers on Instagram, and numerous shops had beautiful photos of their location accompanied by a short description of their uniqueness at Aarhus Blend in’s platform. The shops enjoyed the attention they received when being tipped by Aarhus Blend in, and users explored the hidden treasures of their new city. She had clearly created an engaging platform, but it was not straightforward how to monetize it.

From Lead-In, Anne had learned to contact potential users and customers early on to (dis)confirm her hypothesis regarding the value she offered. Four options seemed plausible in terms of which customer segment to target first; however, none stood out as the obvious business model:

(1) She could ask shops to pay a fee for being tipped. However, this could compromise her credibility as an ‘authentic’ tipper. From the very beginning of the project, Anne strived to retain the authenticity and credibility of her posts. She never received payment (neither in cash nor in free goods) from the places she wrote about, preferring not to associate herself with the ideals of the typical influencer.

(2) Another possibility for monetizing her product was to partner with a tourist agency that sought to attract more tourists to the city. Upon arrival, the agency could support the tourist, guiding them to the less-trafficked spots, giving the visitors a better experience while distributing tourist traffic more broadly throughout the city. Tourist agencies responded positively to this proposition. However, while they applauded the project, they were not willing to pay for the service.

(3) A third option was to partner with cruise ships, helping them to offer a value-added activity to their customers when they disembarked for some hours from the ship, strolling the new and unfamiliar city.

(4) A fourth suggestion was to partner with banks and insurance agencies and the like who sought to brand themselves to the young people in the city. Anne reached out to two banks to explore any interest in a potential partnership. Both were somewhat interested but mostly hesitant. Anne was not able to close a deal, and the potential customers could not articulate what it would take to pay for a partnership. A profitable business model was still very far from sight.

At the same time, some of the insecurities of not blending in to the incubator still troubled Anne. She felt that she was not taken seriously by her fellow student entrepreneurs in the incubator, and in contrast to other start-ups in the incubator, the start-up staff never invited her to present on scenes where entrepreneurs from the incubator were showcased.

Despite feeling somewhat frustrated by the lack of progress on her business model and excluded from the incubator space, Anne did not quit. Instead, as with most of the things Anne started in her life, she felt even more driven to succeed. There were three levels within the incubator, and naturally Anne strived to reach the next level at which she could get more feedback from external mentors in an advisory board-like structure. However, access to the next level required her to complete an application form, which among several elements included presenting revenue and expected revenue over the next 6 months. Without a viable business model, she had a slim chance of qualifying for the next level in the incubator. She was again left with the fraudulent feeling of not being a real entrepreneur and not having a real start-up. In addition, Anne was pregnant with her first child, adding another layer of complexity and leaving less time to develop the start-up towards a financially viable business model.

Despite the current lack of a solid business model for monetizing her start-up, Anne persevered and applied for the next level of the incubator. Based on her application and an interview, she was accepted into the acceleration programme, which would give her access to the external mentors associated with the incubator. Since the birth of her child and subsequent maternity leave were on the horizon, she was not able to start the programme immediately. However, by qualifying, she had achieved another milestone for herself and Aarhus Blend in.

Anne was the single founder of Aarhus Blend in. Consequently, she was not in a position to transfer all her obligations to a co-founder during her leave. As Anne prepared for the upcoming birth and personal life changes, she equipped Aarhus Blend in with a set-up that could run without her checking in daily. She had two volunteers. One person took photos of the places tipped about, and another functioned as the social media manager. In addition, a group of dedicated volunteer tippers steadily offered new tips about cool places around the city. Anne planned to keep Aarhus Blend in up and running with minimum time investment during her leave, meaning that she expected to spend approximately half a day per week on it. The plan was that she would receive tips from tippers and update those on the web page. The social media manager’s job was to increase the crowd of followers and their engagement with the site. A large crowd seemed to be central in order for potential customers to find it attractive to partner with Aarhus Blend in and pay for exposure. Potential customers indicated so.

Anne’s 9-month leave passed, and she returned in the spring of 2020. With her daughter starting in childcare, she was excited to return full time to her studies as well as to Aarhus Blend in. Her expectations to run Aarhus Blend in with minimum time investment had been a success as the number of followers steadily increased during that time. Meanwhile, her decreased time and energy spent on the project left room for focusing on motherhood and enjoying her family.

When Anne first joined the incubator, she was aware that it would be difficult to make Aarhus Blend in a profitable business; however, at the time, that was not her priority. Her main motivations were to gain experience and develop skills and competencies, which she did. Having considered it throughout her leave, and expecting to spend numerous hours on Aarhus Blend in over the coming months, she was now determined to see whether there was a chance for it to become a profitable business. However, she realized that she could not do it on her own. She needed a partner.

Emil had been part of the same group of friends as Anne and her family. The group met regularly to eat dinner together. As they shared stories and listened to the successes and sorrows of everyday life, they got to know each other well. Anne would frequently talk about Aarhus Blend in at these dinners. As Emil was enrolled in Media Studies at the time, he had both a personal and professional interest in the project. He asked questions and provided suggestions on various issues that Anne brought up over the dinner table. He also soon become a tipper. Anne immediately saw that he had a flair for it. In addition, she trusted Emil and could see herself working with him. Anne invited Emil to a meeting where she asked whether he would be interested in becoming a co-founder in Aarhus Blend in. He was both surprised and flattered by the offer, and he joined Aarhus Blend in during the spring of 2020. In contrast to the early phases of Aarhus Blend in, this time the outspoken ambition was to create a profitable business.

At the time, Covid-19 was slowly increasing its grip on society and the tourist industry in particular. Suddenly, both the cruise industry and the tourist agency seemed to be dead ends. Two of the four options that Anne had considered to pursue in the search for an economically viable business model were effectively out of consideration, at least in the short term. The firs option—to operate as a traditional influencer—was still not an option for Anne, nor was it for Emil. The most reasonable strategy, they considered, was to partner with banks, insurance agencies, and the like who sought to brand themselves to the young people in the city. They developed a plan to sell exposure to firms and organizations who would be interested in co-branding themselves with Aarhus Blend in.

Over the course of building Aarhus Blend in, Anne had been in contact with several potential customers. With her partnership with Emil now breathing new life and motivation into the business, she reintroduced herself to several of them. Suddenly, one union seemed to be interested in partnering with Aarhus Blend in. Already in their first meeting, a sale seemed to be within range. Anne and Emil were astonished by the positive response. Could this really be true? Were they in fact about to acquire their first customer? They could hardly believe what was happening. They prepared well for the next meeting. As they walked out of that meeting, they could hardly contain their feelings of jubilation. They had entered into an agreement with the union. For approximately 10,000 Danish kroner, the union would get prime exposure on their web page over the next 6 months. This was almost too good to be true, they thought.

A couple of days later, they met their start-up adviser. He was sincerely impressed by their efforts, but he was disappointed by the seemingly low price they had charged for their service. He sought to find the right balance of applauding what they had just achieved while strongly indicating that they needed to charge a higher premium for their service if their ambition was to create a profitable start-up. Later that day, Anne and her start-up adviser were coincidently having lunch together when the new vice president (VP) of industry relations and innovation at the university entered the room. Being confident that Anne would be up for a challenge, the start-up adviser asked the VP if she had 5 minutes to spare. He wanted to indicate to Anne that there was a risk of pricing the service according to her own known world: being a student living on a student budget, there was a risk of pricing the service accordingly, not according to the true value of the service or the customers’ budgets. The start-up adviser asked Anne to quickly present her offering to the VP. Following that, the start-up adviser asked the VP if she would suggest a price—in rough numbers—for the service Anne had just presented to her. ‘Oh, it is hard to say, it depends of course on the terms, but in the ball park of 500,000 Danish kroner seems reasonable’, she said as she left the room with her coffee. Anne sat behind jaw agape in fact she was so dumbfounded by the VP’s assessment that she had problems taking seriously what she had just heard.

At the time, Anne and Emil were also reaching out to banks as potential customers. They had received several declines; however, one bank seemed to be interested. Prior to the meeting, they had asked Anne and Emil to send an offer that described the terms and a price. Anne and Emil were excited about the fact that a second customer seemed to be within range, but they were lost in terms of pricing, having experienced that a union easily accepted a price of approximately 10,000 kroner, which indicated that the price was too low. On the other hand, the 500,000 kroner that the VP suggested seemed to be astronomically high. Slowly they realized they had to recalibrate their thinking with regard to pricing.

They worked on an offer to the bank, describing the terms including a six-digit price—a price that was considerably higher than the 10,000 kroner they had charged the union. Being both nervous and confident, they sent the offer to the bank. ‘If they accept this offer, there is no reason to consider Aarhus Blend in a hobby project any more. This could be the first strong indication of Aarhus Blend in becoming an economically profitable start-up,’ Anne and Emil thought to themselves.

The bank replied that they wanted to meet and discuss further. On the day of the meeting, Anne once again put on her business shoes, and she smiled as she thought back to the day when she had changed from comfortable sneakers to these shoes in front of the incubator almost 2 years earlier. She met Emil in front of the bank, and they entered the stylish building together.

After the first polite greetings took place, a slight shift in tone by the representative from the bank indicated that they now wanted to talk business. They walked through the terms, the description of the service, and what Aarhus Blend in would commit to. Finally, they reached the point of the price. Anne and Emil could hardly sit still as they did their very best to hide their nervousness. Even if they had a solid argument for the suggested price, they still thought it was mind-blowingly high. This was nothing like their student jobs. ‘We have taken a look at the suggested price …’ the representative said, and left it hanging for a couple of seconds. Anne’s heart was about to explode out of her chest. She had to almost physically stop herself from blurting out, ‘Yes, we know it is too high’. She managed to stick to the plan and sit still, letting the representative talk. ‘We would like to discuss the price. Is there a chance that we could get a price reduction?’ the representative asked.

Anne had prepared for this scenario, and she found herself surprisingly confident as she replied, ‘If we are to reduce the price, it is impossible for us to deliver the value you are looking for. So, unfortunately, we cannot reduce the price.’ A moment of silence followed. Again, Anne forced herself to wait for the response. ‘Okay, fine. We are still interested,’ the representative said. The bank and Aarhus Blend in entered into a partnership agreement. Part of the agreement included expanding the service to Aalborg and Odense, two other large Danish university cities. The bank had a presence in these cities as well, and saw great potential in being able to offer customized services to new students in these cities too. Aarhus Blend in did not have any activity in those cities at the time, which meant that there were no places being tipped about and there were no tippers. This all had to be built from scratch. Anne and Emil found it necessary to expand the team as they needed more power to expand quickly. They onboarded four interns to increase awareness in Aarhus as well as to launch the new websites for Aalborg and Odense.

At the time they closed the deal with the bank, Danish society was in lockdown due to Covid-19. It was apparent that such a situation would severely limit the value of the cooperation because Aarhus Blend in tipped about shops, stores, and cafés, all places that were closed at the time. Anne and Emil convinced the bank that, given the lockdown situation, it was even more important to have an online presence. This made sense, and few dared to think that the next year would be riddled with even more lockdowns.

During the summer and autumn of 2020, Danish society opened up for a while. Anne, Emil, and the rest of the team took advantage of this, and they recruited tippers, took photos, and wrote text about small shops and cafés in Aalborg and Odense. They sought to gather a good bunch of tips and launch the Aalborg and Odense sites on a specific date in order to kick-start their presence in the two new cities. However, in November 2020, the second Covid-19 wave hit Denmark, and society was once more locked down. Anne and Emil needed to show the bank that they had built up Odense and Aalborg, but it did not make any sense to launch a website containing tips about shops and cafés in the city as both cities were practically ghost towns because of the lockdown. Things started to get tight.

Anne’s frustrations increased. The lockdown in itself, and the limits it put on Aarhus Blend in, contributed to the frustration. She also found herself working a lot. Working long hours until late at night suddenly became the new norm for her. Where did the freedom, the joy, the creativity go? She sought the flexible life, being able to deliver and pick up her daughter whenever she wanted to and prioritize studies when she found that necessary. At that moment, none of this was present. As problems mounted and there was no indication of opening up society, she also turned some of the frustration towards Emil. Some of the tasks that she considered to be Emil’s landed on her desk. Instead of confronting him with the issues at hand, she continued to do the work herself. Despite the need and desire to talk to Emil about her frustrations, she kept quiet.

At the same time, Anne approached the end of her studies. The final thesis was due about 4 months down the line. Whenever faced with a heavy workload and tough decisions, Anne had typically remained positive and would take a ‘Yes I can’ attitude. Emil had inclinations towards the same approach. While Anne previously would find good energy in such an attitude, she now got increasingly frustrated with it. They had a well-paying customer, and in that sense a profitable business model could be within reach. But emotionally, Anne felt as if her dream had never been further away. The pressure increased on Anne. The Covid-19 lockdown suspended the launch of Odense and Aalborg to an unknown future. She could not see the road ahead.

To add to all this, Anne was pregnant again. Instead of thinking—as Anne usually would do—‘Yes, come on. Sure, we can fix this,’ she asked herself, ‘How, really how is this really going to work out, and at what cost?’ She considered this question for about 5 weeks before she approached Emil.