Sebastian Plengiér Ehrnfelt

If I had to start a new business tomorrow, I’d still choose a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) model even with rising ad costs and platform fees. Why? Because it’s still the fastest way to prove demand, build a loyal customer base, and control your brand narrative without burning millions upfront. When done right, D2C can take you from £0 to £500k in 12 months and I’ve seen brands hit £5M+ in 3 years just by nailing one hero product and owning their customer journey. Here’s what makes it powerful: ✅ Lower setup cost, faster learning curve You can launch lean, test pricing, creatives, and messaging directly with customers, and pivot instantly based on real feedback. ✅ Full control of the brand experience From ads to unboxing, every touchpoint screams you. That’s how brands create loyalty that can push repeat purchase rates above 40%. ✅ Goldmine of customer data You know exactly who buys, why they buy, and when they come back. That data isn’t just for ads; it shapes product development and inventory planning. ✅ Retail becomes an option, not a gamble Many D2C founders expand into retail only after proving demand which means stronger negotiations and higher margins. The real play? Use D2C to hit your first £1M–£2M in revenue, perfect your product-market fit, then scale into retail or wholesale once you’ve built a brand customers already love. If I were starting fresh, this would be my blueprint for success: Start D2C. Move fast. Learn faster. Build a brand customers can’t stop talking about. #d2c #startup

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Norway’s $1.8T sovereign wealth fund is saving 213,000 hours every year with AI. How? They tapped into their enterprise data on Snowflake, integrated Anthropic’s Claude, and made AI proficiency non-negotiable—backed by real training, enablement, and leadership conviction. This is what enterprise AI looks like in action. 👉 https://lnkd.in/gtFrcScv

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RIP Tableau Tableau is a business intelligence tool owned by Salesforce. For years it was part of how we worked at Voi. In the beginning it felt powerful, but over time it turned into what many legacy SaaS tools become: expensive, clunky and slow. Every ad hoc request ended up in an analyst backlog. Local teams across our 100 plus cities were left waiting for insights, costs kept going up and speed disappeared. So we ripped it out, saved at least 500k EUR, potentially millions (from speed). The direct savings are hundreds of thousands of euros in licenses. The indirect savings are even bigger since analysts can now focus on high impact work instead of repetitive reporting. The biggest shift is speed. What once took weeks now happens in seconds. Here is how we made it possible: 1. We fixed the foundations. Years of work on data governance. Every metric has an owner, quality checks, semantics and definitions. Everyone in the company knows what a number means. With that in place, self serve became possible, which is essential when local teams in 100 plus cities need the right data at the right time. 2. We defined what we need, not what we paid for. A single source of truth, real time data streaming and self serve for non technical users. Analysts no longer spend their days on small one off requests. 3. We used LLMs as the bridge. Together with a design partner we built a UI that supports continuous business intelligence, and we created an AI data analyst that lives inside Slack and Sheets. LLMs translate natural language into SQL, query the warehouse and return insights or visuals in natural language again. This step is what unlocked true self serve at scale. But LLMs alone are not enough. In an enterprise setting you need strict guidelines and guardrails. Without governance you risk inconsistent answers, wrong definitions or even compliance issues. The combination of solid data governance with the power of LLMs is what makes this work. The results are clear: 1. Millions saved on SaaS and labor 2. One source of truth for all key metrics 3. Self serve for everyone in the company within clear constraints 4. Up to 100x faster time to insight and decision making LLMs made this shift possible. Strong governance made it safe. RIP Tableau. And it will not be the last legacy SaaS tool we replace.

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What does it take to be an outlier founder in Europe today? Our Partner in Sweden, Tobias Bengtsdahl, sits down with Pär-Jörgen Pärson Partner at Northzone and an early backer of Spotify, to explore the mindset, strategies, and lessons that set exceptional founders apart. This conversation is packed with insights for anyone building something bold. Watch the full conversation here 👇 https://lnkd.in/dVZYhfjM

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