143from competitors. Instead of USP, however, she used the term IP, which stands for Intellectual Property. T. remembered this as a disastrous pitch that completely undermined her credibility as an entrepreneur. Not because of what she had to say, but for the way she expressed it: We had this entrepreneur who consistently and frequently during a presentation used the

word IP [intellectual property] when she meant USP [unique selling point]. [mimicking with

a funny voice] ‘Our IP is to do this.’ One does not take her very seriously as an entrepreneur.

One does not trust that she knows how to build a venture. Not because she could not separate

the terms, but because it was clear that she tried to present herself as something that she was

not. (T. entrepreneurship coach) As in any subculture, the language of entrepreneurship helped actors in the entrepreneurship industry to distinguish between in-groups and out-groups, between A. Brattström

144authentic actors and wannabes. Thus, an important role for actors in the entrepreneurship industry was to educate prospective entrepreneurs in this language. T, for example, said, This lingo we learned at Lund University entrepreneurship program. It is really used.

Everyone is talking about MVPs and VC, pitch decks and all of those terms.

(T. entrepreneurship coach) To identify the central terms in this language of entrepreneurship, I asked an entrepreneurial team to make me a list of the most prominent need-to-know words. This team was led by a serial entrepreneur in his early 40s, about to make a successful exit from his second startup. At the time of the interview, he had recently spent 3 months at Antler in Stockholm,1 being trained in the profession of entrepreneurship. Table 3 lists the terms his team put forward, adding also a few terms picked up in other interviews. A similar but more extensive list of words has also been put together by MIT Orbit, known as the Entrepreneurship Jargon Translator (2021).

Comparing the list of words that my informants spontaneously developed with the Entrepreneurship Jargon translator, it is apparent that the entrepreneurship culture as manifested in Sweden is an international import, closely linked to the U.S. West Coast. As also clear in Table 3, there is a great deal of Swenglish in entrepreneurship language, a blend of Swedish and English words used in everyday expressions. It is also interesting to note the military references in the entrepreneurship lingo, such as beach head (the first customers) or blitz scale (following the Blitz Krieg during World War Two). A good example of military terms is manifested in one of the latest trends in the entrepreneurship industry: to organize traditional companies in terms of tribes and squads, instead of business lines and units. Take Danske Bank, for example, one of the main incumbent players in the Nordic banking industry. Danske Bank has recently implemented a major reorganization, following a template that is supposedly adopted from high-tech giants. Instead of the traditional business line structure, Danske Bank is now organized in terms of tribes and squads. These tribes operate in different habitats in the bank, in the hope that “it should be easier and more fun to work in Danske Bank” (2020). Walking the Entrepreneurial (Cat)Walk In addition to knowing how to talk the entrepreneurial lingo, informants emphasized the importance of “the entrepreneurial look”. As described by T,

There is a certain look. To not be overdressed. To not be overly groomed. It is good to not be

shaved, signaling that one is too busy to have time to groom [laughs]. (T. entrepreneurship

coach)

1Antler is an investment company, entrepreneurship educator, and business accelerator. Antler accepts applicants with startup ambitions into a six-month program. In the first phase, participants form a team (or try out different teams), identify a business idea, and start to build a new venture. In the second phase, the new venture is accelerated with the aim of securing external investments.

145Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry

Table 3 Central terms of the entrepreneurial vocabulary. The Swedish term originally provided by informants is in parenthesis to illustrate the blend of language (Swenglish) Definition Term MRR Monthly recurring revenue. ARR Annual recurring revenue. To API (API:a) To create a technical interface. Automagic A process carried out automatically in such a clever way that the result appears to be magic (Wiktionary definition). “Blitzscaling is what you do when you need to grow really, really Blitz scaling quickly. It’s the science and art of rapidly building out a company to serve a large and usually global market, with the goal of becoming the first mover at scale.” Reid Hoffman, entrepreneurship gury, interviewed in Harvard Business Review (Sullivan, 2016). A verb describing entrepreneurial activities that are financed by To bootstrap (bootstrappa) personal savings/revenue and not by external funding. The first customer Beach head Burn rate The pace at which a new company runs through its startup capital ahead of it generating any positive cash flow (Investopedia). Vitamins refers to product features that are nice to have; painkillers Build a pain killer instead of a vitamin refer to product features that solve a real problem for the consumer. CAC Customer acquisition cost. CAGR Rate of growth in a market. Churn/churn rate The number of customers who leave a product over a given period of time. Committing code Send code to GIT, the version control system where all code is (committa kod) stored. Customer journey The experiences a customer goes through when interacting with a product and a brand. To deploy code (deploya Sending code to a server. kod) A hack A fast-and-dirty solution. Exponential growth Fast growth. Gamification Adding game features to a product, website, operation, etc., to make consumers more engaged. Hypergrowth Fast growth. Inbounds—Externals actors who find the startup; Inbound or outbound Outbounds—External actors who are contacted by the startup. Converting users Convert users (e.g., getting them to pay for a service). Run things agile Conduct operations or solve a problem in a responsive, lightweight way. Land and expand Introduce a customer with a small deal and then expand over time. LTV Life time value. Market automation Automatic, directed marketing based on customer preferences. Market fit Indication of a product that responds to a customer need. Mockups A product demo used to demonstrate or evaluate an idea. MVP Minimun Viable Product, typically a beta-version of the end product that is launched in order to test customer viability. (continued) A. Brattström

146Table 3 (continued) Definition Term Netflix manifesto How to build a corporate culture. Painstorming A process for identifying customer needs (pains). To pitch (pitcha) A verbal presentation of a business idea in short format. To pivot (pivotta) A verb describing the process of making a change in a business

model. Referrals To be introduced to a person by someone else.

Scale-ups are per definition better than a startup, so you always Scale-up business vs. startup want to be perceived as a scale-up. business Scrum A framework for complex product development, originally devel-

oped for software but now used more widely. Emphasizes working

iteratively toward time-bound goals in work packages, often

referred to as sprints. Get traction (skaffa Get attention. traction) Scale up (skala upp) Increase size of operations. Sending a message, term modified from the platform slack. To slack (Slacka) UAC User acquisition cost. Unicorn An unusually fast-growing new venture. Customer profiles. User personas USP Unique Selling Point. VCs Venture Capitalists. VCoef A measure of virality. Wantrepreneur A person acting as an entrepreneur in a non-authentic way. To wireframe (wireframe) To create an image that describes the functional elements of a

product or service; originally from website programing. WOM Word-of-mouth marketing.

In a Swedish context, Sebastian Siemiatkowski is a famous example of this entrepreneurial look. As a young CEO of the fintech company Klarna, Sebastian Siemiatkowski is known for his dressed-down look, wearing jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies in interviews and other public appearances. Interestingly, this look is a stark contrast to how he presented himself 10 years ago, when Klarna first launched. Presumably in a time when entrepreneurship as a cultural ideal was less outspoken, press pictures back then show a traditional outfit: the haircut slick; the tie arranged carefully; and the suit traditionally gray.

The dressed-down entrepreneurial look is not only apparent in individual dress codes, but also in office designs. A good example is MINC, the largest startup incubator/office space in Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city. The MINC webpage (2021) displays colorful pictures of post-its, pillows, and plywood, populated with entrepreneurs with a similarly unique, laid-back style. Reflecting on these looks, one informant saw them as central to entrepreneurship culture. Comparing the city of Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry

147Lund (a university city) to Malmö (18 km. from Lund), T. classified Malmö “more entrepreneurial,” based on dress-code attributes:

Malmö is much more entrepreneurial. Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurial archetype. For exam-

ple, if you walk around in a suit at MINC [a local incubator]—you would be considered

weird. Like, trying to be ‘a business man, with a fax machine’ [laughs—a business man with

a fax machine is apparently NOT what you want to be perceived as]. (T. entrepreneurship

coach)

4.5

Consequences of the Entrepreneurship Ideal

As demonstrated in the prior sections, interview data supports the idea that activities within the entrepreneurship industry are not free of cultural connotations, but unfold according to a cultural ideal: a social institution to which actors in this industry are supposed to adhere. In addition to providing insight into how this ideal has emerged and how it manifests itself, informants also provided reflective discussions about its consequences. The People that Get Lost in Translation Several informants acknowledged that the practices of the entrepreneurship industry were complex and tacit, making it difficult for newcomers to understand how to play the industry in their favor. As S. reflected,

It is all about knowing which organizations that are out there, knowing where to turn to for

help. . .for those of us already working in the industry, we do not always see that, but for an

entrepreneur that is not familiar with the system, it must be very confusing. (S. entrepreneurship support actor) Not all entrepreneurs understand how to play cultural ideals in their favor. And those who do not are less likely to be perceived as legitimate. In this way, the presence of cultural ideals in the entrepreneurship industry leads to problems of discrimination, whereby prospective entrepreneurs who fall outside the normative ideal are less likely to receive support. As T. reflected,

Say that you are a 70-year-old engineer who just invented a new microinvector for solar

panels that improves efficiency by 7.3%. And you come to pitch in this format that we run

[i.e., in the support organization]: a sort of dragons’ den. Then you are an oddball. And you