Nordic Software Summit 2025 – Part 1 – How to scale your tech business
- Marie-Louise Cleeren
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
”The #1 key factor for scaling your company is Marketing!”
Those were the words of Verne Harnish, the Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, during his keynote at Nordic Software Summit 2025 in Stockholm on August 20th. He addressed a large auditorium of tech startups and scale-ups.
It’s not unusual that tech companies spend millions on product development but nickles on marketing, years after the product has been launched and first customers have been secured.
But you need a marketing machinery to help grow your business. This requires leadership buy-in, and investment in time and resources (including a suitable marketing budget). Verne’s recommendation was for all CEO’s to take an active interest in Marketing and set aside minimum 1 hour/week for a meeting with the Marketing function to discuss branding, marketing strategies, plans, objectives and results.
The four cornerstones of scaling up
Many start up, but few scale up. Verne talked about four important building blocks when scaling your company – People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash.
According to Verne, most organizations don’t set a bold enough BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) – that large, long-term (10-30 years), and inspirational goal that pushes an organization beyond its perceived limits, forcing it to think big and work towards a clear, compelling vision for the future.
A quick Mentimeter poll among the audience showed that tech scale-ups struggle the most with executing on the agreed strategy.
From strategy to execution
To find out a bit more about the Scaling Up methodology, I attended a webinar with Jenny Arnström last week, arranged by Business Women Sweden. Jenny is a Swedish entrepreneur and ScaleUp coach. She shared examples of and explained how you can break down and execute on the long-term company strategy:
Strategy
10+ years
Vision / purpose
Core values (company/brand values)
BHAG – inspirational and aspirational long-term goal
3 years
Strategic position
Busines model
Strategic initiatives
Core customers
Brand promise
Differentiators
Core competencies
Execution / Planning: Turning strategy into action
Identify top priorities to move the needle
What are the most important activities to develop the company?
What resources / budget do we need to make it happen?
Annual (1 year) planning
Objectives
Key initiatives
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Critical figures (e.g. annual turnover)
Quarterly
Quarterly objectives
Prioritize – what will have the biggest impact right now?
Activities – make detailed plan of what to do week by week to achieve the quarterly target(s), see example in image below for remainder of year (Sept-Dec)
KPIs
Celebration of achievements
Weekly
Execute on the plan, step by step, week by week – grow the company a little every day!
Follow up progress/KPIs
Team management / development
Source: Slide images from webinar presentation (in Swedish) by Jenny Arnström for Business Women Sverige on September 3, 2025.
About Nordic Software Summit 2025
Nordic Software Summit gathered some 1200+ SaaS founders and executives for a full-day event at Stockholm Waterfront Congress Center.
The event was organized by Monterro, a Nordic investment firm which invests in B2B software companies and grows them into market leaders.
The event had a mix of inspiring keynote presentations, breakout sessions, interesting roundtable discussions and networking opportunities. The event app worked perfectly to keep track of ”My agenda”, look up other attendees and their interests, and book 1-on-1 meetings.
In the next few days, I plan to share some more take-aways from the event, so stay tuned:
Nordic Software Summit 2025 – Part 2: The internationalization journey
Nordic Software Summit 2025 – Part 3: The leadership journey
More information:
AI summaries from the event
https://scaleup.se/ (in Swedish)
Text and photos: Mimmis Cleeren
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