He Raised $200 Million To Start A Local-First Premium Audio Entertainment Subscription Service And Has Now Built A Tool For Accessing Reliable Energy Data

Sverre Dueholm’s entrepreneurial journey traces his remarkable successes and resilience in building and scaling not just the company but also the product and people. He talks about flying solo and prioritizing work over a social life, eventually learning to create the optimum balance.

Sverre alludes to the Harvard study about happiness being tied to your relationships and the degree of relationships you have. His latest venture is Comundo, where he successfully instituted a four-day workweek, achieving higher productivity and creativity levels.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

Early Years Growing Up in Copenhagen, Denmark

Growing up in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sverre Dueholm’s life was steeped in entrepreneurial spirit. His childhood home was a hub of activity—construction projects, guests, and candid family discussions about the financial highs and lows of running a business.

“I sometimes felt like I was living in an early-stage startup,” Sverre recalls, likening his family’s financial challenges to a startup’s tight runway. This environment nurtured Sverre’s entrepreneurial instincts, but his path wasn’t straightforward.

In his early 20s, Sverre was part of a group of friends who loved brainstorming business ideas over beers. The projects didn’t have anything in common with one another–they were just random ideas, he remarks. It wasn’t until his late 20s that Sverre decided to act.

Motivated by a shared resolve with a friend, Sverre ventured into his first business—a platform aimed at helping musicians monetize their work. The venture was a meaningful learning experience, but it ultimately failed.

Sverre candidly admits, “We didn’t know anything about digital or how to communicate our ideas to engineers. We got exactly what we asked for, but not what we wanted.”

This realization drove Sverre to enroll at the IT University of Copenhagen, determined to bridge the gap between creative vision and technical execution.

Building a Better Wake-Up Call

While studying, Sverre teamed up with his younger brother to create an app that reimagined the morning alarm. Their idea was simple: replace jarring and annoying alarm sounds with pleasant, personalized wake-up messages.

What started as a quirky experiment evolved into a platform blending alarms with short-form podcasts and content, including celebrity messages, yoga sessions, and even jokes. Eventually, Sverre created content that was three to five minutes long to fit into users’ morning schedules.

Despite its creativity, the app struggled to monetize effectively. But Sverre’s perseverance paid off when a mentor—a prominent figure in Denmark’s startup ecosystem—approached him in late 2018 before Christmas, with a new idea: revolutionize podcast discovery and monetization.

This conversation laid the foundation for Podimo in 2019. Sverre remembers it being an entirely new experience for him. Until then, he had been bootstrapping ventures in his basement with a couple of friends and maybe six to seven people.

The Podimo Revolution

Podimo aimed to create an ecosystem where content creators could earn revenue through a fair subscription model. It would be similar to traditional public radio, where content creators and enthusiasts could put their shows on demand. It also attempted to get sponsors.

The founding team—Sverre, his mentor Morten Strunge, and a content expert—built the platform from scratch in just seven months with a small team of six engineers. “It was like cooking a startup in a kitchen,” Sverre jokes, recalling the early days.

The company’s initial vision—to empower independent creators with split 50-50 subscriptions—was overshadowed by the need to attract household names and drive revenue. Sverre reflects, “We lost a bit of the magic. What we set out to do initially didn’t materialize.”

Scaling Fast, Learning Hard

In just 18 months, Podimo grew from a kitchen table idea to a 100-person operation. But scaling came with its own set of challenges, and Sverre recalls many parts breaking down.

Initially, they had two apps–for the Play Store and App Store. Concrete content creators worked out of the back office system to upload and handle all the content. They were also handling subscriptions and full products.

Technical issues plagued the Android app at launch, earning it a dismal 1.3 rating in the Play Store. Sverre, then serving as Chief Product Officer, personally responded to user reviews, relaying feedback to his team.

Over six months, they turned the app around, but the experience was grueling. Sverre acknowledges the toll it took: “I didn’t sleep. I was battling imposter syndrome and felt immense pressure as the lesser-known member of a high-profile team.”

Team Management Challenges

Sverre was responsible for everything product and tech, and he quickly realized that the stress of managing a rapidly growing team was enormous. By then, they had a product team based in Copenhagen and a tech team in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Burnout among the team further underscored the importance of a sustainable work culture. Sverre’s own unhealthy habits during this time made him acutely aware of the need for balance.

“When you’re managing others, the responsibility magnifies. You’re not just saying goodbye to your social life—you’re also responsible for ensuring your team doesn’t burn out.”

Podimo raised over $200M, again an introduction to the transactional side of things for Sverre since he had been so used to bootstrapping. He remembers meeting with investors and answering questions related to the product vision.

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Transitioning to New Pastures

Looking back at his experiences at Podimo, Sverre talks about always being motivated by scaling his company. “It was never about money,” he says. His objectives were always to penetrate new markets, drive more users, build a bigger presence, lower churn rates, and raise retention.

In Sverre’s opinion, Podimo faced challenges like unsustainable growth and COVID-19. Further, the team was spread across four locations and was more than 100 strong but without effective HR management.

From his experiences, Sverre talks about understanding that a company is more than just a marketable product. It needs a strong foundation from the team perspective, without which burnouts will happen and churn rates will rise. It’s super expensive to lose people and replace them.

Sverre was now ready to explore new territories and stepped away from Podimo. When looking for new projects, he was determined to build a robust foundation this time around–regardless of the sphere where he would work.

The Power of Benchmarking and Optimization in Business

Sverre met with a few friends working in the energy space and started to work on improving their initial products. His latest venture, Comundo, leverages energy data, which is needed everywhere but is challenging to access.

Sverre talks about the need for more infrastructure across different energy sources with multiple utility providers serving different clients. Other energy sources lack a single platform, like in electricity, which has an app for tracking usage in private and commercial spaces.

Sverre points out that the biggest businesses must report their consumption and carbon emissions in their annual reports. They must also comply with the updated regulations being rolled out.

Sverre highlights the transformative potential of benchmarking and optimization for building portfolios. By comparing performance across multiple properties, businesses can identify outliers, such as a facility consuming excessive electricity, and make targeted adjustments to reduce inefficiencies.

While reporting is valuable, Sverre emphasizes that true business value lies in making small, data-driven tweaks and observing their measurable impacts.

Lessons from Fundraising: Finding the Right Investors

Having successfully raised over $3M, Sverre reflects on the dynamics of securing investment. His prior entrepreneurial success undoubtedly opened doors, making it easier to secure initial meetings.

However, the real challenge lay in filtering investors to find partners aligned with his vision. For Sverre, selecting investors who understood his approach to building a strong structural and cultural foundation within his ventures was vital.

Sverre likens finding the right investors to assembling a complementary team. It’s not just about financial backing but about bringing in individuals whose skills and perspectives enhance the collective effort.

He says, “I need someone who will give me something I don’t already have to improve the group and achieve what we want to do.”

Reinventing Work Culture: The Four-Day Workweek

Sverre’s startup in Denmark was among the first in the country to adopt a four-day workweek, a bold move in a community often characterized by long working hours.

“We’ve always been told that success requires sacrificing your social life and working 60, 80, or even 100 hours a week,” Sverre notes. However, he firmly believes this model is unsustainable, leading to burnout and diminished productivity over time.

Sverre has prioritized employee well-being without compromising results by committing to a shorter workweek. Over 18 months, his company has seen productivity and creativity surge, with employees reporting improved mental well-being and 81% enhanced physical health.

Surveys reveal that 100% of employees feel they are better versions of themselves professionally and personally. This transformation has been driven by reducing meeting times, minimizing interruptions, and emphasizing focused work periods.

By cutting average weekly meeting hours in half and optimizing daily workflows, employees have reclaimed up to 2.5 hours of productivity per day—effectively regaining the fifth workday.

This contrasts with the average in public and private sectors, where employees spend 10 to 14 hours in meetings weekly. At Comundo, they slashed the length of meetings from hourly to 15 minutes to a maximum of 30 minutes a day, once each week.

Sverre reveals how his teammates have better resistance to depression and obesity, with one of them having lost 50kgs in one year.

Breaks: A Key to Sustained Success

Looking back on his early entrepreneurial journey, Sverre offers critical advice to his younger self: Take breaks. The misconception that relentless work is the only path to success can lead to physical and mental exhaustion.

Drawing from neuroscience and insights from professional athletes, Sverre explains that breaks are essential for maintaining focus and productivity. Research has proved that 100 hours a week workdays is just not practical.

Just as athletes need rest between workouts to perform optimally, entrepreneurs and their teams benefit from structured downtime to recharge and sustain long-term performance. Working for 12 or 15 hours a day will not yield any results except crashing at some point.

Lessons in Resilience and Innovation

Sverre’s journey from a young entrepreneur experimenting with music apps to co-founding a game-changing podcast platform is a testament to resilience and adaptability. He learned to navigate the complexities of scaling not just products but teams and cultures.

From addressing imposter syndrome to managing technical crises, Sverre’s story is a rich tapestry of lessons for entrepreneurs. His advice to aspiring founders?

“Understand the gap between vision and execution. Surround yourself with people who can bridge that gap. And remember, growth is a double-edged sword. It’s exciting, but it’s also messy.”

Sverre’s experience at Podimo highlights the delicate balance between ambition and sustainability. By staying true to a vision while adapting to market realities, he exemplifies leadership that drives innovation and inspires teams to persevere through challenges.

Sverre’s journey and innovative practices at Comundo showcase a new paradigm for building thriving businesses. He has created a company culture that drives results and improves lives by prioritizing well-being, fostering creativity, and reimagining traditional work norms.

His story shows that treating employees well and working smarter—not harder—can lead to exceptional outcomes.

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Sverre emphasizes bridging the gap between creative ideas and their practical implementation, highlighting the importance of surrounding yourself with a capable team.
• Introducing a four-day workweek at Comundo boosted productivity and employee well-being, demonstrating the value of balancing efficiency with employee health.
• Sverre stresses the importance of selecting investors who share your vision and complement your team, prioritizing strategic alignment over financial backing alone.
• Early entrepreneurial setbacks, like a failed music platform, taught Sverre the importance of understanding technical execution and effective communication with engineers.
• Growing Podimo rapidly taught Sverre the difficulties of managing a large, distributed team and the need for robust HR and organizational foundations.
• Sverre’s experience managing technical failures, user feedback, and imposter syndrome underscores the value of perseverance and adaptability in entrepreneurship.
• Sverre advocates for structured downtime, arguing that sustained performance requires rest, similar to how athletes recover between intense training sessions.

 

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