Ateo, a marketplace for commercial real-estate and conferences, was started in September 2013, and was a spin-off by Martin Thorborgs Amino. The new company, owned in part by Amino, was run by Nikolaj and his companion Mads Bjerring Ellegård. Now Nikolaj has announced his decision to leave it.

A transparent blogpost

In the blogpost he talks openly about different decisions along the way, and how Ateo will continue now, with Mads running the show. Nikolaj says the reason for his departure are very much personal, and has nothing to do with the concept, business model or Mads as a partner. It is rather a realisation that he is not the entrepeneur he thought he was, and that he felt he needed to do things where he had a bigger passion.

Nikolaj is a well known in the Danish online community, running a popular entreprenuer-blog. He is also known for his personal achievements and his progress in triathlons, as well as being an established name when it comes to talking about entreprenuership or motivation.

Making such an open blogpost is a bold move from him, and he writes it himself:

“I am very big proponent of sharing ones failures. This is a failure which is 100% my own fault. There is no financial crisis, no one has deceived me – I myself have made ​​the decision.”

“For me it’s about to continue on if you meet failure and hardship. Failure is more a lesson, and for each failure you get one step closer to your goal.”

Insights into his own entrepreneurship

Some of the lessons he shares are:

“I have more passion for products than business. I’m not enough business man to do things just because you can earn money. I have to do things that people really think is cool, that is what drives me.

I see freedom as the ultimate currency. Freedom to travel and work where I want. I work on average 12 hours a day, but that does not matter if it’s the way I like.

No, I never get an office with 100 employees, but it is also OK.

I am my best alone. I also preferred triathlon over football because I like to be alone, supported by just a few good people.”

His current plans are to further develop projects he has a greater passion for, such as the WorkAway camps, which he announced will be run under the brand of Betastof. If you want to know more, follow him on Twitter, and read the entire blogpost here. If you want to know more about Ateo, you can view further articles here.

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The man behind the idea is entrepreneur Nikolaj Astrup Madsen, who spends his weekdays working with Danish startup Ateo.

Flying from Denmark to Tanzania, the group will embark on a 9 day journey, including local meals in Moshi, going on safari, and last but not least, climbing the world’s highest free standing mountain. This is a networking session with a difference. Applications to join are open. Group size max 15, the trip runs from March 7-16, 2014.

It sounds pretty amazing, check out the pictures, itinerary and details here!

The post An invite-only voyage of discovery! appeared first on Øresund Startup News.

We had a word with Mads Bjerring Ellegård, who together with multi-entrepreneur Nikolaj Astrup Madsen, is one of the two key persons in the venture.

The deal behind Ateo is somewhat unusual: instead of starting a new service the two entrepreneurs will take over Amino’s existing service, with Amino, and to that extend also it’s founder, Martin Thorborg, having a 50% stake of the new company.

We asked Mads about some thoughts and reasons for this setup.

“The deal was from the beginning, that we took over Amino’s Lokalebørs which already had a lot of time and money invested in it. Even though the Lokalebørs never had gotten the full attention from Amino, it is still one of the most used site in Denmark for finding business rentals. So it had a lot of value from the beginning. But if you really want to grow something, it has to have your full attention. Thats why its a win win situation for both parts that we are now rebranding Amino’s Lokalebørs under the new name Ateo. Both Amino and us will achieve greater results than we would individually.”

However he ads that besides an existing costumer base and revenue stream, they also get marketing value:

“Due to Amino’s huge user-base and the many followers of Martin Thorborg, our project can get a lot of attention and marketing value. This is extremely important for a young company because the hardest part is to get the snowball rolling. Partnering with Amino will be seen as a seal of approval for many partners and customers that we approach.”

He also mentions that advice and counseling is one of the important factors in the deal, as is the case with any other real estate project. For instance, agents need to understand the demographics of fort lauderdale or other places before advising their clients on what to do and what not to do.

However, in real estate investment this terminal capitalization rate or cap rate is an important concept to have in your real estate investing toolkit. But what is the terminal capitalization rate? Check it out for more info!

“Martin Thorborg and Nicolai Frisch from Amino have a lot of experience with creating successful companies. Both as the torchbearers that lead the daily operations and as advisors were they act as a more classical business angel/incubator type of role. They have have been through many ups and downs and we can draw upon that experience in Ateo.”

When asked if Amino has made any investments into the venture the answer was no: the deal was that Mads and Nikolaj run Ateo’s daily operation without funding from Amino.

“Nikolaj and myself have invested most of what we have in this project. Besides from that, we contribute with the good old ingredient you can’t buy in the supermarkets: hard work. The daily business is solely run by Nikolaj and myself.”

“Amino owns half of the company. Nikolaj and I both have 25 %.”, Mads adds

The new service is expected to launch officially at the beginning of October. Until then the service is still run from Amino, with the exception of the conference service which is up and running on Ateo already.

This is an interesting concept and an interesting deal, which we will be following closely. Mads hinted that an expansion to the Swedish marked might be of interest in the future, and we expect that the ambition is to later expand even further abroad. In the meantime, for those who are into real estate investments, they can also heed the help of experts such as the Cape Cod Interior Designer.

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