This DIY ethos paid off in 2015 when SOUNDBOKS officially launched. The early days were a whirlwind of production challenges, with Nyvold and his friends scrambling to fulfil $300,000 worth of orders in just three months.
“Delivering these was a massive challenge,” Nyvold admits.
“We hired friends, rented a storage space, and worked around the clock. We literally ran a 24-hour production schedule with shifts, often fixing mistakes made during the previous shift. It was a complete mess, but somehow, we managed to get it done and deliver the products on time.”
Initially, they built the products themselves in Copenhagen and later gained global attention though crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo after a successful Y-combinator stint in San Francisco.
"In 2016, I lived and worked in Silicon Valley with my Co-Founders of SOUNDBOKS, where we attended the world-renowned accelerator program Y Combinator, specifically designed to build the best start-ups in the world. During our time there, we established an American entity, SOUNDBOKS Inc., and prepared the company for its first international product launch on Kickstarter, heavily guided by the classes and mentors in Y Combinator. By the end of the program, we raised over $800,000 on Kickstarter in 30 days and secured an additional $2,000,000 from prominent business angels in Silicon Valley. Afterward, we moved back to Denmark."
A strategic turn towards executive education
Despite SOUNDBOKS’s success, Nyvold felt a pull towards structured learning.