Terese Alstin & Anna Haupt

- Industrial Designers / Inventors -

"Delusions of grandeur are exactly what it takes."

Terese Alstin and Anna Haupt were both born in Sweden. They met whilst attending the University of Lund where they studied Industrial Design. In 2005, they decided to work on their master thesis together; a decision that completely changed the course of their life.

At that time, a new law was just introduced in Sweden that made it obligatory for children up to the age of 15 to wear bicycle helmets. Quickly, all over the country debates arose on whether or not this law should be applied to adults too. Everybody was concerned about the thought of being forced to wear bicycle helmets, but unlike the rest, Terese and Anna decided to do something about it. The two graduates set out to collaborate on their master thesis and find a better and new solution that would encourage people to wear their helmets. The two entrepreneurs were sure of one thing: “It wasn’t the bicyclists who needed to change, it was the product”. Undergoing surveys and asking people on the streets, it was clear that what most desired was something innovative and cool, something that you could fold up or that would not mess up your hair. Terese’s and Anna’s moment of eureka finally came when an interviewee mentioned one word: “invisible”. Struck and inspired by the power that this word conveyed, the two students decided to achieve the unimaginable and build an invisible helmet. When sharing their idea with others, Terese and Anna were mostly discouraged and told it was impossible. This did not hold them back – quite the opposite; it fuelled their drive and made them dream even bigger. Seven years of research and hard work later, what had started out as an exam project became “Hövding”: the invisible helmet. The two designers had invented the first cyclist-airbag and proving everyone wrong, accomplished the impossible. Not only does Terese’s and Anna’s invention work, it looks good too. In recent years, their invisible helmet has gained international acclaim and won numerous international awards.

Today, Terese and Anna continue to lead their company Hövding. They now have 16 employees, each with unique skills and backgrounds. Their invisible helmet is being distributed all across the globe and represents the power their perseverance and hard work.

 

 

Why did you agree to become a part of amazers.org?

amazers.org is a great initiative, to collect people that are doing things that hopefully can inspire others to make their dreams into reality. Seeing other people reach their goals, is one of the best ways to realize that you can do it too. We did what people said to us was impossible. It wasn't. So, what else out there is not impossible? You tell me.

What was the hardest thing to do during your seven years of research? Any tips for those for people with similar ambitions?

We had a lot of employees during our development time, from electrical engineers to airbag specialists and mathematicians, obviously they needed to get paid and this was very costly. So for us, finding good investors, the right investors, was the hardest part; it took us a lot of time and effort. A tip would be to work for yourself or with a small team, it is much better to dot hat from the star and not include investors in the early stage. This because the hard thing with investors is that they have a time line and they are quite stressed getting the product out in the market. It could be really time consuming to just keep them happy and in a good mood so that they support you. Do not use venture capital if you do not need to. Just believe in yourself because the capacity in every human is really really big.

Were there time where things were difficult and you were afraid to fail or thought about giving up?

Yes, and there are still times that can be really hard actually. Now we are in a phase where we are selling the products, and there are always new challenges along the way. It can be that the future will be even harder as we focus on the development of future products, take care of our customers in the best possible way, and at the same time also try to find the right distributors in every country. At the moment it is really frustrating that due to the huge time and effort it takes, we are not able to distribute to all our global demand; especially the one in Japan and the USA.