I've always been interested in technology and have been messing around with computers since I was little.
I liked physics and mathematics and originally thought I would study nanophysics. During high school, I had several part-time jobs in sales, support, and customer service, and I realized that I wanted to work on something practical that also had a human dimension. IT Product Development summed up all the desires I had for a higher education because it encompassed the interaction between IT, technology, and people. IT Product Development is a broad and interdisciplinary programme, but that's also its greatest strength. Not only do you learn about programming, design, and software, but also how to be a link between salespeople, designers, developers, and programmers - professions that think, prioritize, and make decisions in their own unique ways.
RetinaLyze is built around a software algorithm and artificial intelligence that allows screening of patients' eyes and retinas and calculating the risk and indication of the person developing an eye disease. The tool can be used by non-specialists in eye diseases such as clinic assistants, nurses, and especially optometrists with whom we have a broad collaboration. By lowering the price and barrier to entry for eye screenings, we make them widely accessible and help save people's vision.
I was still a student in IT Product Development when we founded RetinaLyze in December 2013. The parallel process of studying and starting the company meant that the way we developed, marketed, and sold RetinaLyze was constantly evolving. It was fun because the knowledge I gained in my studies had to be translated into a real company with its own business model. RetinaLyze was not just a study project but a real company that had to stand on its own after graduation because it had to be my livelihood. At the same time, by starting up a real company, it was exciting to apply what we learned about programming, physical design, and business understanding in real life.
When you're an entrepreneur, you must fill out a lot of different roles and dive into many things at once. You go deep into the engine room and not only develop, produce, and sell but also take care of a lot of practical and administrative things like taxes, CVR numbers, legal matters, etc. But that part also needs to be in place for the company to function. And for me, it's much more fun and motivating to work with all these things at once. I get to know all parts of RetinaLyze and can therefore tackle tasks right away. That's probably the biggest difference between being an entrepreneur and being employed in a large company, where you often have very fixed and well-defined tasks.
What drives me as an entrepreneur is the freedom to organize and prioritize my tasks as I like. I experience a lot of personal growth while also satisfying a desire to develop something meaningful for others. I have a hard time motivating myself in a task if I can't see the point of it myself. That's why it's pretty fantastic to go to work every day knowing that with RetinaLyze, we have created a product that makes a difference to a lot of people. In Denmark alone, we have so far performed eye screenings on over 140,000 clients and saved the vision or prevented blindness for over 6,200 people. This makes me feel like I'm making a difference. And it makes me happy to go to work.
