Alexander Hagerup The Norwegian who want to dominate the online backup

Alexander Hagerup 29 years old, has taken his company The Online Backup Company to Sweden, with the goal of becoming number one in the area.

As a 22-year-old started Alexander Hagerup The Online Backup Company. The business idea can be read out via the company name: backup services in the cloud. In Norway, the company’s turnover has increased steadily, year by year. The next step for the now 29-year-old chief executive Hagerup is to take the company to Sweden market. In his seven years experience, work and invest solely focusing on the online backup has made the company stronger in the area.

- Our business is a combination of several fields. You should have a safe and sound infrastructure and good software. Knowledge of software is really important, and finally you should have good support, to deliver the best service. In my opinion we are better than our competitors in this area, says Alexander Hagerup.

He is not someone who is afraid to stick their neck out with cheeky goals. At CS matter if the goal is to become the best – and biggest – in Sweden, he answers yes.

- I like to set high goals. When we started 2005 we had no customers, hardly any money. But we decided to be the biggest and best on-line backup in Norway. Without these objectives, we had not had the right direction or motivation. The same thing we think of Sweden. We set high goals and will work hard to achieve them, says Alexander Hagerup.

The company has competition from similar services provided by larger companies, as security giants. Even Microsoft has announced a beta version of an application for online backup. Despite this he means that it is not with the kind of services his company competes.

- The market for backup is large and there are so few that deliver this type, so it’s not really much competition between us. The main competitors are really traditional backup solutions, tape streamers and disk-based solutions, says Alexander Hagerup.

Right now, the company rents, with eleven employees in Sweden, in on an office hotel in the Waterfront Building in downtown Stockholm. As CEO, Alexander Hagerup also moved to Sweden to lead the work on site.

- It’s pretty good. During my nine weeks here I have been out on the field for 50 percent of the time and talked to potential customers. The need for our services are pre-eminently among Swedish companies, says Alexander Hagerup.

So far, about 50 Swedish partners engaged by the company, but if Alexander Hagerup has his way, further many more to come this year. Sweden is not the last step. Even now, he expects the company will soon break into the German market.

He is not afraid of it to go too fast.

- Of course it is always a risk, but we grow verified. We run something that can be scaled up, we have taken in substantial investment and would like to grow even faster, says Alexander Hagerup.

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