Ivar Plahte

Entrepreneur

I want to change the world.

In Europe, the most frustrating part of entrepreneurship is the pervasive attitude in business that the passing of time doesn't matter -- combined with a general risk aversion against doing business with startups. It has been rewarding to experience that Silicon Valley is indeed different.

Ignoring one or more of the fundamentals wrt demand, market size, differentiation, business model, or team.

1) Don't start too early
2) Don't quit too early
3) Don't scale too early

OnRelay co-founder and CEO. Visionary executive and entrepreneur with background from general management, marketing, product management and R&D. Well known European smartphone / mobile / cloud telecoms pioneer from current tenure at OnRelay, who delivers a cloud mobile office phone system. 

Previously one of the innovators in the IP telephony space from high-profile roles at Telenor and Ericsson. Plahte's Telecom over IP business unit at Telenor delivered several world first launches, including the first commercial network on the H.323 standard and a PSTN number plan for calls to / from PC softphones. 

Personal recognitions and awards include Smartphone biz-news person of the year 2009, being shortlisted for World Communications Awards (WCA) 2007 most influential person in telecoms, and being awarded by the Norwegian Computing Society in 1998 for having brought Norway to the forefront of the IP telephony market.