Mia Hjorth Hansen is an entrepreneur who struggled to launch her business, until she got involved in the ‘Entrepreneur Denmark’ project. Funded by the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU) fund, the project empowers individuals to become entrepreneurs by providing business guidance, economic support, and tailored competency development to ensure their companies’ survival and growth.

While working in the restaurant business, Mia identified a gap in the market for an acidic, non-alcoholic drink to help balance the food. So, she invented her own alcohol-free product and set up her company, AIM THIRST. She said, ‘As a start-up business you can’t afford to bring in consultants to help you with everything’.

'Entrepreneur Denmark’ focuses on helping entrepreneurs like Mia, assisting them in launching their products and businesses successfully – and in overcoming common challenges.

The project strengthens the broad group of entrepreneurs involved with tailored competency development to ensure the companies survival and development, focusing on helping both green and sustainable entrepreneurship and skilled, female entrepreneurs.

The project also targets gender equality in the workplace. The self-employment rate for women in Denmark was only 4.9 % in 2016, which was less than half the rate for men (10.2 %). One of the ways to deliver gender balance in business leadership is to increase the number of female founders ─ that means supporting women entrepreneurs.

Mia was pleased with the support ‘Entrepreneur Denmark’ gave her and said, ‘It’s nice to be able to do more myself.’ Through the project’s business courses, Mia received guidance on how to promote her company on social media, making her business more competitive. Mia said, ‘The EU project has expanded my skillset […] I’ve learned how to transition from being on social media as a normal user to being there as a business.’

The project has also helped Mia to balance her personal life with her professional responsibilities, and she is thankful to 'Entrepreneur Denmark’ for supporting her and her start-up business, ‘I think it’s awesome that something as large as the EU is supporting little me.’

So far ‘Entrepreneur Denmark’ has supported 4 400 entrepreneurs. The project’s focus on attracting and supporting female entrepreneurs has also been a success, as 52 % of the ‘NextStep’ course attendees are women.

Looking to the future, the project is helping Mia to pursue her aspirations for her business through attracting repeat customers. She said, ‘I need to spend more time on the customers. Therefore, I need a business partner and to get that I need guidance, which I am lucky to be able to get through Entrepreneur Denmark.’