2016

Everything really started when Daniel Sällberg and Ola Andersson sat down at IDEON in Lund and noticed that they had tried to solve the same problem from different directions – sometime in the early autumn of 2016. In short, Ola had an IT company and Daniel a law firm (albeit in a student apartment of 11 square meters) – and both wanted to find a solution for all small business owners that they knew would not have a chance to meet new demands from large companies, the EU and the Supervisory Authorities from May 25, 2018 , just short of two years ahead. They wanted to find a solution to the “problem”, or let’s say the challenge (and later the “opportunity“), from the new Data Protection Regulation, or “GDPR” as it has quickly become known.

The mission they gave themselves was to help all companies and organizations that did not want, or could not, spend thousands of euros or dollars on a solution that requires both IT and legal expertise. Daniel set out to build on a legal requirement specifications for a cloud service where the target was the user, regardless of size or industry, that could go from section 1 to 7 and when the entry was complete, all requirements of the regulation would be met – but no more. Lean and correct were the key words, and we remember very well our frustration from noticing all the attention we received from companies having 500+ employees, and how difficult it was at the same time to convince small businesses of this need and advantage. One advantage of having to  develop what would become a fully launched and in itself complete (but unpolished) product within six months, is that we received both the benefits of our minimalist approach (where no additional work is created in an already tough challenge) and the equally great benefits that come from companies with ten times more lawyers and IT technicians constantly demanding more and more functions from us. In the end very much benefiting also the smaller companies we finally reached as well.

2017

In the summer of 2017, both our English, Danish and Norwegian versions of the app launched, and between April and August ten new lawyers were hired – five students and five seniors. Swedens 10th largest city began a public procurement, which we won, and GDPR Hero GOV was born.

2018

At the beginning of 2018 we were 15 employees and many more connected to us through collaborations and agreements. We are still very lean, still have the ambition to help everyone with a cheap and legally and technically strong product, but along the way it has become clear how many different skills and backgrounds are needed to help everything from an ornithological association to an international group or public authority. We have senior business developers, a large group of lawyers with expertise niches within niches within GDPR and data protection, our own IT-stars and a large network of competencies through all partners. What we “miss” is sales. We still did not have a single sales person – to the surprise of many, but it was simply not needed.

2019

A little more than a year after GDPR came into force (25 May 2018), we went from a product development focus to a use centric focus, continuing our good relationship with our customers and branching out into areas where they needed extra help.

One of those areas was know-how and how-to. Over 300 companies would join for our tour around Sweden, sharing our practical expertise of GDPR.

We also present the AI-driven GDPR records for the future at Sweden’s largest data protection trade fair.

2020

Having survived and thrived during the initial years of the GDPR craze (and, thankfully, the pandemic) our focus went into trimming the less useful and perfecting what gave us and our customers the most value.

With the ultimate goal of becoming the most affordable, lean, and trusted source of GDPR assistance, we realized we had to go more digital as well as international.

2021

Having outgrown our start-up-phase and in need of more space for creating e-learning and more digital products, we move into new premises at the heart of Lund. We launch our DPO-services outside of our first few. We conduct a survey of 3,000 data protection officers in Sweden and discuss the results with a couple of hundred of these to evolve our product and service offerings.

2023

Important milestones include multi-language E-learning LMS modules for introduction to GDPR as well as company specific, tailored, “everyone should know this”-options.

A comprehensive (free) and automatied On-boarding is launched for all customers, taking the “GDPR for everyone” to the next important level in line with our company vision.