Hans Kristian called up Arvid and Olav the morning after the conversation with Eva-Lena. He told them that he was not ready to let it go. Even though he understood it was still a long way to go, he was thinking that this was too big to let go, and too important to end up like this. Both Arvid and Olav agreed. They had been thinking the same many times. Still they had been using a lot of time and money on this already and would not commit too much again. They agreed that Hans Kristian could try to collect a team that had the skills to take this project to the next level, and that Arvid and Olav would involve in all kinds of technical meetings and share their knowledge and make it easier for the new team to make the technology and machine that we needed.
Hans Kristian had to start to find people with the necessary skills for building this machine. He also needed to figure out how to finance the growth of the company. He started to contact some people he knew that could be possible investors. All of them were enthusiastic, but far from interested in becoming financial partners at that stage. He also contacted Henrik Fardal at Innovation Norway which is the Norwegian Government’s most important instrument for innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry. Fardal told Hans Kristian that they liked the project, but that he wanted to be presented a business plan with budget and other necessary info. As an economist he could make a budget and a business plan, but Hans Kristian had very limited experience with machine and technology development, and it was not easy to figure out who to contact. He knew a workshop in Sandefjord which had been helping the farmers with some work on the first prototype. He contacted then Kåre Jan Johansen which owned his own workshop in Sandefjord, and they agreed to meet and discuss the business case. Arvid, Olav, Hans Kristian and Kåre Jan met and started to figure out what kind of people and skills they needed in order to build the next machine.