SPEED OF LIFE

– Building a strong and sustainable Life science sector – together

Uppsala profile – Sara Mangsbo

What would you say defines you? I am always kind of curious about what is creating a barrier for an idea or a barrier for a person to make a choice of pursuing something. And for me, I’ve always tried to figure out what is sort of behind the barrier that I feel that I have. I mean, when I was not an entrepreneur until I became an entrepreneur. One of the barriers that I felt was the barrier of fear around how do you even start a company. What knowledge do I have to have to start a company? What type of economic contributions do I have to make? And am I willing to take that risk? And also, what type of network do I need? And all of those things are barriers. And things that I was frightened of, sort of, which in a way controlled me. And I think I don’t really like the feeling that something controls me, and I don’t want to put boundaries on myself. So I’m always constantly trying to push my boundaries, and maybe that’s what defines me a little bit.

I think it’s also a way for me to sort of see what is sort of logic and what is emotions and what is connected to a choice that I make. Usually, you can make a choice, and you can start to work on a new thing that you don’t have control over, but emotions may stop you if it’s something you’re afraid of or haven’t done, etc.

And I don’t think that I should be controlled by those emotions. I should be controlled by what I can and the capabilities I have. And I have a lot of them with me from experiences, from school, from learnings, etc.

And if I let the fears control me, then I don’t allow myself to be come the thing that I want to become or use my full potential to drive out ideas that can actually influence other lives.

How do you view setbacks? A setback is something that has always been present in academia, right? It’s the experimental setbacks that you get every day. And so it’s not something that I’m not used to. And in the journey of building companies, you should talk about the vision, right? And you should sort of try to bring your company to that vision in the end, but it’s far, and there will be many setbacks.

So it’s also a constant reminder not to get settled, right? To not get too familiarized with the current scenario, because you need to be agile in every type of project where you’re on your journey towards something. So I’m also trying to see setbacks as some kind of signal to be aware of.

How do you perceive or define success for yourself? I think that right now, I’m not sure it would have been the same answer before. But since I feel like I have achieved a lot, I’m really happy with just being part of learning more, which is something that is a goal for me right now. It’s not like a big goal to achieve another step in life. It’s to be part of a journey where others learn and where I can share learnings. I think that’s the big thing. If I can use that knowledge in a small arena or a bigger one, that is really rewarding for me right now.