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Hi everyone, I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Soan Wealth Fund.

And today I'm here with Robert Gens, who is visiting us in Oslo.

And Robert is the co-founder and co-CEO of Zalando, which is, of course, as you know, all of you, Europe's leading online fashion

platform. Robert started Salando in 2008, right as the financial crisis hit, and most people

thought that selling shoes online was a terrible idea. But now, 17 years later, Salando

serves more than 50 million customers across 25 European markets.

We own a lot of shares in this company and it's really exciting to have you here.

Thank you very much for inviting me and having me.

Now Rob, let's go back to the start. You founded Salando in 2008, just as the financial crisis

was kind of hitting the world. So tell me about the very start.

Before we started Zalano, like me and my co-founder, David, we started like a social media

company in Latin America, which was like, you know, student network in Mexico, Argentina and Chile.

And this was like a startup that didn't really work out. So and then in Mexico, Argentina, Chile.

And this was like a startup that didn't really work out.

And then we said, OK, well, that shouldn't be it.

So we actually wanted to actually try it one more time.

And we came back to Europe and thought, OK, well,

in e-commerce with soft goods, there's actually

very great opportunity here in Europe.

And we looked into various categories and fashion and really found shoes quite interesting.

...