The Strawberry Meeting

While I've been on the "trip of a lifetime," I've also been working on something that has turned out to be WAY harder than I expected: getting in contact with Strawberry. Or more specifically...Getting in contact with Petter Stordalen.

As mentioned earlier in this project, my first attempt was completely unsuccessful. But, in hindsight, also quite funny.

I decided I would simply turn up at the office and pitch the project directly. A completely normal thing to do. Very calm. Very professional.

The night before, I made a cover page and filled a folder with what I claimed were 100 empty pages, meant to symbolise the 100 ideas I want to present at the end of this project. I say “100” loosely. I did not count them. It was more of an emotional 100.

The next morning I put on my suit trousers, bought a plastic folder, and got on the bus to the Strawberry office. On the way there, I dropped the folder.

It broke.

Great.

So I went into a bookshop, bought a new one, and carried on. No worries. Already thriving. Nothing can stop me today.

So I went into a bookshop, bought a new one, and carried on. No worries. Already thriving.

Standing outside the office, I put on a power song and took a deep breath. If there is one office in Norway you do not casually walk into and ask to see the owner, it is probably this one. It was deeply intimidating. But I walked in anyway.

I found the receptionist.

“Is Petter Stordalen here today?”

“No.”

Right. Great start.

“Is his assistant here today?”

“No. But what do you want?”

“I just really need to meet him.”

She suggested I email his PA.

No way. I had spent at least an hour the day before practising this pitch in the mirror. I was not about to let Gmail steal my moment. But after a short and humbling exchange, I admitted defeat. For now.

I left, slightly embarrassed, mostly annoyed that I had not even got to use the pitch.

Then, later that day, I was on Instagram when I saw a photo of Petter at the office. I grabbed the folder and went straight back.

The receptionist looked at me.

“You again?”

“Yes. Me again.”

“I want to see Petter Stordalen.”

“He’s not here.”

WHAT.

A few seconds later, I realised the photo was old. I had marched back into Strawberry headquarters based on archival Instagram content. This was not my finest hour.

She then explained, very fairly, that showing up unannounced was pointless because they do not take walk-ins. I said I only needed one minute. She said a lot of people want one minute with Petter Stordalen.

At that point I wanted to say, "WELL THEN LET ME GET IN LINE! WHERE ARE THEY? I DON'T SEE THEM?"

Instead, I nodded politely and left with the little dignity I had left.

Plan A had failed.

So: Plan B.

I emailed everyone I could reasonably justify emailing. Assistants. People in branding. People connected to guest experience. People who were perhaps only vaguely adjacent to the entire thing. I wrote what I thought was a very cool email, pressed send, and waited.

Then, in the middle of my road trip, while sitting on a tram in Paris, I got a reply.

They had discussed the project internally. They thought it sounded interesting. They wanted to hear more.

I stared at the email for a full minute.

Because up until then, this whole thing had mostly lived inside my own head. Me driving around Europe. Me turning up at hotels with too many questions. Me sleeping in a van. Me carrying around a folder full of symbolic blank paper like that was a perfectly reasonable thing for a grown woman to do.

So I made them a very energetic video explaining the project in more detail and said I’d be happy to talk when I was back in Oslo.

Then they replied: Tuesday at 2 pm.

Right. Okay. Now it was on.

When I got back to Oslo, I started preparing for the meeting without really knowing what to expect. I put on the suit trousers again, because obviously these had now become my official Strawberry trousers and headed back to the office.

And who do I see?

The same receptionist.

This was, in my head at least, my Pretty Woman moment. Big mistake. Huge. To be clear, absolutely no hate to her. She was probably just doing her job and doing it very well. But as I sat there in reception for the third time, I could not help smiling a little.

Yes. It’s me. Again.

Only this time, I wasn’t trying to sneak my way in with a broken folder and blind optimism.

This time, I was expected.

Ten minutes later, they came to get me.

And just like that, the whole thing felt different. Not finished. Not figured out. But real.

Those 100 empty pages had started as a slightly dramatic prop for a pitch nobody would let me deliver. Now, for the first time, they felt less like empty pages and more like space.

And that, I think, is the point.

It’s official.

We have a meeting.