Småland Entrepreneurship in a Bottle

Award-winning entrepreneur and Småland native Jonna Gustafsson has proven that great entrepreneurship can start in a small basement. Hard work, innovation, and the mantra “cut all the unnecessary costs” have paid off—today, sustainability, quality, and reasonable prices fit into the same bottle.

Jonna Gustafsson’s entrepreneurial journey began in Växjö, where she moved to study marketing at Linnaeus University. It was during her studies that she laid the foundation for Essnce, a perfume company that blends quality and affordability with Småland’s signature ingenuity.

After graduating, she worked in digital marketing at NordicFeel, a Växjö-based e-commerce company in the beauty industry. The seed for Essnce was planted when she came across a similar product already being sold in the U.S. on TikTok.

Jonna recalls:
“I just thought, shit, I already have a contact at a perfume factory, I love beauty, I love perfume, and I’m probably someone who should run my own company—because I don’t want to follow someone else’s policies, I want to set my own standards.”

Shaking Up the Industry

In 2021, she took the leap. She started Essnce in her basement in another part of Småland—Nässjö—leveraging her digital marketing expertise from her time in Växjö. This skill would later turn Essnce into a social media sensation. With over 85,000 followers on Tiktok and a strong social media presence, Essnce has taken root both digitally and locally.

In just a few years, Essnce has grown into an impressive player in Sweden’s perfume market. Jonna is shaking up an industry long associated with high prices while also minimizing the company’s environmental impact. Alongside her success, she has received multiple entrepreneurial awards, most recently being named Sweden’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2024.

“We make perfumes at a lower price than many other designer fragrances on the market. Our mantra, which I drill into my employees’ heads, is ‘cut all the unnecessary costs.’ We apply it to everything. We reduce costs for marketing campaigns, we cut packaging costs. We try to keep expenses low on everything—except the quality of the liquid inside the perfume.”

“The Frugal Smålander in Me”

And how has Småland influenced Jonna’s business approach?

“I truly believe that being a Smålander has had a huge impact on my entrepreneurship. Even though I work in marketing and find branding super exciting, I just can’t wrap my head around spending insane amounts of money on it. There’s a reason we cut all unnecessary costs and focus on quality. I think it’s the frugal Smålander in me that led us down this path.”