We recently connected with Erin Eriksson and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Erin, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I primarily get my work ethic from my parents.
My parents were both educators who worked nearly all the time while raising four kids, including my brother with special needs. We had a family expectation that each child did their best in school, played a sport, and learned an instrument, even though we all picked very different activities. Now as a mom, I have no idea how my parents worked full-time jobs, raised us, and managed the sheer logistics of shuttling us around to activities!
My mom was the oldest of 12 kids and took on a “second mom” role early on before her 38-year career as an elementary school teacher. She spent most nights and many weekends of my childhood helping us with homework, making lesson plans, and grading papers; I vividly remember sitting on her bed while she graded schoolwork and put curlers in my hair while we watched Jeopardy. My dad was born and raised on a farm in rural Sweden and was the first in his family to receive a university education; he went on to get his master’s at UCLA. Throughout his career teaching college chemistry, he created every quiz and test and never duplicated the questions. My parents loved their work and wanted to provide for their family, and their commitment to education and excellence – for themselves, for their kids, and their students – was ingrained in us as we grew up.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My husband, Bjørn, and I run a business called Hedgehog Dryer – developing award-winning dryers and solutions for people who work hard and play hard outdoors. Hedgehog Dryer is on a mission to help people live life to the fullest – messes, adventures, and all. Built from a love of adventure and everyday practicality, Hedgehog Dryer creates high-performance dryers and handy problem solvers that keep up with real life, from drying snow boots and sweaty cleats to blasting sand off gear at the beach.
Our backstory: When I met Bjørn, I worked in corporate philanthropy in NYC and he was a recent widower with three small children. He relocated to Hemsedal, a little ski town nestled in the Norwegian mountains, and I followed about a year later. While he was solo parenting in Norway, he confronted the daily challenge of rain and snow, kids in daycare, and a gazillion soggy, smelly, and misplaced little gloves and boots.
When I grew up in LA, we stayed inside at recess and lunch if it rained; in Scandinavia, the kids are out jumping in puddles, digging in the mud, and building snow forts! They go outside at daycare, rain or shine or snow, so it’s critical to have warm, dry gear ready for the next adventure. There were shoe dryers before, but they were generally weak with antiquated technology. Bjørn and I decided to solve the problems with the insights from his personal experience with wet gear and revamp the industry with a line of smarter, faster dryers.
Our technology is one of our most innovative and distinctive features. Working with engineers at the NTNU Water Power Laboratory in Norway, our turbo technology creates a high air pressure that forces the humidity out of fabric of the items being dried. This results in drying time that is multiple times faster than other dryers. Our products are highly customized, with multiple fan settings, heat settings, timer settings – and they include ionic technology that removes odor.
We started in Scandinavia but have now made over 100,000 products and have expanded into North America, Europe, and Asia. Products are for sale on our website us.hedgehogdryer.com, in a variety of retail chains and on Amazon. And we’ve developed some new amazing products for travel and home use. Our new product, JET, launched earlier this year and was featured in the Wall Street Journal!
Our most exciting new news: our latest and greatest product, Hedgehog GO, is a compact, dual-purpose dryer that takes our award-winning technology and adapts it for travel – awesome for active families, avid travelers, and athletes. Not only did it have a successful Kickstarter campaign, but TIME´s List of Best Innovations of 2025 selected Hedgehog GO as a winner! (https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318284/hedgehog-go/)
We now have five kids and split time between Norway and the US. We have more launches coming this fall and winter, including some terrific holiday gifts, so stay tuned!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1) A learning mindset – I am a lifelong learner and try to bring that openness to learning to every role. My first job after college was at National Geographic in DC, and after work, if they hadn’t sold out all the tickets, staff and interns could attend their evening educational events for free. I had a rare opportunity to learn from explorers, writers and photographers about their adventures and important work…pure gold! Now, running a business with my husband, we are learning constantly as we face new challenges and opportunities, which keeps every day of work interesting.
2) A social impact lens – My pre-Hedgehog career path was primarily in corporate philanthropy, global health and social impact. A social impact lens has been an important lens through which to see the world, and doing work that makes a difference in the world is one of my core values. At Hedgehog, for example, our spare and replacement parts program is one initiative that we have to reduce electronic waste, and we are interested in finding new ways to be a sustainable, values-driven brand.
3) Building meaningful connections – I am an introvert by nature, but I have been intentional about maintaining an amazing network of colleagues and friends. Some people offer support and empathy, some offer practical solutions, some are connectors, some just make me laugh…and everyone makes me feel less alone with challenges and opportunities that arise. I joined the UCLA Anderson CEO Forum when our company entered the US market; we meet monthly and the other CEOs and COOs (all alumni from the UCLA Anderson School of Management) have been an invaluable resource due to their deep experience and insights.
My advice to people who may be early in their journey is to stay open to learning, find mentors who support your development, and remember that life and progress aren’t always linear. You don’t have to have everything figured out at once and can’t begin to imagine all the wonderful possibilities out there!
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Feeling overwhelmed is absolutely normal and part of the human experience. I know I have a full plate – COO of a family business, mom to 5 kids (ages 2 to 14 – changing diapers while monitoring teenager screen time!), other family commitments – and I feel more overwhelmed when these overlap and the boundaries are blurred. For example, when the kids are on vacation but I am still working; when I have evening calls with our international team; and so on. I actively try to maintain better boundaries between these things when I can, and give myself some grace when I can’t.
There may be little time left for YOU…but if you wait until time opens up to see your friends, or wait until you are in the mood to exercise, that time may never come. I schedule and routinize whatever I can: I have a ceramics course every Monday, so I know I’ll get out of the house and see friends once a week. I stop by the gym after daycare dropoff 2-3 times a week, so I know I will get in some movement. I signed up for and completed 2 marathons this year – one in Copenhagen, one in Bordeaux. Scheduling adds accountability, both which help reduce overwhelm for me.
Other strategies: Meditate, journal, spend time in nature (the Norwegian landscape is stunning!), and exercise. It is a work in progress, but I am also trying not to take myself too seriously. The marathon through the vineyards of Bordeaux had an “ocean” theme this year, so my husband and I ran with inflatable flamingos, bright pink swim caps, and goggles on. It’s impossible to be too stressed when you’re running past a jellyfish, a Viking, and a lobster and wearing an inflatable flamingo in a vineyard.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://us.hedgehogdryer.com
- Instagram: @hedgehogdryer
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hedgehogdryer
Image Credits
Kalle Hagglund, Nicolai Gunner, Nurit Katz
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