Every morning we sort color into neat categories—red, blue, black—and move on without a second thought. We treat shades as separate islands instead of seeing the ties that run between them. That hidden map of connections stays invisible until someone shows us its shape. Today, faced with the sudden end of in-person events, she must translate that insight into a new strategy. Nicoline’s moment arrived in early 2020 when her booked flights turned into cancellations and her go-to marketing channel stalled. A decade ago she uncovered a three-dimensional vision of color and launched Kolormondo from Stockholm. Her patented globe turned an obscure insight into a hands-on tool for designers, educators and professionals around the world.

Trade shows brought the spark—now she has to recreate it online.

After booking booths at Paris, London and New York shows, Nicoline saw immediate demand. “My favorite activity is to be at a trade show,” she says, recalling tired visitors lighting up when she stopped them for a demo. That face-to-face spark fueled nearly 100,000 € in annual sales without any ad spend. Then the pandemic halted events—and revenue channels froze. Overnight, she lost her primary platform for showcasing Kolormondo's globe, a moment that upended her growth plan. Suddenly, she depended on Instagram posts alone—“that’s it,” she says. Without a backup channel, her business stalled just as she reached product-market fit. Her current focus is rebuilding outreach: exploring virtual demos, partnerships with agencies and targeting hair salons—the industry she discovered drives a large share of orders. Now she measures every click and contact, hunting for a new way to spark that in-person “aha” at scale.

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When Instagram became the only channel, growth hit a wall.

Beyond marketing, Nicoline wrestles with the cost of protecting her idea. She invested over 100,000 € in four patents—each a 20-page document dense enough that even she couldn’t decipher it. “My advisor said I’m not supposed to understand it… so competitors wouldn’t either,” she recalls with a laugh tinged by frustration. Yet legal guardrails offered no real defense: “If someone stole it, Nobody could do anything,” she admits. On the production side, she prints pulses of globes in Sweden, bringing each batch home to fulfill orders. Repeat clients—teachers, art schools and hair studios—ensure positive cash flow, but margins remain thin. Looking ahead, she plans to refine her fulfillment process and explore partnerships with museum shops and educational publishers to unlock steady channels beyond direct consumer sales.

Now, twelve years after she first spun her globe, Nicoline finds herself at a crossroads. She remains convinced that seeing color as an interconnected globe can reshape design, art education and everyday choices. Yet she also understands that proving that truth online will demand new skills and alliances. As she tests virtual demos and reaches out to professional networks, her resolve hardens: she must reconstruct the personal moments that once sold her product. Whether through digital workshops or curated partnerships, Nicoline is driven by the same insight that launched Kolormondo, to make those hidden ties visible again, one globe at a time.

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