Our name is found right at the end of the Swedish alphabet. Swedish has all the same letters as the English alphabet, but just to make it a little more special, it has three extra letters that the English alphabet doesn't have. They are the letters å, ä and ö, and they come after the letter z. å is the first of the three extra vowels.

In your best British accent, å is pronounced "au," as in the name "Paul". ä is the second of the extra vowels, pronounced like the English "ai" in the words "hair" or "pair". Try it! ö is at the very end. It's pronounced like the English sound "i" in the word "bird" or "u" in the English word "fur." Shape your mouth like a trumpet and practice!

Why it matters

You don’t need to pronounce it perfectly to understand what it stands for. åäö sits at the end of the alphabet and the beginning of something different. It’s a nod to where we’re from, and a marker of how we think.

The Kingdom of Sweden is home to the Nobel Prize, century-old companies, and a cultural expectation that ideas should last. It’s one of the most innovative countries in the world. Where minimalism isn’t a trend, it’s a mindset. And it’s where we learned that great things take time.

åäö is distinct. It’s Swedish. And it says everything about who we are without needing to explain much at all.