Rickard Gilblad on Why Entrepreneurship Is the Modern Scientific Method for Building Businesses That Endure

Progress in both science and business begins with the same essential act: an experiment. A question is posed, a hypothesis is tested, and the results are measured. The process may confirm an idea or disprove it, but either way, it yields knowledge that can be built upon. For Rickard Gilblad, founder of Torus Pak, entrepreneurship is not separate from science; it is simply science applied to enterprise.

"There is a science of entrepreneurship, and an entrepreneurial approach to the sciences," says Gillblad. "Science is about testing ideas, seeing what holds up, and then refining them. Entrepreneurship works the same way. You put a product or concept into the market, and the reaction tells you whether you are on the right track. Both are methods of searching for truth."

Gilblad's own path illustrates this philosophy. Trained in music rather than engineering or business, he developed Torus Pak, a patented packaging system that allows ready meals to be served as though freshly plated. While the innovation is widely used today in healthcare, hospitality, and catering, the company's success did not emerge fully formed. Instead, it was the result of repeated testing, failure, and adjustment, the entrepreneurial version of peer review.

"In the beginning, I thought restaurants would be our main customers," Gilblad recalls. "But it turned out hospitals were the ones who needed it most. The feedback we received forced us to rethink. That's no different from an experiment that doesn't confirm your hypothesis, you learn and you move forward."

He applies this same logic even to small challenges. When a client once complained that Torus Pak trays were malfunctioning, Gilblad approached it like a scientist confronting an anomaly. He sorted 200 potatoes by size and density, testing each until he discovered that only certain organic potatoes caused the problem. "The contact person looked at me and said, 'Are you a professor or something?' But really, it was just the scientific method in practice. Isolate the variable, run the test, and see what happens."

For Gilblad, this mindset also explains why so many ventures fail. Entrepreneurs, like scientists, can become dogmatic, clinging to ideas despite contrary evidence. "Science should be about finding truth, but it often becomes a belief system," he says. "Business can be the same. People hold onto an idea even when the market proves it doesn't work. The biggest risk is not allowing failure. A failed test is still data; it tells you what not to do."

That perspective has shaped his resilience. When he first applied for a patent, lawyers dismissed his design as too simple to be original. Manufacturers insisted it could never be produced. Gilblad persisted. "For every person who said it wouldn't work, I just thought: then you are not the right partner. Conviction is not about ignoring reality, it's about being willing to test it again and again until you get results."

It is also about systems. Just as scientific breakthroughs rely on reproducibility, scaling a business requires structures that can deliver consistent outcomes. "Almost everything has a structure," Gilblad notes. "You can fill that structure with people, machines, or processes. But without a system, you can't test, you can't repeat, and you can't grow."

That philosophy underpins Torus Pak's growth. What began as an elegant packaging idea evolved into a system adopted by hospitals across Europe and beyond. Today, the company not only provides efficiency and presentation but also reduces food waste, a tangible example of experimentation meeting impact.

Still, Gilblad insists that the true lesson lies not in the product but in the process. "Entrepreneurship starts beyond your comfort zone," he says. "It's about asking questions no one else is asking, and being willing to find out you are wrong. That's how science works, too."

He sees entrepreneurship and science as sharing not just methods but values: curiosity, openness, and humility. "You must always be open to the idea that you could be absolutely wrong," he says. "That humility drives progress. It's what keeps both scientists and entrepreneurs moving forward."

In his view, society needs more of this mindset. Entrepreneurs are often punished for failure, yet failure is the essence of learning. "We need systems that accept that conviction is not a disease. If you try something and it doesn't work, that's not shameful, it's knowledge gained. It's the next step in the process."

For Gilblad, entrepreneurship is not about certainty or ego. It is, at its core, the practice of experimentation. Like science, it thrives on iteration, thrives on failure, and thrives on the relentless pursuit of truth. "In the end," he reflects, "entrepreneurship and science are the same journey, a search for what works, and the courage to build from it."