The post “Now is the best time to get into entrepreneurship”, Joonas Ahola – CEO & Founder of MeetingPackage appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

The post “If you want to become an entrepreneur because of the money I think you have the wrong motives”, Joonas Korgan – CEO of Identio appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I grew up in the southeast part of Finland, in Hanko. My parents divorced before I turned one so I mainly grew up with my mum, siblings and the family from mom’s side. My grandma and my aunt both played big roles in my childhood. Like most kids growing up in small cities I thought I would live in a big city as a grown-up, I hated that “everyone knew everybody”, and definitely did not see any charm in that.

‘I always had to get my voice heard and to fight for what I want’

I’m the youngest of three siblings, with my sister being 9 years older and my brother 2 years respectively. Being the youngest sibling has probably formed me a lot into who I am today. I always had to get my voice heard and fight for what I want, otherwise, the elder siblings would have called all the shots. 

I come from a family of entrepreneurs both on my mom’s and dad’s side. This is why my opinion on entrepreneurs has been formed quite early on, and it was not a positive one. I thought it was way too much hustle, without any time off, so it did not appeal to the young me at all. 

‘I envied my friends whose parents took long summer vacations and spent whole weeks with them’ 

My whole family was saying that I will become either an entrepreneur or a politician, as I always fight for what I believe in and I could never accept things being run in inefficient ways. But hearing them saying that made me even more determined not to end up as either of those.

I had two career dreams growing up: police or lawyer. I think I was mostly influenced by the tv-series I watched, as I didn’t know anyone having those careers. I actually even applied for both. The lawyer dream ended up with me having the entrance exam booked and all books in a pile at home, and deciding I won’t make the actual effort of reading them. The police dream ended up with me being excluded from the process for being too short. 

Me and my co-founder, Monika Liikamaa used to work really well together. We did so for five years when she quit from the place where we both worked. When she left, instead of saying good-bye we just made a pact that we will be collaborating again at some point in the future. 

‘I said YES before even knowing what we were about to do‘

It was just two or three months later that Monika called me. I remember being outside playing with my two kids in our garden when I received the call. She was asking whether now is a good time for us to start something together. 

I was on maternity leave with my youngest at that point, and I already decided to take time to reflect on what I want to do going forward. I don’t know if it was that the opportunity was right in front of me, or the lack of opportunities in my then working place that made me take the decision of becoming an entrepreneur.

‘My husband had only one demand: to never put our home as security for the company‘

I just knew inside me that I needed to do something new. If I was going to jump out of my safety nest together with someone else, it would have been with her.  After accepting my former colleague’s proposal, I also told my husband. He never doubted or questioned my decision. He gave me his full support.

We had bought a brand-new house just four weeks earlier and by then just got the approval from the bank for two house loans. We were eight months away from moving to the new house. But he never doubted my passion for doing something new. He had only one demand: to never put our home as security for the company, which I found fair enough.

‘If you need words of encouragement to become an entrepreneur, don’t become one‘

When it comes to the rest of my family and my friends, I would say I neither had their full support nor did I lack it completely. I was only looking for support from my husband, the rest just got the news and had to accept it. 

I think Elon Musk said that “If you need words of encouragement to become an entrepreneur, don’t become one”, and I tend to agree with that. 

‘You need to find encouragement within yourself, you can’t count on a large support group’ 

If your guts tell you don’t do it, then don’t do it. Don’t base your decision on the encouraging or discouraging words of others. 

I had no role-model in becoming an entrepreneur. I still don’t think I have any, even though I admire many entrepreneurs.

After I and Monika decided what we wanted to do, she invited some additional contacts of hers to join in. We founded Enfuce a couple of months later. We were all-in-all five co-founders, with diverse knowledge and characteristics which complement each other.

The starting process went from zero to 100% in seconds. Our goal was to incorporate in Enfuce what each of us has been working on previously. So in one sense we just kept doing what we always had been doing. But this time around, we did it together by building a new company and a new brand with bigger and greater visions and missions than we had before.

’There are many obstacles when founding a new company’ 

I think most entrepreneurs could write their own book about them. Some are similar to others, some are industry-specific and some are just company or team-specific. I believe that all entrepreneurs can agree on one thing:  there will be obstacles and your success won’t be determined by simply facing the obstacles, rather by how you face them. For those thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, I advise you to be prepared for hard times. 

’Don’t get scared about hick-ups and shit-storms, just trust in yourself and in the idea you have and pull through!’ 

I’m a mom of two, a boy that is 8 years old and a daughter who just turned 6. When we started to draft on the idea of Enfuce my daughter had just turned one, and we had quite a bumpy road with my pregnancy. She was born 8 weeks premature, weighing only 1410g. So one year before founding Enfuce I was spending most of my time in the hospital feeling guilty of not spending enough time with my three-year-old son. Going from that to founding a company within a year can seem as I rushed into this, but I don’t feel like that. 

Our family came out on the other side of this life challenge and I was eager to find myself again. It was during this time that Monika called me, and of course, I had to reflect on my family situation and make a conscious decision whether it was good timing not only for me but for my family as well.

’Relationships are not about quantity, but about quality’ 

In order to be successful as an entrepreneur, you will realize that time management is one of the keys to success. It’s not about time spent on an item, but on what you do with that time. 

I’m not the mom who spends the most time with my kids or my husband. But the time I do spend with them I tend to treasure and make sure it’s of high quality. Relationships are not about quantity, but about quality.

Before our journey with Enfuce started, my world revolved more or less around our kids. During the past years, I have learned to share the responsibility equally with my husband. 

’My husband’s presence and support have been another key to my success’

I still don’t like it when people are amazed by my husband taking “such a big responsibility”. Our male co-founders do not receive the same “compliment” regarding their wives. It still stands out when a wife and a mom is the one fulfilling her dreams…

One thing we (the five co-founders) agreed on when founding Enfuce was to commit to this journey 100%, but without sacrificing our homes or families. This means that there have been times when some of us needed to put extra effort and time into our families. But we’ve always had the other four “covering our back”. So we have been able to give the families the extra time when needed. This is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for us being five co-founders, instead of driving a business all on my own.

’I have been asked over the years if I think I will regret all the nights away from home when the kids are older’

I can honestly say that this is something I have reflected upon, but I’m as sure as one can be that I won’t. My children know that women can be successful in whatever they do, my children grow up with a mom who is passionate about what she does and I show them that by being passionate you will make anything work and you find the energy to do it all. 

At the same time, our children learn what equality in a household means. And it means that whatever you have on your heart you can always go to mom or dad, and it doesn’t matter who is doing the laundry or is picking you up from day-care. The most important thing is that we, as a family, keep the wheel spinning every day, every week, month after month…

“I noticed that I have a hard time recognizing the satisfying moments when they actually happen”

I’m mostly just ticking things off and moving to the next item on the list. But when I look back at our now 4,5-year journey there are a lot of things I’m very proud of. Both big and small. 

I remember when we put our signatures on the first customer deal, when we posted our first open position, when we went live with our service, when we reached 20-30-40 and so on employees (today more than 70 employees).

But it is also about smaller things, like greeting new employees to the company and listening to their story of why joining Enfuce. I always like those. Or when we have some virtual coffee breaks and I just get a chance to listen to all different people’s wins of the week.

“The biggest lesson I learned is: Never set a plan B”

It goes back to all the difficulties we faced, and all challenges thrown at us every single day. If we would have had a plan B I’m sure we would have given up at some point, because the alternative would have sounded better.  You know the saying: “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”. 

Today I and Monika have our joke when we call each other: “so, what’s the current shit-storm, and how deep in the shit are you standing?” Then we laugh at it and we find a solution. We never panic, we are never incapable of finding solutions. 

“We just pull up our sleeves and continue to work”

There is no professional and personal life after entering the entrepreneurial world. It’s the life path you have chosen. Counting hours or defining when you are allowed to work or not will either destroy your family or prevent your company from reaching its full potential. 

“Entrepreneurship is a way of living, it’s your work life and your hobby, all at the same time”

I was born the way I am and gained some characteristics growing up. As it turns out, my personality and my capabilities fit well with being an entrepreneur. 

I think that you are either born to do it or not. I don’t think you can acquire all the necessary traits. But then it’s also about timing in your life. I would not have been ready for the entrepreneurial journey in my twenties. It was not about skills I needed to gain, it was about gaining knowledge in a wider concept, about life in big and small, and about the industry as a whole. I needed to mature as an individual to start and get here.

“There is nothing I dislike about being an entrepreneur”

Or now I might be lying. I could live without some of the stomach pain all the difficulties have caused me and will cause me in the future. But on the other hand, without them, we would not be where we are and anything less than this would not make me happy either. It comes as a package deal, and for all the hard times we have pulled through we gained more knowledge, better understanding, and a clearer way forward.

In my personal life, I would say that I’m better at time management today than I was before. When I spend time with someone other than my family, it’s always a conscious decision. Why would I spend time with energy thieves? And my children are growing up with a mom who is showing passion towards her work and how life is about constant learning and believing in yourself and your capabilities.

“I trust in quality time and in deep relationships, and that is what I’m giving my children”

The top-three personality characteristics essential for an entrepreneur are: 

1. Perseverance. Just keep moving forward. You will make mistakes, don’t be afraid of them, but learn and continue to trust that you are making the right decision at all points in life.
2. Self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses. Get a good understanding of things you are not doing well and find someone else to do them. Channel your own energy into your strengths and you will continue to feel passionate and see results!
3. Good communication. Poor communication skills will lead to poor results. No matter how good you think you are, you will need to sharpen your communication skills. And communication is a two-way street. It’s about listening AND talking. And making sure all parties understand things in the same way.

The activities I believe in are: plan – execute – evaluate – re-plan

This can be implemented on small as well as big projects. For bigger investments, all parts take a little more time and effort. But making the use of this concept a habit is something that will help you achieve your smaller goals, too.

Planning is about understanding what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it. 

Execution is about doing the work required to get where you want

Evaluation is about taking time to reflect if you are still heading in the right direction? Do you still believe in the plan? Have you identified all parts? 

Re-plan is about using new knowledge and translating that into your plan. Identify what you are doing good and where time is just wasted. Set or reset the direction and again identify how you will get there.

This piece of advice is a common cliché, but oh, so true “Success is a journey, not a destination. So enjoy the journey as much as you think you will enjoy the destination”.

The post “We agreed to commit to this journey 100%, but without sacrificing our families” – Denise Johansson Co-founder and CEO of Enfuce License Services, COO of Enfuce Group appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Practising both creativity and persistence during my childhood

I was born in Kouvola, a developing provincial centre that is one-hour away from Helsinki by train. There were two highlights from my childhood that play an important role in shaping the personality of me today. 

1. I was a sports maniac

My passion was rowing and cross-country skiing. I spent my teenage-years in rowing competitions across Finland.

2. I’m the oldest of 4 sisters and many more cousins. 

I was the one inventing new plays and activities all the way from re-filming Finnish comedy series to “Summer cottage Olympics”.

Thanks to those activities, I had a chance to practice both my creativity and persistence. As an athlete, I learned what it means to work hard to accomplish my goals. As a big sister, I learned how to take the lead, make sure a happy relationship between the kids, and create a playful space for all. 

I fell in love with a guy with a big mission

My biggest dream was to simply find my passion, understand myself better. I didn’t have a clear vision after high school. I liked to write and I dreamed of a career as a journalist. I started my university studies in 2014 at University of Helsinki majoring in Media and Communication. 

Then I fell in love with a guy with a big mission for which he had founded a startup a couple of years before. After a while, I couldn’t just sit and watch but I decided to join the business. Two of my best decisions in life so far! 

Before my step into entrepreneurship, I was running Bonfire.fi – an online media business. The smart female founders of Bonfire Agency taught me an important lesson – how to exceed expectations when it comes to employees or customers.

People are the most essential asset of the business and the ultimate reason I open my laptop every morning (sometimes way too early). Right now we have a talented but yet small team. I’m looking forward to growing the team and expanding internationally.

Running a business with a life partner is a lifestyle 

Running a business with my life partner is the most fulfilling thing in the world for me right now. It’s also very natural for us. On Saturdays, we don’t work or talk about daily operations. We usually take a long walk and strategise long-term plans. This is the lifestyle I’ve chosen. Tapio is a visionary and a doer at the same time. I’m learning from him every day how to get people involved and how fast to turn the idea into action.

I am often asked if I have any advice for others who also (want to) run a business with their partner, but I’m afraid I can’t share any specific tips. The most important thing is to have your own rooms and roles with your partner. I take care of operations in Finland with our team – and Tapio is responsible for developing the concept and getting us ready for international markets. Still, the division of labour can not be crystal clear and our roles are sometimes overlapping. 

We’re both work “last-minute”

COVID-19 has been an extreme test for us: we’ve been together 24/7, but still, we like and value each other and respect the work the other half is doing. And most importantly, we have fun. I’m also very aware this may not work with any couple because it’s quite an extreme lifestyle. 

I’m glad we have been learning how to lead and support each other. I know Tapio wants to concentrate on challenging writing tasks in the morning. And he knows I need my daily exercise. We’re both “last-minute” people – you can find us finalising presentations a couple of hours before the important event. I’m glad our team is also helping us to develop ourselves (like setting deadlines). In a startup, it’s important for the whole team to learn fast and support each other.

Almost all the travelling together has been work-related

Entrepreneurship has shown a new way to explore the world and its people (before COVID-19, now I’m mostly exploring our flat in Northern Helsinki). Almost all the travelling together has been work-related – but it doesn’t mean it has to be ‘all work’. 

In Brussels, we had meetings with the Commission but also visited the jazz festival in a cute medieval city. In Geneva, we had a meeting in the World Economic Forum but also enjoyed one of the most beautiful hikes. In New York, we attended the conference in the Bronx but also spent the relaxed afternoon in the magnificent Columbia University campus where Tapio studied many years ago. 

We have small work-related conflicts weekly and I find it important. We discuss a lot. We handle difficult situations best by taking a long walk together. Fun fact, according to brain researchers, humans are smarter during and after aerobic exercise. 

Big organizations can learn from startups and like versa

As a company, we have a big mission: make the world more entrepreneurial. Big organizations need to renew & re-invent themselves. This is what entrepreneurs naturally do. So why not learn from them.

We’re running a globally unique program in which corporate leaders learn entrepreneurial leadership skills and mindset directly with startup entrepreneurs. EEX means Entrepreneurship Exchange.

Leaders work with the startup’s growth strategy as members of an Advisory Board. Experienced people get to work on the very practical strategy of the growth company and learn in action about agility, being proactive, bold experimenting and collaboration with partners.

We have absolutely brilliant people in corporations. They are international, sharp and eager to learn more.  I’m fortunate to work with them. We’ve been proven there is a strong need and willingness to innovate, change, adapt, and renew faster – and those can be learned from entrepreneurs. 

What is easily lacking when you are an individual in a big organization? 

Two things: the holistic picture & seeing the world from outsider perspectives. 

Our participants from Patria state that in our program, the holistic picture of the whole company has strengthened. The entrepreneur has all-in; she or he has to make all the decisions and take responsibility. Advisors get to see this and support the entrepreneur at the same time. In other words, this is a “way to borrow the CEO’s hat”. Understanding other companies’ viewpoints is also crucial in businesses based on deep collaboration between different players.

It’s hard to communicate new ideas

We are fortunate that we have amazing forerunners in Finnish corporations who really want to support the movement towards a more entrepreneurial culture. Supporters are everything because startup entrepreneurs are usually building something new. 

By definition, a startup is a search engine trying to find a scalable business model. It’s hard to find people to support the mission. I did my Master’s thesis on how to communicate new ideas. It’s super challenging. 

I adore everybody who is brave enough to be entrepreneurial in their work environment

I am really proud to be an entrepreneur. At the same time, I know entrepreneurship is about the mindset and not dependent on if you technically own the company or not. I adore everybody who is brave enough to be entrepreneurial in their own work environment. In many ways, it is harder for corporate managers. 

My biggest learning during the COVID-19 period has been that the top priority should be my own energy and well-being. I can only take care of others (team, customers, partners) when I have taken good care of myself. I “update” myself while skiing and listening to audiobooks. Yoga and meditation have lately entered my daily life. 

In-depth discussions with my mentor are vital on my own learning journey. However, it’s crucial to find your own way of doing things. For example, many people prefer work-free Sunday. But I don’t, only because I enjoy setting my mind ready for the next week. 

The post “I adore everybody brave enough to be entrepreneurial in their work environment”, Elisa Kitunen, Country Manager at EEX Oy appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I was born in a smallish town called Rauma on the west coast of Finland, where I have spent most of my childhood. Rauma has always been my home. As a town, Rauma is quite unique, and the identity is really strong for the people who have lived there all their lives. 

‘For me, football was the thing’

We are proud of our roots and our unique dialect. Rauma has provided me with a place to grow and do lots of different things. For me, football was the thing. I played it until my early twenties in a relatively serious manner. Although I have never been a star-player, I would say that football and the club I played for Pallo-Iirot, played a significant role in who I am today. It taught me what it means to be a team player. For some years, I used to be the captain of our team, which taught me what it means to lead. I used to be a referee at some point which taught me the ability to see the game from another perspective and look at things from a neutral point of view.

I learned the first lessons on entrepreneurship from my father

During my youth, my first contact with entrepreneurship has been through my father, who started an engineering company with his colleagues. Although I was young back then, it has been something to be proud of. Whenever people talk about the company – Beacon Finland Ltd – by nature, I am proud to say that my father has been one of the founders. After I started my own entrepreneurial journey, I discussed a lot about the lessons learned with my father and have asked his advice.

Previous experience

Long story short, I used to work for Rolls-Royce Maritime for close to 16 years and in my last position I was in charge of the R&D and products for the “Ship Intelligence Department”. I specialized in remote and autonomous solutions. 

In 2016, we set up an R&D center for solution development in Turku. Everything was going well. We had a great team and technologically demonstrated the world’s first remote-controlled vessel and the world’s first autonomous vessel. 

In 2018 Rolls-Royce decided to sell their maritime business due to the downturn in the market. Later that year, the maritime segment was sold to Kongsberg, who had similar development streams regarding autonomous solution development. After being part of the companies’ integration discussions, it became evident to the management team members of the former Rolls-Royce side that the majority of the R&D work and products would be transferred to Kongsberg premises in Norway. This was the kick-off for my colleagues and me. We decided that we should set up our own company and start everything from scratch because we had already built such a strong ecosystem around the topic in Finland. Groke Technologies was officially founded on the 17th of October 2019. We are altogether four founding members in the company, and we all used to be colleagues at Rolls-Royce. 

Finland is one of the world’s leading countries in the development of autonomous vessels

As founders, we felt that all the hard work previously done in the field of autonomous maritime solution development should not go to waste, and we had a strong belief that what we had built was something unique. That is why we founded Groke Technologies – a technology company looking at bringing a stressless working environment to navigation crews of maritime vessels through our solutions and eventually utilizing the technology on autonomous vessels. 

We have a strong belief that Finland is one of the world’s leading countries in this kind of solution development that targets the development and introduction of autonomous vessels. We wish to drive that forward. 

I was employed for 15 years before starting my entrepreneurial journey

My journey as an entrepreneur is not necessarily a traditional one since I spent more than 15 years in one company before starting. Still, during my last three years at Rolls-Royce, I was responsible for setting up a new business area within the company. This way, I got some kind of practice together with my co-founding colleagues. Now we are doing in principle the same kind of activities.

Our company is now over one and a half-years old, and I could say that seeing it grow from the initial idea has been exciting to witness. Our initial target-market was not necessarily a traditional one for a Finnish start-up, as we targeted the Japanese market. But our company is slowly becoming known in Japan, and that brought a lot of satisfaction. 

Of course, establishing our presence in Japan is a long process. Still, we have been able to start collaborating with a few vital customers, in addition to our local investor, the Mitsubishi Corporation.

I believed that I would retire from the same company for which I worked all my life

Being an entrepreneur was not something I was born into. I believed for a long time that I would stay with one company all my working career. But when the company I worked for was sold to new owners, I thought: why not try entrepreneurship? When one is part of a large corporation, the opportunities for creating effective change are limited. 

‘I love this change so far’ 

I have more freedom, and I can really affect the strategy, execution, and outcome.

For any aspiring entrepreneur, I can share a story

It was back in 2009, I was sitting at my desk and started wondering if the monotonic work that I was doing was really what I wanted to do for the rest of my working career. Wondering if I could work on something I am passionate about new technologies and innovation. 

At that time, I was offered a new position within the same company, which required me to relocate to Norway. But that position meant that I would be working precisely on what I loved. I took the chance and never regretted it!

During my five years in Ålesund, Norway, I got to know new people who eventually became the key people for my career advancement, which led me to where I am today. So, I would recommend people to take the time and reflect on whether they are doing something they don’t feel passionate about. 

‘Is that worth it? Is it worth spending your time on something you don’t like?’

The post “I believed that I would retire from the same company for which I worked all my life” Iiro Lindborg, Co-founder and VP Customer Solutions & Concepts at Groke Technologies appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I grew up in the city called Samara, situated between Moscow and the Ural Mountains. We have a beautiful riverfront and the summer there is amazing. I was a very active kid who loves playing with other children but my most favorite part is to spend time alone playing LEGO, inventing new stories, machines, and buildings. 

I have always been a single-minded person who is ready to take on any difficult tasks and obstacles. I also have a great interest in computers and the Internet because they allow me to set up modems and operating systems. For example, I knew tricks to make the OS more comfortable to use. Of course, video games were my most “time-consuming” hobby during childhood, especially real-time strategies and RPGs. Encyclopedias and fiction books like Dune and Lord of The Rings were my favorite.

When I got my first programming job, I read multiple non-fiction books which influenced me a lot. ‘Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography’ by Walter Isaacson and ‘Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future’ by Ashlee Vance were among them. 

Entrepreneurship means the balance between family and businesses

My father started his entrepreneurial journey when I was only 3 years old and he has been an entrepreneur ever since. Hence, entrepreneurship to me is the meaning of balancing between family and making a profit. And this observation from such a young age has given me the idea of searching for a way to create a sustainable business without sacrificing my family or my time being with them. Also thanks to my father, I develop a role model for myself which combines all the qualities I see in him, which are open-mindedness and honesty. 

I enjoy working with people and information technology (IT). Software consulting happens to be the perfect mixture of both. As an independent consultant to a client’s team where people have their own processes and relationships, one of my main tasks is to create and strengthen business values by delivering effective and efficient solutions. 

Collaboration between members and those from different departments for coding work has been an interesting journey. A fresh perspective then becomes a “must” when working with diverse-background team members. I never hesitate to recommend or defend my suggestions when working with people who are more experienced than myself. 

Every failure is a chance to learn more

Once I participated in a startup accelerator at the Lappeenranta University of Technology and got the chance to listen to the presentation from Taneli Tikka. He told us more about his failures throughout his entrepreneurial journey, and not successes. This was so inspiring to me. I realized that there’s nothing wrong with failing 9 times and succeeding just once in order to move forward. When you try, it means you have learned something new. And that’s the most important thing. 

My wife is also a person who always gave me the best support. I could not follow my dream without her believing in me and tolerating me through all the ups and downs as an entrepreneur. We even started one of the businesses together where we combined our experiences in job searching together and helped software engineers succeed in the job interviews. That was our decision to step out from the corporate job and be independent consultants.

My entrepreneurial journey started alone, unexpectedly. A recruiter called me with an invitation to do an interesting project. I decided to talk with an aim to network and learn more about the assignment, mainly due to curiosity. The interview turned out to be a huge success. I had the chance to meet not only the lead but the whole team online. 

COVID-19: The time for new opportunities

I see COVID and remote work as an open-door for new opportunities. Since I was no longer physically attached to any office and my three-month work was completely remote, I decided to give it a try. And I have been dreaming to work on something like this, in an environment like this for so long. I got my first customer for a cloud-native serverless project and my team was distributed across the globe. Such a perfect setup for my ideal programming project, isn’t it?

Asking the right questions from the right people direct you in the right direction

The beginning was very hard. I remember starting the journey with tons of questions. I asked for help from recruiters, consultants on LinkedIn, accountants, and tax office workers. So many things needed to be set up. I wondered how the taxes, what is VAT, how the invoicing works? In the end, I realized that asking the right questions from the right people direct you in the right direction.

By understanding the added values for the client, I got the motivation to keep moving forward. The collaboration between departments and delivering high-quality results also fulfill me. I value a lot the freedom to choose the most suitable projects to work on.   

Prepare for times when there are no clients

The most important thing that I have learned is that you should be prepared for the scenario of having no clients. Such cases allow you to build up a good habit of dividing the company’s profit, revenue, and your finances. For example, you should always save yourself an emergency fund. This is the amount of money in cash sitting in some separate bank accounts to cover living expenses for three to six months. You should also determine how much to pay yourself as a salary after VAT and other business expenses like subscriptions and accounting. These tips can be very helpful for people who are private traders.

Creating opportunities and making a profit by doing what you are passionate about is great. However, it does not mean that you need to distance yourself from the family by only thinking and talking about your business and excitements all the time. I am, personally, still learning to switch off after a day full of meetings or work. For me, it is helpful to do a guided meditation. Spotify, Headspace, or Calm apps are good ways to start. A quick tip for you is simply just counting breaths with your eyes closed. 

Invest in yourself 

The mindset of investing in myself was with me all the time. I perceived the work with any company more like a new opportunity to learn and grow, that is why I was always actively finding ways to contribute and being innovative in everything I do.

My favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur is that I can change hats quite often. It is like being a trader on the marketplace, doing delivery, and at the same time, crafting the end product to sell just in one single day.

The world today is full of people and businesses who need your expertise and talent

Entrepreneurship is so natural for me that I do not measure it by being a private trader, owner, or co-founder. I would say that it is a way of thinking. You are the main navigator of your life. Career is then just a word with a lot of hierarchy in it. Being open to opportunities can also mean changing jobs or helping people around you with compensation. The world today is full of people and businesses who need your expertise and talent no matter where you work.

In many ways, it has also become easier to manage my time. Once I know exactly that the project work is going to take X amount of time and the invoicing and company management will be done in Y amount of time. I started to have more time because of the flexibility. It gives me a sense of total control over my workload. 

Companies that are able to deliver more, will survive

Software consulting is a constantly changing field. Thinking about the business values to add is the most important thing. It is no longer about writing code, it is the collaboration with stakeholders in order to deliver the best results that bring harmony to the job.

The ability to understand public cloud environments (e.g. AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure) is essential today for anyone in IT depending on the business function. I would say more that soon everything will be serverless. It means that nobody will pay for the virtual machines to run your applications. You will be paying for the cloud resources as you go without idle time.

Databases, messaging and business logic are scalable up to infinity with the minimum costs. The pandemic of 2020 showed that companies that are able to deliver more of their services to more customers than before will survive. 

For new entrepreneurs and companies, it is essential to think about scalable applications with the lowest cost possible from the very beginning. I would be happy to discuss this in more detail. But generally, for private traders, I would recommend doing their necessary things like invoicing, sending receipts, and taxation as fast as they come to the table. I know they are all boring but don’t procrastinate for too long.

Start with googling yourself

Another big thing is personal branding. Start with googling yourself. It will be a great starting point. And after that connecting with people from the same industry on LinkedIn, online events and by writing blogs. The visibility of your services starts with yourself and asking questions will help dramatically in achieving great sustainable results.

Just be mentally and financially prepared because starting a company means that you are on your own. It sounds scary in the beginning but after a short time, this becomes the motivation to develop needed skills and connections. Do not rush into entrepreneurship without proper preparation.

The post “Do not rush into entrepreneurship without proper preparation”, Igor Soroka – Independent Software Consultant at Soroka Tech appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Luis Bellido is a coach and art educator with a profound background in architecture, based in Helsinki, Finland. His business –  Metacomics – uses the power of art and visualization to provide wellbeing coaching services for individuals and organizations to improve their holistic well-being, while helping them to achieve their personal and professional goals. Take a look at the goal-setting strategy workshop hosted by Luis via this link.

“Fighting” against his parents to pursue his love for architecture and design. Then after six years working as an architect, Luis felt something was not right. He knew deep down there was a desire to travel and explore. So he left his hometown in Lima – Perú and started a whole new life in Finland. That was in 2014. 

Seven years later, he discovered a way to follow his dream, through entrepreneurship. As Luis put it, “The expression of a dream is to live doing what I love, and what I love is helping people. I do that through the service of coaching and visualization method, for an exchange of energy, or money.”

During the interview, Luis shared with us insights from his own experience and observations about

• Following one’s intuition 
• When to seek external help
• The power of networking and helping others
• How to (re)connect with yourself, find your passion and most suitable career path

Watch the video for the full story about how Luis has successfully combined all his childhood hobbies and passion into a professional career in a foreign country.

The post “Be careful with your dream, what you visualize, become your reality”, Luis Bellido – Founder of Metacomics appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I was born and raised in Nigeria, and before moving to Finland, I worked for a year as Head of Marketing at AIESEC in Ghana. When I moved to Finland in 2018, I was working as the Head of Digital Marketing role for AIESEC in Finland. Once I finished my work with AIESEC, I teamed up with a colleague and started a Tech Marketing company here in Helsinki.

As a child, I always wanted to be a doctor because my mum is a nurse, and I love to see her take care of patients and treat them. Watching her do her job made me want to follow in her footsteps- even though I’m not a big fan of blood.

While growing up, I started helping out my dad at his store, where he sells footwear. That was when the entrepreneur in me was born. He would take me to his store, teach me about pricing, what a cost price is and how to add a profit margin to remain profitable. He taught me how to present values to customers before convincing them to buy. Without knowing, I started building up sales, marketing and human communication skills that have become one of my greatest strengths.

Entrepreneurship is not something we are born with; we learn it and with practice, it becomes a part of us.

I want to make the world a better place, even when I’m gone

Becoming the best version of myself is one of the reasons I do what I do. I believe I have more to offer to the world, and for me to attain my full potential, I need to become the best version of myself.

Secondly, because I love to help people, I love to solve people’s problems and I love to build things that will positively impact people’s lives. Looking around at all the problems we face today allows me to create a solution, to build something that people would pay for because it solves their problems.

Remembering the fact that we have limited time to live here on earth serves as a great motivator. I don’t intend to live forever, but I do intend to build something that will. Becoming an entrepreneur gives me the freedom and control to become the change I wish to see in the world and build something that can greatly impact the world, even when I’m gone.

I have full support from my family and close friends while embarking on this journey. I know it’s not going to be easy, but what is life without the highs and lows and the adventure of uncertainty?

There is help everywhere you just need to know where to look and what to ask

I started Digital Growth Boost with my colleague from AIESEC. We already worked together for a year, so we understood each other, and we realised we had a similar goal and dream of starting a company. Though it was not my first time as I had my first startup in Nigeria before I moved.

I realised that I was good at what I do and that staying at a job doing the same thing for years wasn’t going to bring me satisfaction and help me achieve my life goals. I wanted to have the freedom to start projects, build strategies and create successful businesses without the limitation of working for someone else.

The starting process of building a company in Finland was challenging as we didn’t have prior knowledge of the startup ecosystem here, and we didn’t speak any Finnish. But by going to networking events, participating in hackathons and other startup activities, we were able to build a network for ourselves, and we quickly got integrated into the system. We made so many valuable friends (both Finnish and international) that helped us through legal matters, accounting, taxes and even content translation for our clients.

Our first Finnish client came as a referral from a friend; our accountant came as a referral from a friend and the lawyer that helped us finalise our company registration online was our friend’s lawyer. There is help everywhere, especially in Finland where people genuinely want to help, you just have to know where to look and what to ask!

Capitalising on our failures, learnings and successes

The most challenging moments for me have been starting a company in Finland within a year of moving here. With no connections, no knowledge of Finnish, little understanding of the ecosystem, finance system and taxes. But with the mindset of figuring things out, we managed to build a successful business with clients from the UK, US, Sweden, Italy and Finland.

Now we are working on a new product called FlexTyo that would revolutionise the workspace industry. It is a platform that gives you access to unlimited productive physical workspaces in your city and around the world, with just one Pass. With FlexTyo, you have the flexibility to choose which workspace to make your office each day.

The learning from Digital Growth Boost is helping us build more solutions for the world, thereby capitalising on our failures, learnings and successes to create more impact in the world.

You build your life to resonate around it 

I could comfortably tell you that I am an entrepreneur by blood and have entrepreneurship in my DNA. But the truth is that I used to be a shy kid with no guts of approaching or engaging with people. But now, communicating with people, discovering people’s pain/problems, and offering solutions has become a part of me. Not because I was born with it, but because I chose that path and I worked towards it!

My favourite aspect of entrepreneurship is execution, getting things done!

When you are an entrepreneur, you build your personal life to resonate around it. For me, every day is a Monday, but this does not mean I sacrifice my personal life. I have a lot of fun with friends, I spend time with people I care about, and I have fun doing what I love. 

Seek to provide value and impact 

Entrepreneurship’s most important commandment is: seek to provide value and impact first, instead of chasing money as money is only a by-product of value offered. This applies to almost every industry because people are willing to pay for what solves their problems. Instead of thinking about making money, focus on the problems these people have and how you can provide a valuable solution. From there they will either pay you for it or hire you.

Communication, Confidence and Execution

Communication skills: This is the backbone of successful entrepreneurs and running a business. Even if you are trying to get a job, people will not see the value you have to offer if you cannot sell yourself properly. As an entrepreneur, every day of your life is going to be about communication, selling or pitching. It could be selling to customers, pitching to investors or explaining values for partners to work with you.

Confidence: If you don’t believe in yourself, what you offer or what you sell, who will? You can’t expect people to believe in you or what you sell if you don’t believe yourself. As an entrepreneur, there is going to be down times when you feel horrible; like you have no energy to continue and this feeling of giving up. Most times what keeps you going is the ability to believe in who you are and what you are fighting for.

Execution: Ideas are overrated; execution is king. Your ability to execute fast and get things done is what will make you successful. Learning and growth are in the actions and not in watching motivational videos and listening to podcasts every day! Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to watch motivational videos and listen to podcasts as I do that a lot, but you only get inspired when you do so. The real growth and learning comes when you start practising and acting upon what you have heard from these great mentors.

In tough days the best in us is produced

Entrepreneurship is not a destination, it’s a journey and a lifestyle that requires preparation physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it gives you freedom and control over your life and time but it comes with a price. As the most rewarding profession it is also the most challenging and demanding with a lot of roller coaster experiences which, for me, makes it fun because in the tough days the best in us are produced!

The post “Money is only a by-product of value created!” – Kelvin Chikezie, CEO & Co-Founder at Digital Growth Boost appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I owe my parents a lot, especially for instilling in me the understanding that nothing worth having comes easily.

I was born in a small town called Vredenburg on the west coast of South Africa. I am the youngest of 3 children. My childhood was mostly happy. We were a middle-class white family in an old South Africa where being white came with privileges that you didn’t deserve over others. However, it did mean that you got a very good education, grew up in relative safety and had plenty of things that many would think of as luxuries. I was also very aware of the fact that we were not the wealthiest family, and that spending had to be budgeted.

The fact that we had so much was down to the extremely well-planned way my mom ran our finances and how my parents always found the cheapest way to live a comfortable life. By planning far enough ahead, my parents managed to help all three of their children get a degree without getting into debt that usually goes with it when studying in South Africa. I owe them a lot, and I’m especially thankful for them instilling in me the understanding that nothing worth having comes easily. Hard-work, perseverance and making sacrifices is just something you have to do, and not something to cry or complain about.

My mom has possibly been the greatest influence in my life. Her support was often the only thing keeping me together, as I will discuss later. She tried to teach us many of her own beliefs, for example, things like, “always be the lesser” and other things about how we should not be too demanding or too assertive. But as the black sheep in the family, I happily admit I did not always listen.

My dad and I did not always see eye to eye but at the end of the day, I believe that is because we are so similar rather than so different. He is the only other ‘born entrepreneur’ in my direct family, and it became clear to me over the years that he sacrificed pursuing other plans to provide us with a stable home and steady income from his day job. I owe him everything for safeguarding my future and for enabling me to pursue the opportunities he couldn’t.

The one thing both my parents did do that allowed me to be as independent as I am today was to let me make decisions that affected me, even when I was still quite young. For example, at 13 I had the choice of staying at home for highschool or going away for boarding school. I could see the prospect of me leaving was heart-breaking to my mother, but she never once asked me to stay, knowing that the boarding school could offer me more than my local school could. All she said about the topic was that I needed to make the decision myself.

But story-telling is what I miss the most…

Food, sport, friends and family are the cornerstones of my culture. We spend a lion’s share of our free time socialising and gathering with others. Typically, we’d see friends and extended family about 3-5 times a week, usually around an open fire having a braai (Afrikaans word for BBQ).

Having regular, several hours long braais taught me the art of storytelling, as this was the only way to keep a conversation going with people you see so often. We would all tell the same story at various events and each of us from our perspective. It was interesting to me how we all could remember the same event so differently. This is probably what I miss most about South Africa. The easy-going atmosphere, friends, family, food and maybe a few beers.

Bullying almost broke me, but today I use emotional awareness as a strength

The first seven years of school were extremely difficult for me. I was mentally and physically bullied, and the bullying was relentless and severe. I know there doesn’t have to be a reason why someone is picked to be the target of bullying, and I certainly never understood why I was separated from the herd and attacked like I was. On the surface, I was a good student, played in the first team of all the popular sports and had many friends outside of school, which one might think would safeguard me against bullying, but that’s not how bullying works. It might be what made me a target. There may not even be a reason for bullying, or at least a rational reason. But it can make people’s lives hell, and it needs to be addressed, and as much as possible, stopped when noticed.

“In hindsight, my first years of school were probably the worst time of my life. Being bullied has had a profound effect on my life, but I don’t see it as a weakness, I see it as a source of strength. As a result, I’m an emotional intuitive person, and someone who’s able to easily make sense of what I’m feeling and why. I can also interpret other people’s emotions pretty well.

Bullying didn’t ‘break’ me, but there were times when it came close.
I still get emotional thinking about what I’ve gone through, and there’s nothing that I worry more than having my own kids go through something similar.

In the end, it did make me more equipped to deal with any kind of hardship, and today, I use emotional awareness as a strength. “

I made plans on investing in property since I was 12

“I remember enthusing to my friends about how investing in real estate was a great idea, thinking it was like fishing in a barrel and not quite grasping how it worked and what it entailed.

I was 12 at the time, so it’s perhaps understandable that I still had to learn as well as earn a bit to be able to explore it, but the idea did appeal to me from quite early on.

I’ve since been able to tip my toes in investing in real estate, and now see it as the cornerstone of my own financial security strategy. “

Theater and business

My first business was born out of my love for theater.

At the time, I was at boarding school, and as mentioned before, my parents gave me all they could, which didn’t tend to stretch to anything ‘extra’.

I had enough pocket money to buy necessities like toiletries and bus tickets when I needed to, and it was enough for me to be able to play a sport, but it didn’t really stretch to anything else that cost a bit more.

There was an English 1st language course at my school that organised for the kids to regularly go to the theatre in Cape Town, which was about 150 km away.

I was not a 1st language student, but I convinced the teacher that they should make an exception and let me come along. The problem was that the journey cost about two months worth of pocket money. So after my mother paid my next month’s pocket money into my account, I went and emptied my bank account and walked straight into the nearest candy wholesaler’s, and spent it all on candy.

The local “candy dealer”

So now I was without pocket money for my bare necessities, and as I had already signed up for going to the theater, a bill worth two months of pocket money. This meant that I was three months behind on my expenses before the month started. Luckily, boarding school had one rule that counted in my favour. We were only allowed off school grounds over the weekends, which meant that by Wednesday morning, everyone was out of treats and only able to replenish their stock on Friday afternoon. This was where I seized the opportunity I saw and became the local dealer with a rather large markup on the goods I sold.

Before the end of the week, I was out of stock and had enough money to cover all my debts for the theater, and twice my normal monthly allowance in my pocket! I had discovered a goldmine, so I kept it up the rest of my time at boarding school. Risk-taking yielded great rewards – I learned a lot from dealing candy, and my horizons were broadened by my theatre visits and seeing Cape Town. I ended up not missing any of the trips to the theater during my time at school. I eventually also earned qualification for English as a 1st language.

Having thick skin helps ignore negativity, but it can also help unearth hidden opportunities

I learned the value of money, the importance of independent thinking and the meaning of living with the consequences of your actions from my parents, and I learned resilience, perseverance and perspective from the people who bullied me. You have to develop a thick skin and you have to learn to ignore negativity. Some negative comments, however, may prove valuable if they spur you on, or if they help you find your way.

My emotional intelligence helps me understand my emotions as well as the emotions of others, and to me, it’s a source of positive social interactions. It helps with motivation, and I think it’s needed to fulfill one’s full potential. From my friends and family, I’ve learnt that we all have a different perspective and experience of reality and I need to be aware and accepting of that at all times. Lastly, me wanting to do something I didn’t have the monetary means to do taught me to be inventive, and that properly managed risk-taking is not a bad thing.

Even though I found entrepreneurship at a young age and always knew I would be doing my own thing eventually, it has taken me a long time to find what I love to do but to be clear, I don’t see what I do as a destination but a journey. I love learning, and continuously find new things to explore.

I learnt the most from people who failed

I wouldn’t say I have any role models, but I definitely have an interest to understand how others have ‘made it’. I don’t subscribe to the belief that you’d have to be somehow successful for people to look up to you. What I do believe is that those who have failed at something are the real experts on the topic.

People who have succeeded in something are often people who have gotten a lot of things right and also gotten lucky. Those who failed might have done a lot of things right as well, but sans the luck factor, ended up not reaching a set goal. If you’ve succeeded in something, it may be hard to specify what you did right and what you did wrong, when when you fail, you have no choice but to do a post-mortem and analyse what went right and what went wrong before you get up and try again.

The more you practice, the luckier you get

Gary Player, a South African golfer, is credited with having said that golf is a game of luck – the more you practice, the luckier you get. I think life, entrepreneurship and golf have this in common. Nobody gets it right every time, but if you’re able to learn from both your successes and failures, and you have the perseverance to keep trying, you’ll get there in the end.

I have worked in many jobs. I have stocked shelves, packed bags, pushed trolleys in a supermarket, worked as a waiter, sold luxury vacuum cleaners door to door, worked as a shuttle driver at a 5-star hotel, moved roller coasters around the US and Canada and been a “stone man” (kivimies) in Oulu, whilst I was getting my degrees.

Lucky to have a life partner who’s supported me pursuing my dreams

I’ve studied civil engineering in South Africa and worked as a Project Manager for a civil engineering company in South Africa and a system specialist for a surveying company in Finland. After getting my Business degree in Finland, I was ready to start my own business.

I’m extremely lucky to have a life partner who always encouraged me to pursue my dreams. Later on, the stars aligned and we were able to start a venture together.

My first business idea was basically “jump in and hope for the best”

At heart, I am a problem-solver. To me, nothing is as exciting as having a problem that needs solving. I can spend hours just sitting, thinking and trying different ways to approach a problem. I like to understand how things work, and I find it rewarding to see the results of my work. I love getting my hands dirty, and I’m not a fan of remote management.

My first venture involved a toiminimi (sole trade) operations by the name of E-web design and marketing, but I did no web design and absolutely no marketing. What I did do is create an app that tracked golfers on the golf course and provided them with, for example, information about the distance to the hole from their current position.

“It will be harder to get to the starting line than the finishing line”

I built a proof of concept for the golf app, and then joined forces with a company that had a system that enabled the clubhouses to see the location of the golfers on the golf course. The company integrated my app into their system, and it became the main way to track the golfers. In the end, they bought the app from me, and I worked on selling their product to South African golf courses for a while until Satu and I started our own venture.

I didn’t really have a plan when I started my first venture, I just jumped in and hoped that my idea would somehow pan out. It did, but in hindsight, I should have named the venture differently to be more suitable for something that wasn’t quite clear when I started. A friend of mine recently ran the Comrades marathon in South Africa, which is a 93 km ultra-marathon, and he said that his coach told him that it will be harder to get to the starting line than it will be to get to the finishing line. This, I think, is also true for becoming an entrepreneur.

“Failing to plan is planning to fail”

Even though I jumped in without a plan, I did do proper planning once I identified what I wanted to actually do. Planning and having a goal of where you want to end up, and identifying the steps in between your current state and your end state is extremely important. You can’t get where you want to go if you don’t know where you are when you start.

The old adage “failing to plan is planning to fail” sounds trite but it’s true. Still, I don’t think everything has to be crystal clear when you start, and of course, you must also be prepared to pivot if needed.

Learn how to handle the stress in both personal and professional life

Starting a company with my life partner has come with many challenges, and it’s not always been sunshine and roses in our house as we’ve navigated starting our business and bringing up three kids, all at the same time. It has also not been the easiest project to get off the ground. It has taken a lot of understanding to learn how to handle the stress both in our personal and in our professional lives.

It is not like I can go home in the evening and complain about my business partner and how frustrating it was to deal with her during that day, though I have tried a few times. With this said, it has brought us closer, and I have learnt so much about her that I would never properly have understood without seeing her in action. I believe that having gone through all this together we are a much stronger team, and I know I have one of the strongest persons I have ever met standing beside me.

We took an idea from concept to international markets

For most of the project, it was just Satu and me in our company. We took our idea from concept into the hands of end-users in international markets. As a result, we have hands-on, deep-in-the-trenches and full-spectrum experience from every stage of product development: ideation, research, planning, design, development, testing, manufacturing, marketing and launching.

Our innovation was IoT devices connected to a system that was designed to help parents stay connected and informed from concept to international markets. We found inspiration for the project and a gap in the market based on our own experiences of becoming parents.

The devices were controlled through our custom-built web platform and native Android and iOS applications. Together with a partner, we designed the hardware from scratch and did a custom mechanical design, learning the ins and outs mould making in the process. All marketing materials from packaging to campaign contents were done in-house, as were everything we used when exhibiting at international trade shows, including press releases, press kits, flyers, hand-outs, roll-ups, videos scripts, presentations and stand designs.

Don’t let a tight budget stop you 

At one point, I spent three months in one go in China working with the design teams to get everything just right for manufacturing. This was a high-stress, do or die trip, no hotel, no luxuries and no daily allowances, and everything riding on it yielding the desired results.

As a marketing and sales effort as well as to find new collaboration partners, we went to multiple international consumer shows and trade fairs, exhibiting in the UK, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria and China to name a few. I spent many nights building our exhibition stands myself just because our budget didn’t stretch to using external contractors to get the job done for us. We had to learn how to make the most of the money invested in these events, and we accumulated a world of knowledge about what to do before, during, and after the events, and have actually since helped a few companies get the most out of their exhibition efforts.

We walked away from a single event with retailers and distributors from 40 countries wanting to stock our products

After exhibiting at one of the industry’s leading international trade shows in Germany, we walked away with resell interest from more than 40 countries. In the UK, which was our launch market, we had resale agreements with Tesco, Boots, Argos, John Lewis and many smaller specialty stores to sell our products.

In Benelux, we worked with a distributor who managed to get our products on the shelves of 250 specialty stores. We’ve had a joint venture with a Chinese partner, and we’ve had our products featured in multiple major international publications from TechCrunch to Vogue. We’ve won awards, been featured as emerging brands in market studies, and been invited to explore collaboration possibilities with companies big and small.

For the past few years, we’ve taken a step back and focused our efforts on helping other companies grow or launch in international markets. This has entailed helping with strategy, sales, marketing, funding and attracting collaboration/partner interest. Especially funding has turned out to be something many companies need help with, from utilising available instruments to preparing materials for and pitching to angels and VCs.

As much as I’ve enjoyed helping others with their internationalisation endeavours, a few ideas keep coming to mind. Who knows, perhaps we’ll soon start another project of our own, only this time, wiser with the experience.

Amongst the many rewarding moments I’ve experienced, the first satisfied customer review sticks with me the most

On my journey I’ve experienced many rewarding moments from getting to see thought-provoking productions on stage to being awarded for my efforts and interviewed for my experience, but the one thing that I’ll never forget is the first satisfied customer review.

It showed that what my wife and I had envisioned and had put so much hard work into was truly something that our customers wanted. Winning awards, being recognised for design, and all the rest was all just part of the journey to getting our customers the product they wanted and that met their needs. That’s why we started this whole thing in the first place.

Experience is a better teacher than theory

The journey from concept to satisfied customer reviews is long and the road is hard. You have to understand the theory and you have to have experience – neither alone is enough. We made many mistakes along the way, but we knew we were heading in the right direction, even if it took us longer to get there.

We did not identify our MVP correctly and as a result, took the long and much harder route to market by only launching our super-MPV. Then, we ran into unforeseen R&D issues that needed solving, and there were no funds left. It took us too long to realise our Finnish hardware partner had run into trouble, deciding to fake deliveries instead of finishing our project. We weren’t involved enough with our financial planning and management and relied too much on an accounting firm that promised us the moon when we partnered with them, but in the end, billed by the minute. We’ve learned it the hard way to know what to keep firmly in your own hands and what to outsource, although – of course – when you keep certain activities in-house, you also need to be equipped to managing them.

A great idea is worthless without the right people 

I’ve learned that a great idea alone isn’t enough, and that you need to surround yourself with the right people and the right partners to be able to execute. Now with the benefit of hindsight, I also know the importance of experience – it’s not enough to know this in theory, you have to be able to put the theory into practice.

Let’s take the MVP as an example. In our case, the baby goods market offered loads of low-threshold opportunities to start selling other products, which we could easily have started to do before writing one line of code. In this way, we could have learnt more about the market whilst securing cash flow, and we could show our experience rather than our market-research-based assumptions to investors, and we could have built our sales network in the process.

Trusting that a partner will work as agreed in the contracts is not enough

Picking a partner and keeping tabs on them delivering as agreed required a lot more involvement than I had hoped. Unfortunately, trusting that a partner will get the work done as agreed in the contracts is not enough.

Know your financials from day one, plan your spending as far in advance as possible, be realistic with yourself about the costs and deadlines, and make sure you know what’s going on.

Entrepreneurship is like climbing mountains, but at least you can choose which mountain to climb and how to climb it

I would like to think that I am a born entrepreneur, but I know I may rather be an entrepreneur because of my life experiences. My parents, the bullies at school, my lack of resources, and my drive to experience and learn new things have all added up to me wanting to pave my own way.

Entrepreneurship does come with many challenges, and there is always something that doesn’t go according to plan, but it does give you the freedom to climb that mountain the way you want to, and getting to the top depends on you and your team. So make sure you surround yourself only with people equipped for the trek.

Making mistakes is par for the course, lying about them is not

Everyone makes mistakes, and failing is just part and parcel of being an entrepreneur. Learn from what happened, and use it to try again. Edison is credited at having said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”, and I think that’s the right attitude to adopt. Making mistakes and looking like an idiot is not the worst thing in the world. I’ve sometimes joked at how I’ve mastered that skill, but truth be told, one can learn a lot from it.

I’d argue that the only reason someone hasn’t failed or made a mistake is because they’ve not tried, or because they’re lying about not having failed. It’s possibly universally true that in the end, it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s how you’ve planned and how you execute. You have to understand your market, but even more importantly, you have to understand the person that will end up buying and using your product, and why they’d choose you.

As an entrepreneur, you need to be inquisitive and both able to work with and rely on others. More than anything, you need a lot of sisu, that unending endurance to keep going even when you want to do nothing more than to stop.

Not knowing how you are spending your money will be the most expensive mistake you ever make

If there is one thing I recommend every aspiring entrepreneur to invest some time in it’s on making sure you understand your financials. Not understanding your money and what you are spending it on will be the most expensive mistake you’ll ever make.

Your idea can be amazing, but without money, you’re going nowhere. Bootstrap for as short a period as possible. Work to the point where you can prove your idea ‘has legs’ and that you and your team are ready and able to execute. I would love to tell you that all you need to get the first investments is a PowerPoint presentation, but I have never seen a presentation worth anything that did not have hundreds/thousands of hours of work behind it.

In fact, less than 1 percent of startups secure funding from angel investors, and even fewer are funded by venture capital firms. Make use of the available grants and low-interest loans, but don’t fool yourself into thinking finding outside investors will happen overnight.

Make sure you find some balance in your life. If you are not healthy, your business will suffer.

Being an entrepreneur is all-consuming. It’s not an 8h/day job that you can forget about at 5 pm. If you’re not physically, mentally and emotionally healthy, you’re just not able to do everything that the job entails.

Find your MVP and start selling as soon as possible. It will give you not only some income but also the validation of your idea and an understanding of your end customer that you can not get from market research alone. This intel will help you focus your R&D where it’s needed rather than where you think it’s needed.

Cash is king and so is cash flow. Focusing on starting to generate cash flow with something as soon as possible, even if only doing it to carry the costs of R&D, often enables securing operations later when something unexpected happens, or a better opportunity presents itself.

Don’t be afraid to jump in and find your way. And if one thing doesn’t work out, try something else. It may just be that falling at one thing turns out the be exactly what enables you to succeed at something else.

The post “When one thing doesn’t work out, try something else. Failing at one thing may be exactly what enables you to succeed at something else” – Erasmus van Niekerk, CEO and Owner at SEP Solutions appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Small town boy

I am from a small town called Kuhmo, located in eastern Finland, next to the Russian border. Famous for its chamber music festivals. Otherwise, a tiny and silent town, without much to do as a teenager.

I was not directly connected to or even interested in business as such when I was a kid. Still, I was organising events like rock concerts and discos with my friends. However, I was not doing it because of money, but rather to enjoy the live music and the parties.

Dare to turn ideas into reality

I am a person who gets lots of ideas, and I dare to make them happen. The best part is finding a team that likes the idea, which has all the competencies and wants to develop it further with me.

I used to work for Nokia and later for Microsoft in R&D. Even though I was part of large organisations, I think that my role was quite close to what I am doing today as an entrepreneur.

Push forward your idea, find a team, motivate them, test the idea, and sell your idea 

The final step is to run the project to make the idea happen. These steps are the same, but the big difference is the financial commitment. It has been quite a big step for me to put my own family’s financial security in the game. If there would not have been layoffs due to mobile phone development, I might still be working in a large organisation.

I had tested the active noise-cancelling headphones in busy airports many years earlier

I remember how good it felt to have this silent bubble in the middle of chaos. You notice how your stress levels go down, and everything is peaceful. Like you would jump from the Peking airport to a summer cottage in Kuhmo just by pressing the button.

I thought that that feeling is valuable, but there are no solutions available that would offer it in everyday life. Because those headphones were too big to carry, there were wires, and the battery life was too short.  

A comfortable, effective product with a long-lasting battery is not enough; it must be so small that you can sleep with

If the device would be small and comfortable like a foam earplug but still having that noise-cancelling capability, there would be battery life lasting all day, and it would be so little that you could even sleep with it: That would be a fantastic product!

I met Matti Nisula, my colleague from Nokia and Microsoft. He is a talented engineer, specialised in audio, signal processing, and electronics. 

I asked him, “Is this kind of product technically feasible?”. He said that he doesn’t know, but we should try. And there it started.

First, we researched on the internet for similar products. Since we found nothing, we moved forward. As we didn’t have any funding, we were using free lab premises in Oulu. We found free signal processing simulator tools and started to work on the system. Then we continued to design the electronics and finally ordered circuit boards from China. 

Matti did fantastic freehand welding under the microscope to get electronics in place for this miniature – scale device. 

We built mechanics by using hot glue and nail polish

The result was the world’s first pair of active noise cancelling earplugs, which were so small that you could even sleep with them. They were looking ugly but functioning well, so we started usability tests with our friends. Everybody was pleased with the device.

I started contacting people. After a couple of calls, I was invited to Finnair headquarters to show my prototype. I packed a bag with speakers and a subwoofer with me. I explained the idea and then played aeroplane cabin noise in the room. 

We registered the company after having the first deal

Finnair Vice President tested the prototype, and, under the condition that we improve the aspect of the product, he proposed a co-operation.

After the meeting, I called Matti and announced to him that we need to establish a company.

Next, we developed the product design and got the first set of devices with a proper look, after which we continued the usability tests with Finnair, from which we received more encouraging feedback. 

Two questions left unanswered

We still had two important questions: are people willing to buy these? And could we crowdfund it?

I heard about Asmo chargers and how they have made a successful Kickstarter campaign. 

Crowdfunding was a new type of making business and seemed like a shortcut for the startups to go global.

We met Asmo and got a lot of important information and the needed push to make our own Indiegogo campaign. 

First, we made a marketing video and wrote a campaign page. When the campaign went live, we sent emails to our business network and asked people for their support. With their help, we had a great start: Indegogo’s algorithm ranked our product as “trending” and pushed it to the platform’s front page. Then sales went up. We kept this campaign, and the pre-sales channel open until we got the manufacturing run.

At that time, the total sales were already 1.3 million dollars

It might sound like the work was done, and now we can just count the money, but that was not the case. We had to get the manufacturing up and running, which meant a tremendous amount of development to get testing and quality processes in place. 

We had logistic challenges because the orders came from over 100 different countries

After Indiegogo, all the sales and marketing activities started. As a result, we needed more people, more money, more everything. The workload with those limited resources was out of scale. We had to deal with tasks that none of us had experienced previously.  

Step by step, we managed to get things in place and gather all the competencies and resources to make the company running smoothly. Today we have two products out and lots of exciting stuff on the roadmap.

I wasn’t born with an entrepreneurial mindset, nor with the eagerness to make money 

Without much interest in entrepreneurship & profit-making, still, I have been making small innovations and organising events out of need all my life. My approach?  If I need something, I do it without waiting for somebody else to do it instead. 

Now I am an entrepreneur. I love the freedom of running the company. We can do what we want, but we are responsible for all our actions. There are ups and downs in all the jobs, but those hills have a much higher amplitude for entrepreneurs. There is no difference between work and home. 

If you can tolerate the stress and uncertainty, you will have an amazing ride! 

I find it difficult to imagine that I would ever return to working for an already established large organisation, such as Nokia at that time, in the future.

To build a successful tech startup, you need to understand the customer’s needs. What is the problem? What is the solution? Are people willing to pay for it? After you find the answers to those questions, create the solution without compromises.

If you don’t feel a little bit ashamed by your prototype, then you’re too late

Stay loyal to your original idea. Make one thing perfect! Then go straight to your customer and test the idea. If you don’t feel a little bit ashamed by your prototype, then you are too late. 

Listen to the customer and make the needed changes. When you find the perfect solution, go for it. Do whatever it takes to get the business running. Then start looking for people who can take the company to the next level. 

Enjoy the ride! 

The post “We built our prototype by using hot glue and nail polish” – Janne Kyllönen, Founder & COB at QuietOn appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

As a kid, I really thought entrepreneurship was something thrilling.

I grew up in Oulu in northern Finland in a family with two children, my brother and myself. There were no successful entrepreneurs in the family as a role model for me, but as a kid, I still thought entrepreneurship was something thrilling. 

At an early age, I started with some activities like organising theatre plays for smaller kids, selling self-made candies in front of a supermarket or running a second-hand-shop in the yard. With my first self-earned money I bought a fancy evening bag with glittering strass as a reward for myself. I was about 12 years old and it felt just great.

Sometimes you need to build your self-confidence to be mentally ready for entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship was always an attractive option for me. During my first study days at the University of Tampere, a girl asked me about my future professional plans in the “getting-to-know-you” seminar. She was surprised when I told her running my own business was my dream. In those days, founding a company was not so much en vogue as it is now, and start-ups seldom a topic of articles. 

Anyhow, it took almost 20 years until I really implemented that plan and founded my first company in 2012 in Germany, where I still live with my family.  

You might ask, why so long? I think the main reason is that I needed many years of working experience in order to have enough self-confidence and to be mentally ready for entrepreneurship. I am a mother of two wonderful sons which also played a role when planning my professional career.

I’m motivated by the freedom and the continuous change that belongs to life.

Being an entrepreneur allows you a certain scope of freedom and the opportunity to change something, these are my big motivators. Finding ways to do things better and differently is inspiring and for me, continuous change belongs to life. In our cosmetics company, we want to change some aspects of skin care and also make an environmental impact: we replace synthetic ingredients with natural ones and use sustainable packaging materials and production methods.

I don’t like a tight nine-to-five work schedule and instead, appreciate flexibility. I perform the best if I can allocate the tasks according to my mood and energy level, and as an entrepreneur it is possible. Many good ideas were born in bed drinking my Sunday morning coffee. 

The people you are surrounded by, their energy and life attitude is important.

Early mornings are my power time and best used for tasks which demand a sharp mind and creative ideas, not for meaningless long meetings, as I often had in corporate life.

My husband supports me fantastically on this journey and I am very grateful for that. Also, my two sons are proud that their mum is an entrepreneur and forgive me some household things that don’t always work smoothly, like washing their favourite clothes in time.

In my early life there weren’t many entrepreneurs, which was a pity as I would have loved to have had an experienced entrepreneur as a mentor.  I believe the people you are surrounded by, their energy and life attitude is important. These last years I have been actively building my network among other entrepreneurs.

My need to start working with something meaningful was growing.

Working for years in an international corporation taught me a lot – even for the later entrepreneurial role. Anyhow, I never felt I would have found the right place. I had this modest Finnish idea of believing that delivering good results was enough, and the elbow mentality and power games are not my thing. The need to permanently “sell myself” was stressing me and there were times when I felt pretty bad. The Finnish school and university systems are great, but you don’t learn how to sell and present yourself there. A bit more the American way would do us good.

Throughout the years I had many business ideas, but they all did not feel promising enough to leave secure employment and step into the risky business of owning a company. I also started to evaluate my ideas stronger against my own values and beliefs, not just the business potential. My need to start working with something meaningful was growing.

It wasn’t ideal starting my first company alone.

I started my first company in the natural cosmetics industry alone in 2012, which was not ideal when looking back. There are big synergies when there is a small team working on something from the beginning. I was missing a sparring partner for discussions and getting other points of view.

The idea of building my own skincare brand, combining biotechnology with the best superfoods of the arctic plants, started to grow in 2016. So I then sold my first company to be able to focus fully on INARI. I started to work with the business idea alone, but after I had laid some basement down I brought on Nina Stenberg as a co-founder, which was a great decision.  

Don’t stay with problems, focus on answers and open your mind for creative solutions.

The cosmetics industry is a tough one, the competition is enormous, but I love it. When a consumer sends feedback that she gained real help to her skin problems from our products I feel thrilled. That is what this business is about – offering a skincare solution for a customer need.

As you might expect there has been a long list of challenges to face. Don’t stay with problems, focus on answers and open your mind for creative solutions, is my advice.

We had challenges, for example in financing and finding the right partners for different tasks – both are critical issues for a young company. In the beginning, we couldn’t afford to hire any employees, but we were working with external agencies and freelancers. The sales pitch was always great, the invoice in time, but the results sometimes lacking.

We all make mistakes; the interesting question is, what did you learn?

When you find a great cooperation partner – don’t let them go! The timings have often been an issue.  When we were preparing the launch in 2018 a supplier delivered ingredients in an unacceptable quality for the very first production, causing many weeks’ delay of the initial launch.

We also made some big decisions in the beginning, for example regarding the sales strategy and production, which in hindsight were not the best ones. We all make mistakes; the interesting question is, what did you learn?

I have a strong will and the Finnish sisu

As I was learning to understand my own strengths and weaknesses better, I started to see that my character is well suited for being an entrepreneur. I have a strong will and the Finnish sisu – or stoic resilience – which is helpful, and when I feel passionate about something I tend to find a way to implement it.

Combining work and private life has been easier as an entrepreneur. I have been working a lot remotely and could organise different life aspects much more flexibly, which has been great for the family. My favourite aspects of entrepreneurship are freedom and that my work is meaningful.

Be willing to learn constantly

An entrepreneur needs to have many skills and be willing to learn new ones constantly. As there are many balls in the air at the same time, it is better to act even if not everything is perfect. A perfectionist has hard times as a founder. Great skills for an entrepreneur are courage, passion and the ability to cope with uncertainty.  Especially in the beginning you might not receive any rewards, more the other way around. If you love being an entrepreneur and have a passion for your company, it gives you wings to fly.

Try to make sure you’re always learning, reflecting, planning and building your network. Read a lot and take holidays instead of letting yourself burn out.

And if I had one piece of advice it would be to take one step after another and always keep going. Don’t give up!

The post “Finnish education is great, but you don’t learn how to sell & present yourself there”, Sirkku Hahn – Founder & CEO of INARI Arctic Cosmetics appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I was hooked by the magical world of computer games

I still remember my first time seeing a computer as a five-year-old kid, whose excitement peaked when looking at someone playing a computer game. I was immediately hooked by that magical world, and certainly, my parents were afraid that I would be playing too many games, thus neglecting my studies and hurting my eyes. As a result, they did everything they could in their power to prevent me from using a computer.

I deep-dove into the IT books and materials that my father would bring back and finally gained access to my family’s computer without my parents’ approval

However, life makes turns in the most unexpected ways possible. As my father used to work as an IT teacher, he brought home many valuable and helpful IT-related materials. With a burning urge to unlock the computer, together with a curious mind, I deep-dove into those books. 

That was my first exposure to programming. I then managed to practice some of the instructions and finally gained successful access to the family’s computer without my parents’ approval. At that very moment, I knew I had found my path: I want to become a software engineer.

“Cashflow Quadrant” enlightened me on how money moves and how wealth can be created

In addition, my father was a fan of the series: “Rich dad, poor dad” (by Robert Kiyosaki). The series talks about how the mindset of the rich differs from the rest. My favourite part of the book was the Cashflow Quadrant, which enlightened me on how money moves and how wealth can be created. 

Salary is not the only source of income that you can earn, and in fact, it is the most inefficient way of generating income. That has changed my viewpoint of the world and gradually planted seeds that bloomed into an entrepreneurial mindset.

Those two events have set the founding stones in building the person I am today: an entrepreneurial software engineer.

I have always loved building whatever I want, including products and a community of my own

My role model is Steve Jobs- I want to achieve perfection as much as possible and deliver to customers a care-free experience. Besides, I have always loved building whatever I want, including products and a community of my own. This community is a group of people with whom I work. With that in mind, I have been seeking opportunities where I can fulfil my passion, and entrepreneurship is the best choice. 

I was given the opportunity to wear many hats, build a product from scratch and be my own boss in making decisions

I met my business partner, Trung Nguyen, when I was still an intern in front-end development. He was a nice guy and had always tried his best to let me shine with my full potential. Although that company no longer exists, we still keep in touch. We never knew that it would turn into something much more than just mentorship.

Later on, I joined a Finnish startup. Before joining this company, I had never been given the chance to build a product from scratch or be my own boss in making decisions, which are, in my opinion, what most entrepreneurs do. I was given an opportunity to wear many hats. I was trusted with different responsibilities as if I was one of the founding members.

Make the workplace my dream working environment

I must admit that it was a rough ride but I managed to learn a lot and gained a valuable and diverse network that has supported my entrepreneurship path thereafter. I was also given time to build the company’s culture and make the workplace my dream working environment. 

I then saw the rewards of being an entrepreneur, and the time working in this startup has thus inspired me to one day build my own. In fact, many cultures in the current company that I am managing were borrowed from that startup.

Last year, I finally seized the chance to do what I always dreamt of: managing my own company. So I invited Trung to a cafe session, and we made a plan. It has been more than 1 year since.

Despite not being able to reach our revenue goal due to the pandemic, we compensated by having a happy team and strengthened our competencies

I remember when we were reviewing our first financial report, it was such a remarkable experience since it showed us how good we were in a year, especially after just 4 months of operation. 

Then the covid-19 was a challenge for me as an entrepreneur. I needed to make careful decisions in HR, finance, customer relationship, and needed to prepare for the worst. Fortunately, with the support of my team and my business partner, the company’s finance was not in a bad shape, and the team still managed to stay sane and happy during the pandemic. After the critical time of the pandemic, we even got more projects to handle, which has proved our trustworthiness within our customer network. 

We also managed to help our international team members meet the requirements of the working permit in Finland. Furthermore, we have also welcomed one amazing software architect into the team, which allows us to be more confident in our capabilities of building a complete software system.

Despite not being able to reach our revenue goal due to the pandemic, we compensated by having a happy team and strengthened our competencies.

Managing finance and ensuring human interaction is important

Through my entrepreneurial journey up until now, I have learnt two important lessons:

• Always prepare beforehand and put the finance in order (preferably 6 months in advance). Anything can happen.
• During hard times, human interaction is even more important. You need to find a way for the team to spend time bonding even if face-to-face meetings cannot be realized.

I value the freedom of making my own choices

Entrepreneurship is an awesome experience but it is not for everyone. Personally, I would not have chosen this path if some incidents in the past had happened which fortunately did not.  

Back in the day, I used to join several startups as a technical member of the core team, and a lot of times I had high hopes that I may stick with one team for a long time and enjoy the growth. However, startup life is hard and the last startup I joined could not promise me that long-term commitment. That was one of the biggest motivations that pushed me to start my own company. 

Another incident is that during my past years I also got several chances to work with a stable tech company. I could probably enjoy my career that way as well, but I still decided to continue with my own path, since I value the freedom of making my own choices. Therefore, the entrepreneurial mindset is something I would say I have acquired through time and through my own first-hand experiences.

Through entrepreneurship, I can create my own company culture, job opportunities and help customers realize their business visions

My favourite aspects of being an entrepreneur are to be my own boss and to create an impact that also benefits others, including teammates, customers, and suppliers. More specifically, I can create my very own company culture and build the kind of workplace that everyone enjoys and where everyone feels motivated. 

I can also rotate through different departments of the company, from finance to human resources and marketing. What’s even more rewarding is that I get to create job opportunities for the pool of talented people and help customers realize their business visions.

“What happens if my team is unhappy but they don’t tell me?”

On the other hand, entrepreneurship also means uncertainty from time to time. You will not know what can happen next. Most notably, this pandemic! In addition, your head will be filled with a ton of questions, such as “What happens if we run out of customers?”, “What happens if my team is unhappy but they don’t tell me?” or “Will the company situation improve or will it be as it is currently for a long time?”. 

After many rounds of overthinking, you will then have to make several critical decisions that not only affect you but the whole chain of stakeholders. Although having the authority to make decisions is great, sometimes, you just wish to get rid of it.

Nonetheless, I do not regret taking on this entrepreneurial path. Those challenges do not discourage me. In fact, they make the experience even more wholesome.

What to invest in

Speaking from experience, I’d say that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, we should invest our time into three things:

• Invest in learning how to stay focused and calm most of the time, since you are the one in charge of your own business; losing your cool won’t be a good idea.
• Invest in your mental, and of course, physical health. Without them, you would easily collapse.
• Communication skills. You will need to interact with a LOT of people, including customers, team members, and so on.

The post “Gaining access to my family’s computer without my parents’ approval back then has changed my life” – Jarvis Luong, CTO at Reactron appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Learn to adapt and stay true to yourself

I grew up under the Mediterranean sun in a popular Finnish destination: Alicante. I did not live in the city but 7-8km away in Cabo de las Huertas, a residential area very close to the sea. The best 3 words to describe my childhood and teenage years are sun, friends, and freedom. And to be frank: what else would I need?

However, my parents are not originally from there: my dad is from the North-West of Spain, León, and my mum is French, from Le Havre. The fact that I am half-French and studied in a French school did have an impact on me. I know that other people with double nationalities can feel like they are 100% xx and 100% yy (like I would feel 100% Spaniard and 100% French), yet that was never the case with me. I always felt something was off compared to my Spanish friends, the kids I would play with after school. It was not always pleasant since I would sometimes feel out of place in either country. But it was a part of life that I came to terms with it pretty fast: learn to adapt but stay true to yourself. I think it also shaped the part of me that is fascinated by communication and human behavior.

When I was 16 years old, I was supposed to go for a 2-week internship at a company. All students had to. We did some personality tests to see which professions or fields of work would be the best match, and I got Sociology. I thought it was pretty spot on. I liked “studying people” (there you go, that will be the creepy quote of this interview!) and loved extending the study to its root causes, past, context. I loved History, Geography, and I was definitely also into Arts and Humanities. But, here’s the problem: the school did not have any companies available for an internship in “sociology”. Therefore, they decided to follow a comprehensive methodology to find the nearest field that would match my personality test criteria: my teacher looked at me and said, “you, there’s nothing for you, pick another field.” All right! I chose marketing.

Alright, so I chose marketing

I have always loved writing. For me, for others, for whatever purpose, for the sake of it. I guess it was the fact that my parents have a house full of books and my mum has always been so fond of cinema that had something to do with my love for storytelling. Also, friends used to praise me for my humor and creativity. So, marketing seemed to be the perfect landing spot. Again, I was 16, and for me, marketing was writing commercials for Coca Cola. What could go wrong?

Actually, nothing. Yet. I enjoyed my internship very much, and two years later, I decided to take on a Bachelor’s degree at Universidad de Alicante in Advertising and PR. That’s the whole degree, they somehow made 4 years out of that. Of course, they had to fill in with other things, which was why we actually did study the Industrial Revolution and the Second World War during the first year. People were livid, but I loved it. Those 4 years at University were extraordinary, both socially and academically. You know you have studied the right degree when you don’t always like the assignments or teachers but when you eventually find yourself studying for the final exam, you realize you have always enjoyed each course’s scope. In reality, it took me 5 years to graduate. I took the 5^th one as Erasmus and somehow landed in Finland. That might be a story for another time. Nevertheless, it was the best decision of my life. I’ve been here 14 winters (after the first 4 years, you start to count it in winters) and kept looking forward to many more!

I used to have no contact with entrepreneurship and I thought I needed stability

When I was growing up, I had no contact with entrepreneurship. I did not think much about it, really. So, when I decided I wanted to stay in Finland, the single clear consequence was that I needed to get a job. Through some contacts in Spain, an idea crossed my mind to start doing something like importing food, opening leads for second residence real estate in Alicante, etc. But I was actually looking for stability, so I decided to go on a holy quest to land a job.

I had been so confident that nothing could go wrong by studying marketing. Now comes the “yet”: there was no job for me in marketing in Finland without Finnish or Swedish skills! So, again, I had to adapt and choose the nearest field available. I speak 3 languages, fairly outgoing, good at reading people and communicating. Could international sales be a perfect fit? Yes! International sales. I finally got a job (kudos to FogScreen and the defunct BGF) and was happily employed and able to stay in the country.

I knew that I could do more than that

After a while, I started feeling a bit trapped, which was strange. FogScreen was giving me the two things I thought that all salespeople would want the most: we did not have stability, we did not have a perfect product, it was a challenging sales process during the financial crisis, but I had absolute freedom (and I mean it: I was 100% remote) and a good incentive plan, plus great salary. Still, it felt like I could do more than that or that I needed to do something different to be fulfilled.

I had learned by then that Finland is a country with many entrepreneurs. There were lots of small companies doing something interesting. And I wanted to help them. I was focusing all my energy on a single company when I could be helping so many more. I could be exploring new products, solutions, and people. On top of that, sales was not the only thing that I knew I could do—with or without Finnish or Swedish, I finally believed I could help companies with their marketing. So, I quit my job and decided to give it a go.

Despite being a rookie without knowing the local language, I gave my earnest shot

Thinking back, I  believe all the people surrounding me were supportive, which was fantastic, and that gave me lots of confidence. As for my family, I had already proven I could land a decent job in Finland despite being a rookie and without knowing the local language. I guess they finally accepted that I could at least give it an earnest shot.

I remember looking for advice at my local Posintra office in Loviisa. That was a memorable experience! First of all, they helped me polish my application for “starttiraha” (a small allocation of money for new entrepreneurs). Second, it was a wake-up call for me. I had to think about where my income would really come from 4 months after quitting my job, who I wanted to target, and pricing. The thing is that it’s all right to try out different kinds of stuff, but you also need to take your time, your focus, and income into consideration. Or else, you are going to have a bad time.

I decided to work with an accountant in Loviisa because I wanted to support local businesses and hoped to find someone who could guide me through the most basic and probably stupid questions. Finance and Accounting were a new world for me. Luckily, I found the perfect person – an accountant who generously gives me advice and even cheers me up when I have bad stretches (hi there, Taina!).

I could never start taking it seriously until cutting my salary entirely out of the equation

Many weeks went by from my first conversation with Taina and the Posintra advisor. By then, I still received my salary and was testing out the waters. I did a bit of networking, asked around, and looked for businesses that could be complementary to mine, approached a few potential customers. However, I immediately realized that I could never start taking it seriously until completely cutting my salary out of the equation. So, in the summer of 2014, I cashed in my pending commissions, took a 3-week holiday to Spain with my wife, and came back ready for action. I asked a friend to help me with all the paperwork, and hey ho, let’s go!

Everybody says you need to have an obvious answer when being asked what to do. The truth is, I started my company to figure out two things. The first, if I could make a living on my own. The second, to find an answer to the “what do you do” question. Even after discussions with Posintra, I knew that my entrepreneurial journey would be experimental and without a safety net. Make it or break it.  

So, what do I do? – All of those things!

So, what do I do? Sales. Marketing. Content creation, strategy, video production?  All of the above. For the first 2 years, I tried many things, including translations, reviews, copywriting, video (sales, script, film, even being in front of the camera), consulting, cold calling, account managing, and so on. I always managed to find clients to work with while making a living and having fun along the way. Yet, I could not give a one word answer to the question “what do you do?” All of those things! 

I was struggling because of that. I could define any of my clients’ businesses in one sentence but not my own. In the end, it turned out that the solution was right in front of my eyes the whole time. I did not need to choose. I was finding clients, doing a good job, being pretty happy and making a living. Nothing wrong with that! There is no need to jump inside a box only because others are uncomfortable with uncertainty. It took me almost 3 years to come to terms with acknowledging that I work in the broad fields of sales and marketing, and I have a fantastic pool of talent available to handle both small and big projects. The real question is not the one people kept asking me, but the one that I have been asking my clients: “How can I help you?”

Joining ROND meant a change for me

In 2017, I cold-called a guy from a company. “This dude might need some videos,” I wondered after a very qualitative assessment of Googling, and “he seems like a relaxed person”. I did have an idea in mind, and the call went well. And I produced a video for him. We stayed in touch and got along after that. He had some cool ideas for a new business that he was planning to start. That guy was Sjoerd Postema and that company was ROND. I was all-in, lucky to be on board, and became a co-founder. We’ve gone a long way together, and we’re just getting started. If you don’t believe me, check what we are doing with virtual events!

Joining ROND meant a change for me. It was no longer about my company and a pool of talent around, but jumping into team dynamics and being accountable in a whole different way. It meant sharing the potential but also the responsibility with my fellow co-founders. It was a new setup. Luckily, both Sjoerd and Huong have always made life easier for me. They quickly understood that I needed to work with lots of freedom, and allowed me to work 100% remotely since the beginning and accommodated that into their plans. They knew each other from before but not me. Yet, they trusted me. They empowered me. And, an empowered entrepreneur is unstoppable, right?

Also, ROND allows me to be myself and dive into a myriad of different tasks: sales, social media, video, marketing… Just what I wanted. And I have good fun along the way! Even through the most challenging times, when there is too much work, or things don’t go our way, I feel privileged to be challenged and pushed forward in many directions. It’s hard, yes, but give me “hard” and “challenging” any day. I did not become an entrepreneur to get bored.

There are a thousand doors at your reach waiting to be knocked on

I am a stubbornly hopeful person. No matter what is happening in the world, in my life, or my business(es), I firmly believe there are a thousand doors at my reach to knock on and find new opportunities. An entrepreneur will have to adjust his vision from what he/she puts on papers when registering the company, to when reality finally lays its cards on the table and clients say “no” (whether that means “no” or “not now,” “not like this” is a different question…). You have to be relentless but flexible, determined and hopeful, optimistic and solution-oriented. And again: always be willing to knock on those doors. No one will do it on your behalf. Someone behind those doors might be willing to work with you, collaborate, or give you a lovely piece of advice.

Pick up the phone, call, make that intro happen, and come what may

Until now, I might have done more business out of cold calls than personal introductions. Because I did not always have someone to introduce me to a particular company I wanted to work with for whichever particular reason. So, I would pick up the phone, call, introduce myself, and tell them why I thought we could be an incredible match. It gets easier, of course, since after 14 winters in Finland I got to connect with lots of different people. However, if I want to work with someone because they inspire me, or I believe I can solve a problem, or simply because I think there is a story they might want to hear and work on, I will just reach out. Being a bit bold, passionate, and  having a big smile on your face during the call can already take you quite a long way! The quote goes, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. Take the shot. And, please, don’t tell me you “sent an email”: pick up the phone, call, make that intro happen and come what may.

It is not a chore. It is an adventure!

I am a very sales-oriented person. I do believe that “sales” is not only a word with a tarnished reputation but it should actually be significantly more used in certain entrepreneur circles. Long story short: do yourself and your business a favor, pick up the phone, and start selling. It’s not a chore: it’s an adventure. You should feel excited when dialing a new number, butterflies in your belly, imagining the potential of meeting someone who can turn out to be a great client. That would be an extraordinary, unexpected journey, and, even better,  an excellent person to put in your life. It has happened to me more than once. Of course, it’s not always going to be an easy and pleasant road, but remember about being a stubbornly hopeful person?

My second job in Finland, back in 2008, was a heavy cold-calling position. We were calling C-level executives all over the world. I was so naïve and did not notice that it was the nature of the job before joining. I thought I was jumping into account management. I hated every second of it. Boss would come through the door and give you simple instructions: “pick up the f*cking phone.” It did not go well with my personality: I was a cold caller before that, sure, even doing volume, but in a much softer environment. This was closer to telesales. I tried to make it work but constantly felt out of place. I was also becoming something I did not want to be – a wannabe-cocky-broker-cold-caller if that makes any sense. I later found a better job as a sales manager, back with my previous employer, and moved on. In retrospect, that was an extraordinary sales school and it did wonders for my performance. I had gained sharper tools to open and learned to focus on closing. Listen to the client, yes, acknowledge the needs, yes, be creative and solution-oriented, yes. But close. Close. If you don’t like the end of this paragraph don’t start your business alone: find someone who likes it first.

Every single client is unique to me

You might cherish your first client more because they were the first. The truth is, every single one is unique to me. The fact that we spoke and reached an agreement on how I can contribute to that company’s development is the kind of feeling you chase when you start your journey. Postponing the calls, emails, and negotiations out of fear and rejection is a disservice to you and your company.

Freedom does not always mean doing what you want

Freedom is a crucial aspect for me. It does not always mean doing what you want. That’s great, but not always possible. For me, it means that even when I have hectic days or weeks, the fact that it’s my company and I ultimately sit at the wheel makes me feel free. Entrepreneurship is like paving my own road: I know I have to continue paving -too much cross country and mud would exhaust me. I also know that I do need to coordinate and rely on others to get enough stones, flatten the ground, and put the stones in place. But, ultimately, I decide the pace and direction at which I build it.

Your goal is not to be busy 24/7 but to be happy along the way

Speaking of pace, I don’t believe in 24/7 work and availability. Even when you love what you do, you need to step aside to breathe, learn, enjoy. I have been quite firm with my time, sticking to regular business hours. Granted, I tend to start a bit later (I wake up early but take a long walk with the dogs in the woods) but often do a night shift: a perfect time for copywriting. Also, I do not let anyone take for granted my evenings, weekends, or holidays. Plan your projects properly and allow yourself time to sleep and rest. If anybody pressures you into working more (“entrepreneurs need to live and breathe their business!”), ignore them. It’s all about efficiency and productivity, not the cumulation of hours. Yes, the first months and years might be more challenging since you are learning to handle new things for the first time, like legal, accounting, etc. But don’t let that become your new routine. Your goal is to be happy along the way, not busy 24/7, and sleeping only 2 hours per night. All blades get dull if you don’t sharpen them often enough.

Take it easy and put a smile on your face

If you want another tip to stay in good mental shape: just take it easy and laugh! I once showed up dressing in a full-body pink elephant costume to one of my partners’ offices. That was a good day! I pretty much always try to laugh with whoever is around when there’s a chance. And if the chances are not given, I’ll still give it a try. I don’t care if it’s an internal meeting or an important client call. You are dealing with people, you are touching their lives, and laughing is the simplest way to remind ourselves that we are, after all, just trying to stay happy and have a lovely week, month, decade. Your clients’ problems might be challenging, the negotiation might be tough, and the day might have been long. Don’t take business too seriously. You are going to perform even better with a smile on your face.

Make your own decisions, your own mistakes, and enjoy the fact that you can make both

If you’re thinking of starting your own adventure, I’d suggest you question all of the advice you will receive, including this very interview. Some will tell you to have a cast iron business plan; others preach you need to work 24/7. Some might tell you not to start alone, and some others the exact opposite. Question the prevalent business mantras and all advice received, to some extent. It can be tiring, but it will force you to understand and accept who you are, what your business is, who your buyer might be, and how to take it forward based on the three previous questions. There are tons of smart people out there, sharing insights and advice. You are the one at the wheel. Make your own decisions, your own mistakes, and enjoy the fact that you can make both!

There is a fine line between flexibility and instability

I don’t believe in motivation. It’s amazing the days you have it but life, business, needs to revolve around discipline. If you put your mind and your heart into a project, you will need to work for it, be persistent and keep moving forward even when, especially, you are not motivated at all. This is crucial because entrepreneurs translate their very own visions and dream into an actual company, a business. The first steps are always fascinating. The first steps are always exciting. Everything is new, and there is so much potential ahead… It’s all fun! Then you realize the market is different from what you expected, pricing is a problem, the value proposition is unclear, or whatever big or small hurdles start blocking your way. The motivation might plummet. But you cannot slow down. You have to be disciplined enough to sit in front of your computer, meet people, or do whatever it is that needs to be done. 

Also, beware of contradictions and be ready to face them. We all have contradictions in our life. They can be in our way of thinking or our way of working, living, acting. Some are subtle, and some might be obvious. Some are due to a bad day, others due to a change in life. Here is one from this same interview: I am talking about freedom and resting, but rarely take long holidays. However, I can guarantee you that I feel completely free and relaxed. Go figure! Contradictions happen because they allow us to grow, learn, and change our minds. So, whether launching your business, talking to clients, moving forward, remember we are all people, and, at a micro-level, sometimes unpredictable and variable. Cut the others and yourself some slack when there is a change of direction. Sometimes it might feel like there is a fine line between flexibility and instability. Learn to walk that line. 

Listening and learning is an introspective journey

As Sjoerd said during his interview, be yourself. Being yourself does not mean not to evolve. You will grow as you move forward, and some people change more than others. But don’t play a role when you are out there. Don’t put up a façade. You’re only going to live once (as far as I know!), so you might as well be true to your essence, even if it changes over time.

Huong also had a fundamental piece of advice: listen and learn. There is no personal and professional development without that. Remember that listening and learning does not only apply to what other people have to say. It’s also an introspection journey. In my case, every six months, I take one night to review what I did in the past 6 months (in early July) and 12 months (around New Years’). Based on that, I update my road map, as tentative or definitive as it might have been for that given period, and figure out what mistakes I made and the possible milestones I hit. In this instance, learning is not only by contact with others, which is critical but also to take the time to learn about yourself and your path.

Final words? When all is said, and the rest is to be done: get out of your comfort zone. Be scared. Face those fears. Improve. And pretty, please with a cherry on top: pick up the f*cking phone. Trust me: it won’t be incompatible with you being happy or having fun along the way. Quite the opposite!

The post “You should feel excited when dialing a new number, butterflies in your belly, imagining the potential of meeting someone who can turn out to be a great client. It’s not a chore: it’s an adventure!” – Stefan Carrizo, Co-founder of ROND appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I grew up in a small town thinking big

I grew up in Jääli, near Oulu in northern Finland. I have a sister, who’s two years older than me. Jääli was a pretty close-knit community and a very safe environment to grow up in, and we knew nearly everyone who went to school with us at least by name. Some of my best friends today are people I started the 1^st grade with.

I was a very inquisitive child, always interested in something new. I especially loved travelling and learning about different cultures.

I grew up thinking anything’s possible, and I think that’s extremely important. I’m quite sure had I wanted to become an astronaut, my parents wouldn’t have tried to convince me otherwise. If kids are taught to not pursue their dreams, they’ll never know what they’re capable of. Anyone can do a lot if they’re not limited by thinking they can’t.  

Wanting to avoid working 9 to 5 led me to work 24/7

I don’t remember having a dream job when I was a kid, but I do remember wanting to have a job that came with “enough” free time. Later, during my corporate career, I learnt that it wasn’t easy for me to stop working when I was off the clock. I kept thinking about work in my free time, trying to plan or solve something that didn’t solve itself during working hours. I took my job seriously, in hindsight maybe a bit too seriously, always wanting to do my best and really make a difference.

I became an entrepreneur as the result of many things, and I think it’s fair to say that how everything unfolded left me a little cynical about corporate life and eager to try and do something on my own.

Working as an entrepreneur often means sacrificing your free time, and this was certainly true for me. I’ve worked through Easter, Midsummer, Christmas and New Year’s Eve – having late-night meetings, travelling or producing different deliverables, and I don’t remember even once thinking it was objectionable.

The meetings were interesting, the travelling was for a reason, and the deliverables were steps along the way to a specific goal. Now that the nature of my work has changed and meeting deadlines can be better planned, I don’t have to permanently be on call and can even take time off when needed. Last year, we had our first summer holiday as a family in seven years. Work was still on the agenda, but it didn’t take centre-stage.

I thought you needed a ‘big idea’ to become an entrepreneur

After graduating from University with my 1st degree, I started working for Nokia. My job revolved around the UI texts used in different mobile phone models, in all the different languages that Nokia supported. In just a few years, Nokia went from publishing a few phone models per year to 50 per year, and the number of supported languages grew to nearly 100.

During the 12+ years I ended up working there, I often contemplated doing something else instead, but never came up with the kind of ‘big idea’ I thought I needed to branch out.

After my partner and I welcomed our first child, I wanted to devote my time to doing something that I felt passionate about, which didn’t include my old job.

The decision to become an entrepreneur preceded the decision of what to do.

In front of us an open road

When my maternity leave ended, a new organisational reshuffle was in the works. I chose to not apply for a position in the new organisation and took the available exit package instead.

Less than two years later, in the aftermath of the Nokia mobile phone business sale to Microsoft, Microsoft announced mass layoffs with most positions affected hailing from the division I used to work in.

Me leaving Nokia ended up coinciding with my partner’s exit from a start-up, and so there we were: proud first-time parents looking for a business idea.

Difficult with a chance of success

Being an entrepreneur is – at the risk of sounding simplistic – difficult. Even those who seemingly quickly achieve financial profitability have had to work for quite some time to get there. Overnight success is an oxymoron – succeeding in anything requires planning, preparation and execution.

Having grown up with an entrepreneur parent, I knew entrepreneurship wouldn’t be easy, but it could be rewarding.

Market research is more important than innovation

I believe that if you don’t do research, you can’t innovate. I also think that innovation is often defined too narrowly. It’s still an innovation if you substitute something, like fake fur for fur, or combine things, like a trolley with a suitcase, or adapt something, like a bra for nursing, or modify something, like an espresso maker with a more sleek design, put something to a new use, like memory foam for a dog bed.

What helped us get started was doing proper market research. We visited different international trade shows ourselves, asking a lot of very direct questions and receiving incredibly open,  revealing and informative answers. We learned about the market, competitors, solutions and trends. With our newly acquired knowledge, we were able to make more informed plans and seek specific help from people who had done it before.

What also helped on a very practical level was the available public funding. Before we started, we secured funding for the first 12-18 months, which was essential to be able to start. Initial funding, as we later understood, isn’t intended to cover the whole product development process, but to enable piloting the product/service concept among the intended target customers. This is the sensible way of doing r&d, although it doesn’t – of course – guarantee commercial success. Nothing does, but you can do a lot to mitigate risks.  

I’ve since specialised in different funding mechanisms, acted as an expert evaluator in the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 scheme, and offered services in Business Finland’s Expert Search portal aiming to help Finnish SMEs launch or expand in international markets.

Qualified and certified

Because funding was so important going forward, I wanted to really understand the evaluation process and characteristics of a ‘good’ funding application, and that’s why I sought to become an expert evaluator in the Horizon programme. I’ve since successfully applied what I’ve learned to secure funding both for my own endeavours as well as tens of other companies.

It’s kind of a side point, but I’ve since sought to become certified in different things I was already qualified in and had working experience from. Becoming certified in different things has helped me expand my knowledge, hone my skills and build credibility.

I have specialist qualifications in foreign trade and corporate management and I’m a digital sales and marketing specialist and a copywriter. I’m currently participating in a certified board member/chairman of the board program, and it’s proven to be a real eye-opener. So much that can be done to facilitate smart goal-setting, progress-monitoring and decision-making.

There are studies that show that what motivates people the most in the long term is not the money but the challenge and the opportunity to keep learning, and I certainly subscribe to this belief. There’s a lot of uncertainty that goes with what I do, but for me, the learning opportunities and the freedom to choose outweigh the disadvantages.

You only fail if you stop trying

I don’t think I’ve ever really had a role model as such, but I do respect entrepreneurs who’ve succeeded, especially when the odds are stacked against them. To me, success doesn’t just mean making a profit but accomplishing set goals and doing your part in bringing about some kind of a change for the better. If you fail to do something you set out to do, it’s not a total loss unless you stop trying. 

I’ve been lucky enough to receive support for my endeavours, most importantly from my life partner with whom we also became business partners, but also from my family and friends.

My father, who’s now officially retired but who seems always to have a couple of projects he’s working on with additional ones being thought about has also been a valuable sounding board for ideas and decisions. I’ve learned that many businesses actually have the same problems in common and that a software company can learn a lot from a construction company, and vice versa.

Having your spouse as a business partner

I started my journey with my partner, and although there are many positives to working together with your spouse, it doesn’t always work out.

Working together means you spend a lot of time together. In our case, we were together quite literally 24/7. It helps if you’re good friends to start with, and it’s necessary that you’re on the same page about what you’re doing.

I think we’ve both developed a greater respect and admiration for each other seeing new work skills and talents being put to use. We’ve also seen each other learn and grow as a professional.

We’ve developed ideas, we’ve made plans, we’ve shared the workload, we’ve travelled around the world, and we’ve experienced many achievements together. At the best of times, working together has been exciting and fun, and it’s brought us even closer together.

Overworked, overtired and overwhelmed

At the worst of times, we’ve been overworked, overtired and overwhelmed, we’ve taken on too much without enough resources, we’ve not agreed on a direction to take, we’ve taken a lot of risks and we’ve had to face mistakes, failures and losses. And we’ve done all this while raising three small children.

We’ve learned to plan meticulously, delegate effectively, execute efficiently and communicate constantly. We’ve gotten through some difficult times, and are now more equipped at effectively working together. 

What was in my mind when I started was a heartfelt desire to create something that would help other parents, based on our own experiences as parents. 

‘One size fits all’ parental advice is at best useless, and at worst harmful

We had experienced first-hand how baby care experience results in baby care confidence, and that by tracking our child’s daily routines, we were able to stay on top of everything that was going on as well as anticipate what’s next. Later, when our family grew with twins, we realised that because every child is different (and because even twins are different), ‘one size fits all’ advice is at best useless, and at worst harmful. 

Because information is only useful if it’s available at the right time and if it meets the parents’ present needs, we set out to monitor babies’ day to day activity, long term development, growth, safety and wellbeing, and provide parents with the right information at the right time. 

Upcoming development plans included adding intelligence to the system

In the end, we created a remote access video monitor system paired with services designed to enable parents to see and hear their child anytime, anywhere, with any connected device and stay on top of what’s going on, both on a daily basis and in terms of the child’s long-term growth and development. 

The system was designed to also enable securely sharing select information with different user groups, for example making it possible for parents to allow the grandparents to have a peek or for healthcare professionals to review feeding data. Upcoming development plans included adding intelligence to the system to enable giving targeted, development-stage specific advice and product recommendations that could support the child meeting their next developmental milestone.

Why most products fail

Product development is a process of taking an original product idea from concept to market, spanning the stages of ideation, research, planning, design, development, testing, manufacturing, marketing and launching, and each stage comes with their own challenges.

We’ve faced many obstacles on our journey, which to a degree are part and parcel of doing

R&D. An estimated 80% of new products fail*, and the biggest reason for failure is lack of preparation (*). Not preparation in terms of designing, developing and manufacturing the work, but preparation in terms of properly assessed market opportunity. 

In our case, the market opportunity was and still is clear and present, but we took on too much. Strategically, we could have accomplished more by committing to less.

Trust your instincts

Some issues could have been avoided by better planning and trusting our instincts, but some were the result of unexpected, unforeseen, unusual and even unlucky events.

Now in hindsight, it’s possibly tackling the obstacles that have taught us the most. I’d like to think the saying ‘smooth seas do not make skilful sailors’ is descriptive of our journey as well.

Our first domestic customer was a Finnish insurance company, our first international customer was a UK distributor, our first ‘big’ deal was with a Benelux distributor, and our first non-European endeavour was a joint venture in Hong Kong. Our first awards were international design awards and I’m most proud of having received the European Commission’s and high-quality project proposal award – twice. We accomplished a lot, although the project ran out of funding and we had to put everything on hold and think about how to go forward.

Feedback from the end customers is what really matters, the rest is window-dressing  

To me, what’s been especially rewarding is the feedback we’ve received from parents and to-be-parents, grandparents and childcare and healthcare professionals.

Although it’s been nice to have received different kinds of seals of approval based on business potential or technology merit from various respected authorities or global brands, superficial rewards can also distract the ego.

For us, a start-up, winning various awards enabled exploring new business opportunities, but they also helped with marketing. Because the life of a start-up is often such a struggle, it’s important to celebrate the small victories, but dangerous to start chasing them.

Losing faith when facing delays

On the hardship side, it’s been frustrating how some people have failed to see the potential or lost faith when there have been costly delays. It’s also been difficult on a personal level when things haven’t gone as planned, and if you don’t believe in what you’re doing anymore, it’s a tall order to expect others to.  

The available public funding in Finland is focused on the research and development stage, and sales and marketing support is limited. This means that if you manage to complete the R&D phase, which nearly half of IT projects do – late, over budget, and only partially meeting their goals – you still have a whole other mountain to climb to market and sell what you’ve got. It’s like you get to the mountain top and chill the champagne to celebrate your success, only to see the summit on the next mountain over.

Learn from the mistakes of others – you don’t have enough time to make them all yourself

If a company fails with plan A, it’s difficult to qualify for further funding to pursue plan B. If further funding can’t be secured, the company is at risk of losing everything that’s been achieved, including all the knowledge and experience gained.

According to a 2017 Finnish study, 50% of companies seize operations within five years of having been founded. There’s a lot that could be learned from these attempts that could help others fare better. 

Mechanisms could also be put in place to ensure that when companies do get funding, they know how to get the most out of it.

It’s not just once or twice that I’ve heard that companies have splurged out on business class travel just because they’ve gotten a grant. 

Better tax incentives would help many companies 

There are no tax breaks to companies employing people and instead, there’s significant, mandatory costs associated with doing so. Also lacking are better tax incentives for anyone investing in companies. 

With many EU countries offering alternative national funding for pre-vetted, European Commission’s expert-evaluated projects, I think there could be many benefits to Finland offering something similar, especially because Finland is in the top ten of countries according to expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP, and the majority of projects fail at least partially. 

Don’t confuse a product with a business

There are many lessons I’ve learned, and among the most central ones is that no one knows what will succeed or not. There are too many variables at play, and in the end, it’s the customers who decide. With that said, if the problem is rooted in marketing fails, you can try again. In fact, it’s often needed to try and launch multiple times. 

I’ve also learned that you shouldn’t confuse a product with a business and that you should always be willing to partner with others. 

Becoming a freelancing entrepreneur can be an easier start

With so many investors requiring a company to hold patents even if they can be circumvented and defending them isn’t feasible or even possible, I wasn’t completely wrong when I thought you needed a ‘big idea’ to become an entrepreneur. I’ve since learned that there’s more than a type of an entrepreneur. 

Becoming a freelancing entrepreneur might have been an easier start, but if that’s not how you started, you can always scale back and pivot. Options definitely become more evident over time, and as the result of trying something and learning from it. 

A vehicle for constant professional growth

My favourite aspect of being an entrepreneur is three-fold: it’s a vehicle for constant professional growth, it provides unique opportunities and life experiences, and it enables making an impact on people’s lives.

On the other side of the scale are the endless lists of things to do, the limited hours in a day, having to have at least a working knowledge of various things affecting your business, having to persevere when it’s tough, having to constantly worry about potential problems, and having to deal with also unpleasant things.

Passion over profit

I think that if what you’re doing doesn’t give you a sense of satisfaction and if you’re motivated by the prospect of making money or earning a higher status, you’ll sooner or later find that it’s not for you.

Being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone. People are different. It’s not good or bad to be one, but it is important to recognise if it’s for you. If it is, keep going, if it isn’t, try something else. I can’t imagine working for someone else at this point but I’ve been around the block enough times to know to say “never say never”.

My work-life balance is much better now than it was a year or two ago, and I’d say that today, being an entrepreneur affects my personal life positively. I get to spend a lot of time with my family and arrange free time flexibly.

My passion is to make products or services that help people, and consulting is a way to enable that. It took me years to learn that.

Emphaty for the people      

I’m more empathetic to people’s problems, and I’ve learnt to compromise and take other people’s perspectives into account. 

Also, my kids remember us having to travel quite a bit for work at some point as a positive thing –  they remember the happy reunions and not the tears when leaving. As a result, I don’t take anything for granted, and I know what counts the most. I think it’ll be valuable to teach them the importance of doing what they love, and knowing that as much as successes shouldn’t go to their heads, failures shouldn’t go to their hearts.

Trust but verify 

When team members or collaboration partners trust each other, they tend to not monitor on-going activities as meticulously as they would if the trust was lacking. As a result, if there’s ‘too much trust’, awareness of each other’s activities may be clouded, which in turn may affect both the performance and the process. If work mode is independent, trust is important, but monitoring is paramount.

The top three skills for a successful entrepreneur in my opinion are strategic thinking, time management and resilience.

Curiosity, efficiency, communication skills and financial understanding are all important, but if you lack strategic thinking, you don’t know how to most effectively use the resources available to you in trying to advance the company toward its objectives.

It’s not the number of times you get knocked down that count but the number of times you get up

Time management is needed to help ensure you prioritise, delegate, stick to a schedule, take breaks and take care of your mental and physical wellbeing. Entrepreneurs are at a higher risk of burnout, which comes with a range of negative, psychological, behavioural and/or social consequences. Early detection and mitigating measures are extremely important to keep it from becoming chronic.

You need to be resilient so that the inevitable obstacles, challenges, problems, trials and tribulations you’ll undoubtedly face don’t keep you down. It’s not the number of times you get knocked down that count but the number of times you get up.

Assess what happened, learn from it, and take advantage of a new perspective. See, think, do, adjust and repeat. 

Featured photo by Tanja Lipponen

The post “See, think, do, adjust and repeat.”, Satu Niemelä – Co-Founder of SEP Solutions and PH² Group appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

My parents have never stressed me over the pursuit of perfection

I grew up in Helsinki, Finland, with my younger sister – Satu Apukka, one of the most incredible supporters and coworkers of mine at Kide Science. We can now recall the story of how we used to play with each other as kids, how we used to role-play and operate our own company, then started to work side-by-side as colleagues along the journey before reuniting at Kide Science.

I was a mediocre student in “basic” school subjects but always thrived for excellent grades in arts, sports, theatre, music, etc. And I was also able to get stipends for being extremely active and energetic in organizing school events. By being in commercial print and TV ads for companies for my childhood, I could already earn my own money at five years old. I genuinely believe that is the place where I developed my social skills, not being afraid of talking in front of people and improvising in different situations. My parents never stressed me over not being perfect and have always supported me throughout my childhood, which boosted my self-confidence. 

I felt the urge to do something meaningful, especially after being a mother of two

I have always dreamt of starting up a company and being the CEO. But I needed to have something fantastic to work on, not just start a cafe or a shop. 

After gaining business experience in sales and marketing positions in the Media and ICT fields, I felt the urge to do something more meaningful, especially after being a mother of two. And it was a dream come true when I bumped into Jenni and Aino – our co-founders at Kide Science, who were looking for a third founder. 

Dreams do come true 

In 2013, Dr. Jenni Vartiainen began her research into science education for children from 3-6 years old at the University of Helsinki in Finland. The empirical part concentrated on organizing a science club. With the considerable demand and popularity of this new innovative pedagogical model, we founded Kide Science in December 2017.

At Kide Science, we have always tried our best to find the most effective and scalable business model and solution to help spread science education for children from a young age, towards educators and parents. Firstly, our method started with training teachers face-to-face, and we did not have any other platforms but used pdf files to share as lesson plans. But we still recognized the significant need for our resources. Our first employees at Kide Science were those that were with Jenni and Aino since the research stage.  We did not pay any salary to ourselves during the first year. However, we did our utmost to find business opportunities within a small team. When we got our early investor, Reaktor, we received lots of support and advice from hundreds of their professionals, which has been one reason for our success today.

Just launch it into the market even if it is not “perfect” yet

After two and a half years, I am pleased to have had a minimum valuable product to sell abroad, not spending a lot of money and time to develop our online platform or something else. We did take the right steps. We believe in the thought of never feeling embarrassed about our product, just launch it into the market even if it is not “perfect” yet. Later, you will be able to modify the final product with real users and customer feedback.

You don’t need to know everything yourself, just who to ask

For me, the most satisfying moments knowing that our product gives meaningful moments to young kids and their love towards our character robot Hoseli, for example. Something more astonishing is that despite not having education sector experience, I can still see how we have also built the business around our pedagogical innovation. 

Usually, people ask how you created everything you have made. The best answer is to have a diverse team of people who know the field you’re building your company in, and expertise in other areas like business. The fact is that you do not need to know everything yourself as long as you have the network, and you know whom to ask! One of the most exciting learning experiences for me has also been hearing other entrepreneurial journeys and how they faced so many obstacles, even in their start. Usually, the solution to everything is never to copy it; you need to try out yourself to see how things work best for your company and team. 

I love the mindset of failing fast and learning fast at the same time

I am not from an entrepreneurial family, but they were very supportive. Even in 2017, I also felt that being a startup founder is something people actually support, which I did not feel ten years ago when talking about my future ideas towards entrepreneurship. At that time, I thought I should work for big companies, and there I would learn the most. But, after two and a half years, I have learned more with Kide Science than I would have in my whole life. 

I am always incredibly excited to interview new teammates and to hear they all want to work for us for the same reason: to learn and develop faster, see the changes they make and create meaningful things for the society. I also love making quick decisions, taking risks, and ensuring that we can adjust even if the decision is wrong for some reason.  I love the mindset of failing fast and learning fast at the same time.

There is a risk that when you love what you do, you do it too much

As the mother of two little kids under school age, I do struggle if I am spending enough time with my kids. Being a founder and a CEO truly takes up lots of your time, but I have been lucky to have my kids with me. Instead of working continuously and not having enough breaks, I go home in the evening and spend valuable time with my kids. I have to stop working during the evenings and be with my kids. I also try to balance and have my “own” time to relax and get my head out of work. That’s why I started abstract painting. 

Choose your battles & celebrate even the smallest victories with your team

People said to me that my superpower is optimism, and I believe that has helped me a lot. As an entrepreneur, you need to trust your company and its future, even when facing many obstacles. I think that entrepreneurs should have the ability to take risks, fail, and be okay with an unpredictable future.

Also, always remember to celebrate small victories with your team, choose your battles, and concentrate on what matters the most to you at the time. On top of that, remember to recruit smarter people for your team, so you can give them the full responsibility of doing their job thoroughly.

The post “Never feel embarrassed about your product. Just launch it!”, Sari Hurme-Mehtälä – CEO & Co-founder at Kide Science appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

The more I read about marketing, the more I wanted to work in marketing.

I grew up in a small beach city in Vietnam named Vung Tau City. It is a small quiet city, but it is not dull. When I say it is small, it is small compared to other big cities like Saigon or Bangkok, not Helsinki.

I don’t remember much about how I was as a child. Most of my childhood memories are filled with days of studying – studying in schools, cramming classes, and studying at home: the typical Asian kid’s childhood. My parents were very strict. Besides studying, I spent a lot of my free time reading and daydreaming. I was an introvert growing up, and I still am. 

As a child, one usually has a lot of dream jobs, right? Me, I dreamt of working in a bookstore because I thought I would be able to read a lot of comics and books during my working time. Then I wanted to be a scriptwriter, a novelist, etc. At the end of junior high school, I came across a magazine about success stories in Marketing. By the end of junior high school, I decided I wanted to work in marketing and advertising. The more I read about marketing, the more I wanted to work in marketing. 

My parents had always taught me about job security, and that entrepreneurship was a high-risk game

I never thought about becoming an entrepreneur until the moment I registered the company. My parents had always taught me about job security, and that entrepreneurship was a high-risk game. Funnily enough, my grandpa was a very successful entrepreneur. However, he passed away years before I was born, so I never got a chance to ask him about his entrepreneurial experiences. 

From the stories that my father and my grandma told me, his entrepreneurial journey sounded inspiring but with a sad ending. He came to Thailand as a poor immigrant job apprentice. He worked very hard and used all his savings to build his own business. It took him a lot of time, life savings, and effort to build his successful corporation in Thailand and Vietnam. 

My father’s family never talked about the details of what happened in their business tragedy

But then he lost everything because of the war and political land reform policy in Vietnam during the 1950s. After that significant loss, my grandpa was depressed until the day he passed away. My father’s family never talked about the details of what happened in their tragedy. 

Given such past experiences, my family has mixed feelings about entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, I read stories about other self-made entrepreneurs, and I was so amazed by the impact that they have had on society. Therefore, to me, the link to entrepreneurship is a mix: inspiring, unrealistic, exciting, scary, and sad.

The food businesses in Japan were operated in a creative, efficient, detail-oriented, and innovative way

Years ago, I applied to the Master Program of Entrepreneurship at Aalto after my bachelor exchange program in Japan. To be honest, I didn’t think a lot about my Master’s program at the time.

When I went to Japan for this exchange program, I really liked the country. During my time there, I was fascinated by the way food businesses in Japan were operated: creative, efficient, detail-oriented, and innovative. I also enjoyed observing the operation of restaurants and other types of food businesses there. At some point, I thought, ‘oh my, one day, I want to recreate this model in either Finland or Vietnam,’ or ‘I wish I can try this idea in Finland.’  

I wanted to learn the problem-solving trait of entrepreneurs

Coming back to Finland after this exchange, I thought about the next step after my Bachelor’s Degree in International Business at Aalto University. I applied to a few Master programs in Helsinki and Copenhagen. When I saw that Aalto had a relatively new Master’s program in Entrepreneurship, my memories of Japan came flooding back. Therefore, I applied to the program out of curiosity. That’s how I went on to study Entrepreneurship. 

While I was studying Entrepreneurship, I still thought that the program helped me to work better in companies or fast-growth startups. I wanted to learn the problem-solving trait of entrepreneurs.  

I shifted from working in traditional marketing to digital marketing for software startups in 2013. I always like to see how ideas can help us improve or solve problems, and on top of that, I am interested in the progress of executing a new idea and see how it works. Working in software startups has made me realize that I really like the spirit of startups:  if you have new ideas, then just do it. Fall, rinse, repeat. 

Restaurant workers are the artists in the most hidden stage

Around 2016, I started doing more freelance work and side projects to expand my marketing skills and industry knowledge. As I was very passionate about food, I chose to get more involved in food-related projects like Footbridge (an Australian food marketplace startup), a meat substitute food project for Fazer, local restaurants, etc. 

As a foodie, I felt joy when working on marketing materials for food. And I had so much fun talking to people in the restaurant industry. They are dedicated, outspoken, down-to-earth, and interesting people. I never get bored talking to them about food. They are the artists in the most hidden stage. 

If the idea sucks, I want to see how it works in real life, not just in my mind

The more I worked with the restaurants, the more pain points I recognized that restaurants had to face. It was sad to see many dedicated chefs/restaurant owners having to close their restaurants not because of the food they cooked, but because of marketing challenges. I realized the lack of existing  technology tailored to restaurants that can help many restaurant businesses grow. Although there are many food apps, the restaurant industry is still considered underdeveloped in terms of digitalization according to Harvard Business Review. And my wish was to create a game changer tool for restauranteurs to run their own marketing.

Day by day, the idea for our product, Snappmeal, was incubated in my mind and my notebook. Until a day, I wanted to see the vision come out of the notebook. I thought, “if the idea sucks, I want to see how it works in real life, not just in my mind.”

My residence permit at that time was tied to work employment

I knew being an entrepreneur was risky and challenging for a non-EU immigrant in Finland regarding residence permit and finance. My residence permit at that time was tied to work employment. I received headhunting calls from companies both within and outside of Finland, and I was optimistic that job-seeking seemed to be less of a struggle. 

I was also saving to settle down in Finland. Therefore, it took me quite a while to sleep on the decision. One day, while sitting in the sauna, I finally decided to pursue the idea of leaving my current job and exploring my entrepreneurial path. That’s how I decided to quit my job and worked on founding the company. 

It would be nice to have enough money and fund my idea faster

Thinking back, I think I was still a bit naive then. It would probably have been better if I had started the startup idea as my side project first to ensure I had enough money to fund my idea faster. Either ‘all in’ is pretty much my trait, or I am the person who prefers to let life teach me.

Speaking of support, I received both encouragement and concerns from the people closest to me. My cousin in Vietnam was very supportive. On the other hand, my family did not know about my entrepreneurial journey from the beginning, as I didn’t want to worry them. 

Living with an entrepreneur is not easy, to be honest — financially, emotionally, and mentally

Remember what I had said earlier about my childhood, right? However, when they knew about it, they were supportive but were still very worried about me. “How can a small girl survive in a foreign land chasing big dreams?” said my dad. 

I told him, “You always want me to go back to Vietnam. So, the worst scenario is that I fail, go bankrupt, and go back to Vietnam to live with you. Is that a happy ending? Haha.” My friends and my boyfriend’s family were also supportive. Among all, my boyfriend Joona was the most supportive and understanding. Living with an entrepreneur is not easy, to be honest–financially, emotionally, and mentally. Yet, boom! He got the ‘jackpot’ that no one wishes for!

I started alone

First, I started alone, and my goals at that time were building a team and bootstrapping my product idea. The first person to work with me was my cousin in Vietnam. She was like my partner-in-crime. We worked together on a lot of different things. 

In the beginning, I understood that my personal savings were too little for me to build a team, develop the product, and grow users. So, under the name of Aurabear, I started with the marketing service first, as I would be able to utilize my professional experience while finding my tech co-founder and building a founding team. 

I found my co-founder after pitching many times

I also hoped that the payment from marketing projects could help us self-fund building the platform for Snappmeal. When I was building the marketing service branch for Aurabear, I went out to seek a tech co-founder. 

After pitching to several of my connections and several networking events, I was happy to find a tech co-founder.  He was actually the husband of my teammate. Helsinki is small. He is a superb software engineer with a business mindset. This made our discussion flow even more smoothly.

I also got chances to know more about myself thanks to silly mistakes

For the marketing service branch of Aurabear, we focused on helping early-stage startups with high-quality execution and affordable budgets. That’s how we shaped the mission for Aurabear. At Aurabear, we want to build meaningful products (our first product was Snappmeal) and help other startups grow faster via marketing services.

As a first-time founder, I could have done a number of things better to go faster and further. I consider the mistakes as lessons and experiences for me. I also got chances to know more about myself thanks to silly mistakes. 

Acknowledging the difficulties of being an underrepresented female founder has led me to research more on possible hindrances and find more ways to improve my chances

For entrepreneurs, especially foreign entrepreneurs, there were tons of obstacles in setting up the company, identifying the business model, and especially acquiring the first customers. In the beginning, I didn’t want to see myself as an underrepresented female founder, as some had pointed out. 

But later, I acknowledged that point about myself. The reason is that as I acknowledged that, I came to research more on possible hindrances for underrepresented female founders. From there, I could find more ways to improve my chances. 

Another obstacle: I am an introvert

Another obstacle had more to do with me: I am an introvert. I don’t have many friends in Vietnam or Finland. If one has good connections and a big network, utilizing one’s connection is a good head start. For me, however, my network in Finland was so small. The language barrier was also a challenge for me when I tried to find clients for our marketing service and our restaurant platform, Snappmeal. 

There are other obstacles, such as understanding the laws in a foreign country, communicating with my team, wearing many hats, etc. On top of that, testing my product and finding product-market fit with a young team without funds is the biggest challenge, as I am not an experienced manager. I have told my team many times: Bear with me, I am learning to keep us from being like kids running the house.

I just jumped in the Facebook post and pitched

About the first deal – our first-ever deal – the client was a consulting company in the U.S.A. Interestingly, I got the deal from a Facebook group named Bossmoms that I joined. I joined the group though I was not a mom… The truth was I called myself “da boss.” I saw a post of a company seeking for email marketing service on that group. I had nothing built up yet, but I just jumped in and pitched. 

Our company had nothing to show back then: the company registration was still not yet approved. Therefore, I decided to ‘fake it till you make it’ by using my freelance work portfolio and putting my company logo there. 

I remember all the first times

It was not fake, as it was just me all along. But still, it felt different to pitch as a freelancer versus as a team. It was my first time doing a sales job as an agency owner, and it was an interesting and exciting experience. 

In general, I remember all the first times: the first time we made the first deal for Aurabear marketing service, the first time we released our Snappmeal app to app stores, and the first time we saw the first restaurant business user and the first app user, etc. All these were exciting and happy memories for our team. For us, the daily ‘spark joy’ moment is seeing a new user or just a small spike in user activity. 

We rolled out user interviews every two months and polls every week

It has been a year and a half now. Our team has been working very hard and hit several milestones. We have been providing marketing services for several long-term partners, helping them solve their marketing problems. Seeing our clients achieve their goals and tremendous results are the most satisfying moments for us. Every single project!

Within two months, we built and released our Snappmeal MVP in the business app (web app), and consumer app in Android and iOS. We built fast and improved fast. Our tech team is still young but talented, fast, and agile. We rolled out user interviews every two months and weekly polls on the app to collect what users like to see in our app. 

For both our product team and marketing team, building a customer-centric platform is our ultimate goal. During the first months we released a beta version, we had the opportunity to collaborate with the team in City.fi at global and nation-wide food festivals like Lux Helsinki Eat 2019, Syö! 2019, and 2020. Our team also ran the Asian Restaurant Week to help raise more awareness about Asian restaurants, as it seemed that people showed hesitance to go to Asian restaurants in early 2020.

We help restaurants game up their marketing

Our team is a foodie team, so we want to build the Snappmeal app to be a fun and engaging platform that brings values for the foodie community in Finland and worldwide. We want to develop the business app as the smart, easy-to-use, effective tool for restaurants to game up their restaurant marketing. So they can increase sales without exceeding their marketing budgets. 

Depression among entrepreneurs is real

The mission and passion for food is the driving force behind our work and persistence. Running a marketplace platform on a small budget is tough for the founding team. You need to build products for two sides—supplies and demands and grow users fast on both sides. 

In order to survive in an expensive country like Finland, our team had to work several jobs to survive. Some of us got burnt out (including me). I felt sad and kept guilting myself for letting it happen to other people in the team. I fell into depression. I had always been a happy person, but then I realized that the depression among entrepreneurs—which I studied in my Master’s program—is actually real.

Stay focused!

Speaking of lessons, I have experienced difficulties in dealing with paperwork and accounting, at which I am very bad. It is very important to find a good accountant to start with. I learned it the hard way. 

The second lesson for me is that I spread myself and my team too thin. We did client projects, marketing for Aurabear as an agency, and built and grew Snappmeal. This was too much for a small team. Knowing how to stay focused is what I am learning.

Crisis and risk management are essential

Crisis management is the next lesson. Our Snappmeal beta version had just been launched in December last year, and when we were ready to grow, restaurants had to close because of the pandemic. We tried to support restaurants by letting them use the app for free from March till the end of June. 

Besides, we optimized our platform for take-aways. However, this also meant that we had to accept receiving no income from Snappmeal for months. For a bootstrapping project, suddenly, we fell into the situation of having no financial support. Crisis management and risk management were the lessons I encountered and am still doing my best to learn. 

I like the process of building new things from scratch

Nature or nurture? I think I am learning to become an entrepreneur, not a born entrepreneur. And I am still an apprentice entrepreneur. What I like about entrepreneurship is the freedom to test new ideas and build my dream team. 

I like the process of building new things from scratch, and entrepreneurship has created opportunities for me to pursue that passion. Being an entrepreneur has also pushed me to situations that help me recognize my strengths and shortcomings. I was not pushed into those situations when I worked in stable jobs. 

Being an immigrant and entrepreneur in Finland is pretty tough

There are many things I don’t like about entrepreneurship, of course. I don’t know about other entrepreneurs’ situations in Finland, but for me, being an immigrant and entrepreneur in Finland is pretty tough. 

High living costs in Finland and little income has made my personal life more difficult to get by. Besides, being an entrepreneur, one needs to be good at networking and sales, which are challenging for introverted entrepreneurs like me. I am still learning to get out of my comfort zone and improve my networking skills. 

Know how to persuade people to believe in your ideas and your team

My answers change from time to time, based on the experiences I have had. Right now, I would say the top three skills I want to improve to be a better entrepreneur are: sales, team management, and crisis management. Having sales skills here means knowing how to persuade people to believe in your ideas and your team. 

It is knowing how to sell your ideas and visions to the team, customers, and interested partners. I used to ignore the importance of sales skills as I thought, ‘oh, let the salespeople do their sales jobs,’ which was a big mistake. For entrepreneurs, sales skill is essential. You don’t have a big budget to hire senior sales during the first days; you have to get out there and sell your services/products HARD. 

For start-ups that build products, the founders need to build their A-team

For start-ups that build products, the founders need to build their A-team. A mediocre idea plus an awesome team will create an awesome business. And an awesome idea will be destroyed by a bad team. I want to be better at communicating with my team, motivating them, and helping them develop their skills. 

For early-stage startups, you will be hit hard by many factors: little financial support, the struggle of finding product-market fit, and many other things that can happen – like the coronavirus pandemic. To survive and grow, the team needs to be resilient and trusting of each other. 

The third skill I want to improve this year is crisis management. The pandemic has affected our company’s business severely. It is a wake-up call for me to see the importance of crisis management. I didn’t prepare for the crisis at all. Startups and entrepreneurs are very optimistic; we always think about the positive moments to keep us going. Meanwhile, we forget to think about the worst scenarios to have back-up plans. 

The post “If the idea sucks, I want to see how it works in real life, not just in my mind”, Lynn Cu – Founder at Aurabear appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Playing in different teams has really influenced me

I grew up in Tampere with my parents and my two siblings. We lived in a cosy neighbourhood in Hyhky, and I had a lot of friends since a lot of families with kids lived there at that time. My dad and mom both were (and still are) engineers. I have lived in Tampere my whole life, 31 years in total.

As a child, I was quite energetic and social, so I played a lot of sports. Mainly football, ice hockey and floorball. As a teenager floorball became my number one hobby, and eventually I ended up playing in Salibandyliiga for five years. I combined entrepreneurship and floorball for a few years but quit playing pro to focus on my commitments as an entrepreneur. 

I think playing in different kinds of teams my whole life has really influenced me. I get along with everybody; I’m easy going, social and quite diplomatic. I really like to do things together with a bunch of people – I think it would be hard for me to be a solo entrepreneur.

As a kid, my dream was to be a police officer, firefighter or a professional athlete. The last one, in a way, became true and I’m glad for it. As a kid, I didn’t have any entrepreneurs in my family and in my early years, I never thought I’d end up as one. 

Freedom, autonomy and the possibility of success got me hooked

For a few years, I studied housing engineering, like my mum and dad, but I also applied to Police Academy in pursuit of my childhood dream. Both felt like the right fit for me, but I ended up going to Tampere University of applied sciences for business studies. I ended up studying business as I didn’t have any specific plan or field in mind, and it allowed me to keep my option open.

As a first-year business student, I heard somebody mention Proakatemia. Proakatemia is an academy where students learn about entrepreneurship in team enterprises. I heard that in Proakatemia studying would be practical, self-driven, and you could set your own goals and decide what you want to focus on. For a person who has a lot of energy, is social and hates sitting in lectures, it sounded perfect.

While I was studying at Proakatemia, I learned a lot about being an entrepreneur. In Proakatemia, studying happens by starting your own business with your teammates and learning about entrepreneurship by being a one. We did marketing, sales and event projects. Our team read a lot, discussed what we had done, read, seen and learned from it. 

The freedom, planning my own schedules and deciding how and what to use my time for, as well as the possibility of money, got me hooked. After Proakatemia, in January 2015, I started my first business with one of my Proakatemia team members. For a year, we did all kinds of sales and marketing projects as consultants, but we didn’t have any real direction. 

We combined what we had learned with what really excited us 

Then escape rooms started to land in Tampere. With another friend from Proakatemia, we played the first escape room that opened in 2016. We all thought the concept was really cool and an exciting field of business, but we thought we could do it better. The thought stuck in our head “Could this be the field for us?” 

With my Proakatemia teammate, Elias Tattari, we had meetings where we would brainstorm and discuss if our own escape rooms were worth investing in. The more we thought about it, the more we wanted to go for it. We felt like this could be the business where we could combine the things we had learned from Proakatemia and the things that really excited us.

We tested our idea with our families, friends and people from Proakatemia and got great feedback. From our conversations with our friends and family, we also got reassurance that we wouldn’t fall from too high if our plans didn’t succeed.

In April 2016, we signed a lease for our Tampere office and started building our first escape rooms. The first building period took about three months, and in that time, we made our first game. 

Getaway Room Escape Tampere welcomed its first customer on July 22nd, 2016. It was super exciting and terrifying at the same time. It was intriguing to watch our first customers play our first escape game ever. While watching we were super nervous if they wouldn’t like it; was it too hard, was there something wrong with the game?

Of course, we had tested everything multiple times, but we still doubted if we’d got everything right. Gladly everything in the room worked just like it was supposed to and the customers loved the game. Later those first customers became our fans and loyal customers. They have played all our games since and this spring we asked them to be the first ones to play the final version of our newest game. 

We completed our second game in August 2016, and we hired our first employee in October 2016. I’m glad we decided to bring someone on so early as we could focus on finishing everything, and catch up after the intense building period.

Nowadays we have two offices, one in Tampere and one in Hämeenlinna. This spring we launched our first outdoor escape game called Lost Love, which is played in Tampere city centre. We have sold a few of our rooms to another escape game business, and we have designed a few escape games for other companies.

In general, people love our games. Our stories have always had something local in them so, in Tampere, the games are tied into the history of Tampere, and likewise in Hämeenlinna. When we started, we rapidly rose on the top of the list in Tripadvisor’s Fun and Games section. We have been there ever since, and we average a 4.9/5 rating across our social platforms. 

We make it a place where it’s fun to go to work

The most satisfying thing for me in being an entrepreneur is without question the freedom. The freedom of setting my own schedules, deciding what to do and how to do it. Now, after four years, my business partner and I are fortunate enough that we can just focus on developing and building new games and rooms. We have a great team that takes care of the operative side of the business, and we can focus on the things that we are best at. 

The most satisfying moments are the ones when our customers come to us, eyes sparkling, saying “It was so much fun, I want to do another!”, “It was the best escape game I have ever played!” and “Wow, I’ve never seen as cool an escape room as this! How on earth do you come up with these ideas?”.

It’s also great when our employees say working for us is the best, that they love to come to work and that we have a great team. We want to offer our employees a place where it’s always fun to go to work. There are no unnecessary hierarchies, and if there’s something that needs improvement, we’ll discuss it together and make the improvements happen. 

I think most entrepreneurs can relate to the difficulty of stopping working. In a way, I think I’m always working because I see puzzles everywhere. The tiniest detail in how something works can give me ten ideas on how to make it a puzzle. Most times, I still think it’s a great thing because my flow of ideas never stops. 

I love this way of life too much

I think I’ve had the right mindset my whole life, but I only realised in school when I heard about Proakatemia. 

Aside from freedom, my favourite aspect of entrepreneurship is variety. As an escape game entrepreneur, I can be part of it all: planning, building, testing, improving etc. 

The uncertainty of it all sometimes gets to me, especially in this very peculiar spring. In those moments, I can not stop wondering what will happen next month. Will the customers come back? How will we survive if this situation lasts longer or happens again? Now a month after not having the restrictions the situation looks brighter. The customers are coming back. And I really hope we don’t have to see everyone staying at home again. 

Sometimes I do wonder if the grass would be greener working for someone else. I know sometimes it surely would be more secure, but I have never seriously thought about going to work for someone else. I love this way of life and the things I do too much. 

All in all, entrepreneurship has affected my life in so many positive ways. I’m happy I can make my own schedules, even if it’s sometimes hard for me to take time off and have vacations. But as an entrepreneur, no one tells me to have a day off – it always depends on me. My family and friends mean the world to me, and I will always make time for them. 

I met my soon-to-be-wife at Proakatemia, and she is an entrepreneur too. After a few years of doing our own things, and after fortunate coincidences, she now works for Getaway as an entrepreneur. We have very different personalities and skills, and for that, I think we make a perfect combination. Where my business partner and I don’t enjoy the operative side of the business, she has an eye for details; she appreciates routines. She is very good at making sure everything is running smoothly. 

So in all, I would say entrepreneurship has affected my personal life positively. Even though sometimes it’s hard to stop thinking and talking about work at home, many times the best ideas and insights come when you’re just talking casually.

You have to have faith in what you’re doing

For me, I think there are three main things as an entrepreneur. The courage to go for it. Doing something I like to do and that I am good at, and the ability to let other people do the things you’re not good at.

As a person, I’m innovative and the one who’s quickly excited about new things and ideas. I’m good at starting things, taking a risk and taking that first step. I like to try new things and see if they work or not. I think that has been the key element for me in my journey as an entrepreneur. Someday I would like to be an investor and help new entrepreneurs and businesses get started because I think that’s where my best skills are and where I could help others the most. 

While I’m good at starting things, I’m not a big fan of the daily tasks, the routines and the repetitive business operations. That’s why I’m happy that we have found great people in our team and we are in a situation where I can use the majority of my time on the things I love. I’m also happy I’m good at giving other people responsibility and letting them do things their own way because that is the key element in me being the entrepreneur I want to be. That’s why I think one of the top three skills is letting things go, trusting other people and not micromanaging everything.

All in all, I think being an entrepreneur requires faith in your own thing, in yourself and your team members. There will always be ups and downs, but you just have to have faith in what you are doing. 

What I also think is super important is listening to the customers. What do they think about your product or service, your brand and the way you do things? What are they longing for? What would they definitely buy from you? Listen carefully and then make your decisions.

The post “There are no unnecessary hierarchies, we discuss things together and make them happen”, Ossi Ojala – Founder at Getaway Room Escape appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I would never stop talking like a child

I grew up in Southern France, in the oldest city of France – the sunny and vibrant city of Marseille. Marseille is situated in the Côte d’Azur in Provence which to date is still my favourite place in France, especially the beautiful Calanques, where you can get lost in the wilderness, get surrounded by blue lagoon water and huge cliffs.

As a child I was really curious, always the one asking “why” one answer after another in order to get the meaning and origin of pretty much anything from really simple to complex things. During pre-school which we call “L’ecole maternelle” I was called “moulin à paroles” which can be translated literally as speaking mill or chatterbox (because I would never stop talking) to a point where my classmate would put tape on my mouth or the teacher would put me in the corner because I wouldn’t stop talking…

I was not really the typical boy dreaming of becoming a fireman or astronaut

When I was a child, we used to have a riddle night every week with my parents and my sister, where each one of us would take turns in miming a job so that the others would have to guess in order to score points. Almost every week I was miming a pizza maker. 

But the point is I seemed to be really fascinated by this pizza maker, I was not really the typical boy dreaming of becoming a fireman or astronaut, I never really fancied that myself. I was interested in remote-controlled cars a lot and destroyed quite many of them in my parents’ yard (sorry mom and dad). 

My parents have been the biggest influence on me

My parents used to be entrepreneurs themselves, they had their own small and local supermarket in Marseille city center, but they ran into some issues and eventually went bankrupt and closed down their shop before I was even born. 

My parents have been the biggest influence on me as a child, they were always pushing me to go all the way for something once I got it started, whether it is related to music, sport or school. I always was supported by them and encouraged to pursue whatever it was that I took up, to take education seriously and try my best to get good grades. Probably due to the fact that my dad works as a primary school director. 

But one interesting fact is that my parents travelled the world together when they were younger before having my sister and myself, they went through Africa, South America and Asia where they were teaching kids how to read and write mostly in small villages and tribes. I was always fascinated by all the stories they shared with me and loved diving into their travel photo books, everything looks so different from what I had ever seen, even in movies! And it’s way more exciting when the stories are starring your very own mom and dad!

I was 18, aspiring to become a physiotherapist

So no wonder I got the travel bug myself too! I started to travel a lot after my first and probably biggest failure in life so far. I was not a child anymore. I was 18, aspiring to become a physiotherapist. In France, you need to pass a contest which is common with all medical studies for pharmacists, doctors, dentists, and physiotherapists, in order to access the second year of studies. You need to be part of the top 10% and you are giving only two shots, it’s a really tough system! 

Long story short, I failed, three times, after a lot of effort and dedication. It was really hard for me, it was the first time in my whole life that I failed completely and repeatedly at something that I undertook, and I always was in the top three students of all of my previous classes so it was quite a shock for me at that time. But through these failures, I learned a lot, both personally and professionally! 

Travelling – the best thing that these failures gave me

The best thing that these failures gave me, is the opportunity to start travelling; Belgium was only my first stop. It was the very first time I left my parents home and all my loved ones to go live all by myself in a new country (yes okay I chose a French-speaking one). 

But after a summer of deep thinking and interrogation about myself and my future, I felt that I was attracted to the business industry and decided to start a degree in business administration. Not only I discovered that I was really fit for business and that I hated finance and accountancy, but I got the opportunity to travel to Canada for one of my internships and then to Ireland for a double degree. 

My failures were really a blessing in disguise

I wouldn’t have met my life partner Niina nor discovered Finland or started my entrepreneurship journey if not for the fact that I failed my medical studies and decided to start studying business. The moral of the story, you always learn a lot from your mistakes/failures and it always opens a world of new opportunities. 

I know it sounds super cliché (and makes me feel old, usually older people always say that haha…) but when I take a step back I couldn’t even imagine where I am today back then. So after all, my failures were really a blessing in disguise.

Creating websites and online content was my way to express creativity

As we have seen in my childhood interview, I was always attracted to creating something myself, creativity, being social, and helping others. Since my teenage years, as soon as I got access to my very first computer, I started to be really intrigued by “The Internet”. I fell in love with all things Digital! I started really early on creating websites and online content, it was my way to express my creativity. I used to play the guitar regularly as a kid but it was quickly overcome by my time jumbling with my computer.

Around 2005, I found out about this free software called “Cariboost 2.0”, and I discovered my first ever HTML visual editor – in other words, a no-code website builder. That means I was basically already hacking my way into web design!

I didn’t know anything about coding and web development

You can see how it looked in the picture below: it is basically a visual editor where you can drag and drop your content on top of a free canvas. It was as easy as creating a PowerPoint.

That said, the results were far different from what I am doing nowadays – thankfully for the both of us?– from my first travel blog, to my DJing website through some school clubs and project websites, I was making a website for anything and everything as soon as I had the opportunity to do so! The interesting fact about it is that I didn’t know anything about coding and web development, and I still don’t to this day (except a few basics of HTML & CSS)!

People can’t independently and sufficiently update or use their own website

Fast forward to the beginning of 2019, after working in a leading agency in website design in Helsinki, and collaborating with major digital agencies in Finland for several years, I identified one issue encountered by the overwhelming majority of my former clients: They can’t independently and sufficiently update or use their own website. The photo below demonstrates how they most likely felt when trying to update their website:

In today’s world, where the marketing landscape has never been changing so fast, it is a necessity to be able to react fast to changes, to be able to update your website’s content regularly, create a landing page for your next campaign in a jiffy, etc.

I wanted to build something small and down to earth

And before I knew it, I started to work for my first client ever, grab a few creative friends to help me with some line of work outside of my expertise, et voilà! Bertoli Digital was born!

I wanted to build something that is still small and down to earth and where I could be the face of the business/agency, that is why I named it after my last name “Bertoli” and because I am passionate about everything digital, one plus one equal two, Bertoli Digital came to me quite naturally. 

The mission of Bertoli Digital is to help individuals, startups and SMEs to grow their online presence through Marketing, Communication and Growth strategies. In other words, I offer website creation, social media strategies, growth marketing consultations, online advertising workshops, digital transformation help, social selling training, pretty much anything that has to do with digital and marketing I can do!

I consider myself a social architect

Most satisfying moments: being able to help others and the feeling of satisfaction and warmth when I get positive feedback from my work and can see the direct impact on my clients’ lives and businesses. 

Even though I am a digital consultant and growth marketing manager on the paper, I consider myself a social architect above all. And it is because I build up my energy through meeting and exchanging with new people. Not only when it comes to business but in life in general, I have never learned as much as when I was travelling the world and meeting and exchanging with new people.

Being an entrepreneur allows me to feel in control and fully express myself, but also meet with lots of interesting people and be able to help them and exchange with them. That’s the best part!

My role-models are people around me

I don’t really think I have a role-model! Contrary to most people, I gain lots of inspiration from people I meet in my everyday life because I consider them to be “the real people”, closer to my everyday life, more down to earth. 

Not that all the role-model are not all down to earth, but most people idolize celebrities, guru and others famous people that are not in the same economic class as they are and therefore there is a huge gap between their lifestyle and their role-model one, which makes it more difficult to adapt the day to day practices from a role-model who have access to different resources.

That said when it comes to marketing I really like Gary Vee’s brutal honesty, Neil Patel’s high quality and consistent content, and lately Dave Gerhardt’s bold thoughts.  

I’m an entrepreneur and employee at the same time

My loved ones were expressing some concerns regarding my financial stability when I announced that I will be starting some project of my own as an entrepreneur, but they were mostly supportive once I was able to show them that I planned everything and that I was able to sustain my lifestyle while trying out to build my own brand and digital agency. Plus after about 6 months as a full-time entrepreneur, I was able to start working both as an entrepreneur and take a role as a growth marketing manager in a growing startup.

It actually started quite naturally for me, through my business studies I gained lots of interest towards the startup environment because they all seem to have a really lean, hierarchy-free, and fun environment. Also and most importantly most startups are trying to solve pressing issues that most corporations can’t work on because of their structure. 

#FRIENDSHIP© was born during a trip in Dublin

During my exchange student year in Ireland, I took on a Business Modelling & Enterprise-class. Our main project was to build a whole business model and concept from scratch. It was a really exciting experience, and one thing after another, I was so inspired by that course that I created my first ever startup concept, from productization to marketing strategy through market valuation. As said previously, when I get an idea in mind, I usually either go all in or don’t do anything at all!

And before we knew it, #FRIENDSHIP© was born during a trip to Dublin, in Ireland. Me and my business partner at that time, Shahboz Babaev, both shared a passion for innovative products, challenges, entrepreneurship and travelling. That’s why we decided to launch the World’s First social self-cleaning t-shirt brand and call it: #FRIENDSHIP©, since it was born from our strong friendship and since it features an eco-friendly product as well as had the goal to connect consumers to local artists (not too creative you might think – “laughing”)

Our startup idea fell through and our product never made it

We were living the dream and enjoying a once in a lifetime experience: exchanging, sharing, loving, discovering, travelling, learning and so much more, with people from around the world, united in the same place. That’s why we wanted to take our chance to launch an innovative, revolutionary t-shirt that can make people’s lives easier and take care of the planet at the same time.

But if there is one lesson one should learn in life, is that nothing ever goes as planned, and we start to face some issues related to manufacturing and logistics as well as patents. My business partner and I ended up taking different paths after our exchange year. Once we went back to our home country and finalized our studies it became extremely difficult to stay in touch regularly and to make sure that we were able to move forward with our plan. Eventually, after some time our startup idea fell through and our product never made it. 

Maria01 became my second home

Fast forward a few years, after doing my bachelor’s degree in international business in Ireland. During my exchange year, I met my girlfriend, Niina, who is Finnish. She first moved to France with me while I was doing my master’s degree and, in December 2016, we moved to Finland together, I started to do an internship in one startup in Helsinki, one thing followed the other and I ended up living here.

I started to network quite a lot within the Helsinki startup and tech community, in Maria 01, the Shortcut, the StartupSchool, Aalto ES, and some more. Maria01 became my second home at the time. 

“Learn how to coach yourself and ask the right question”

One day, I attended weekly events there and at The Shortcut when suddenly my eyes got caught up for this event called “Learn how to coach yourself and ask the right question”. I was just out of a meeting about miscommunication and this event pops out on my Facebook feed. 

I was really intrigued and curious to know more about it, plus the event was stamped with a label “World Coaching Organization” which gave it a more professional feel. Sometimes the problem with webinars and free events is that you can’t help to wonder what kind of hidden agenda they’re trying to sell to you and if it’s about self-evident things you already know.

The beginning of my entrepreneurial journey in Finland

At the event, I discovered very early on that this would not be the case! It was a short introduction to a professional coaching course, but I had the opportunity to meet with Anna-Riikka, the master coach trainer, among other participants. We learnt all the basic principles of coaching in an impressively positive and cheerful atmosphere. When we left the workshop I noticed we all had big smiles – a good sign to attend the full coaching training!

This event ended up not being the start of my professional coaching journey, but the start – may I say FINALLY a start – of the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey in Finland. I’ve been dreaming about starting my own business, activity, whatever you want to call it, for years, but always had some roadblocks either in my head or some outside my head. For example, I never really had the time to allocate entrepreneurship alongside my studies or with my full-time job, and thus always ended up postponing it!

I ended up selling my services

After this workshop, I approached Anna-Riikka because I couldn’t tag their company on Twitter. Tweeting is in my nature always when attending events, and I definitely wanted to share my experiences during that workshop but got frustrated because I couldn’t find either the company or the speaker. We clicked right away, then one thing led to another and I ended up selling my services as a Growth Marketing Consultant in order to help them with their digital presence. What a start, right?

The most satisfying moments are when you are able to see the results and impact of your very own work, that you have created and/or managed entirely from scratch. And being able to bring a smile to the person in front of you (or on the other side of the screen lately) is priceless.

Always keep celebrating all wins

I also really love sharing my learnings and knowledge with the community, I started to host several workshops and participated in panel discussions. I really enjoy exchanging and discussing different points of view on a given topic, learning and debating a subject. It always brings me a lot and gives me energy. And when I see that sharing some of my learnings can help severals in the community, it is truly heartwarming. 

Also sometimes I postponed some work to the very last minute (bad habits I know…), and always when I am finally able to put the last touch and hit the publish or sent button, you feel that really warm feeling of accomplishment (even when it comes just to a blog post sometimes ? Always keep celebrating all wins, even the small ones)!

It never goes as planned!

The main challenge was and still is: TIME! Striving for the right balance between work time and personal projects while keeping enough headspace for creativity. There are tons and tons of content about the work/life balance, but when you are hustling and pushing your own personal brand plus your clients’ work and a day-time job, time management skills become crucial!

It never goes as planned! Sometimes for the better, but mostly for the worst. It sounds a bit dramatic but what I mean by that is that you always need to be prepared. You need to forecast some extra time or some extra budget, most likely both! 

You will end up working more than what you agreed or were paid for

Always always keep yourself some slack! Because something will most likely come up as unexpected and if you are unprepared either you or your client (or both) will be impacted. And in most cases, especially when you’re still building your brand, you will take the impact on your own side to try and minimize the impact on your client’s work and you will end up working more than what you agreed or were paid for.

I don’t believe in those concepts where we are born X, Y, or Z. I believe that everyone can become anyone they want if they just keep pushing for it and step out of their comfort zone!
I believe we all have an entrepreneurial mindset seed within ourselves, some will just nurture it and grow it, and some others will just let it there mostly because they are scared to take the jump or don’t want to go out of their comfort zone. 

You don’t have to risk it all or quit everything else

Don’t get me wrong, it is totally fine to not want to be an entrepreneur, but what I mean is that everyone who is interested in it should give it a try, and that doesn’t mean risking it all and quitting everything you’re currently doing.

There are nowadays so many different types of entrepreneurship and some will reveal their entrepreneurial mindset as an intrapreneur within their employer’s company, or others like me will be able to get started as light entrepreneurs as a side-project keeping their financial stability. I believe everyone has it to some extent, and it’s up to each individual to expand it or restrain it according to their aspirations. 

The “profit-only” entrepreneurs are in it just for the money

There are things I love (the community, the innovation, the thrill, the creativity, the impact) and don’t really love about entrepreneurship (the financial risks, the failures, the burn out). I am really interested in social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs willing to carry on social responsibility. On the contrary, there are “profit-only” entrepreneurs who are in it just for the money – not my thing. 

Being an entrepreneur is an investment, it does take its toll let’s be honest. For example, when others might go out for a drink on Saturday night or going to the movies, I will be home working on my laptop until late. But I consider it is an investment in myself anyway because it makes me grow and learn all the time. It allows me to give more value to my employees, more to my clients and more to myself.

Nobody will even know that your product/service exists

Here are my top three skills as an entrepreneur.

Adaptability, you are going to need to adapt a lot, be resilient and flexible. Find solutions quickly, learn new skills almost daily, so definitely one of the most crucial skills for a successful entrepreneur.

Communication, even if you have the best product or service ever, if you are not able to communicate clearly about your product/service, and you’re not comfortable at networking or hosting press releases, then most likely nobody will even know that your product/service exists and all your efforts will be in vain.

Go the extra mile

Persistence, you are going to need to go the extra mile several times (if not most of the time), you are going to face some walls and fail, but you need to keep going forward.

Three things to invest your time in – networking, networking, and networking!!! Not only will it help you meet with potential clients and partners, but it will also help you get the needed support when you’ll need it the most. Remember to be your true self when networking, don’t go in there with your fully rounded sales pitch, simply meet the people around you and share your full story and listen to theirs. 

Don’t strive for perfection in anything in life

Start building your brand as early as possible, and invest in it as much as you can because it’s going to determine how successful you can be. More than anything don’t forget to keep it real and authentic!

You shouldn’t strive for perfection in anything in life. Especially when it comes down to business! And don’t get me wrong, former perfectionist here ??‍ I know it’s not an easy task! But you have to work on it NOW! Don’t wait to have the “perfect” version of your project, whatever it is, just go for it, iterate, and improve it on the go! Otherwise, there’s a 99.9% chance that it’s NEVER going to happen, and you’ll regret it.

Also working in digital can be pretty overwhelming, the digital landscape constantly changing day after day. It’s crucial to know how to fully disconnect from time to time in order to be able to reconnect with yourself and with each other.

The post “Don’t strive for perfection in anything in life”, Rémy Bertoli – Founder of BERTOLI Digital appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I swore never to become an entrepreneur after seeing how hard my mum worked herself

I grew up in Hollola, a small town near Lahti, dreaming of becoming a veterinarian. My mom and my grandfather were both entrepreneurs, and I saw how hard they worked at it. I was used to seeing entrepreneurship as a lifestyle. As an eighth-grader at school, I wrote an essay for the national writing competition called “Yritys Hyvä”. 

The topic for the essay had to be entrepreneurship, so I interviewed my mother about starting a business and then wrote an essay about a startup vet clinic. To my surprise, I won! I remember that being the first time I thought I might actually want to be my own boss, although I mostly swore not to after seeing how hard my mom worked herself.

I never stopped loving animals, but at high school, I became more interested in relationships, the mind, and human behaviour, and then knew I wanted to become a psychologist. Another reason I wanted to study psychology was because of my background. I used to have a stepfather and had experienced some difficult family dynamics, so part of my interest in psychology was wanting to understand that. But that connection only really hit me consciously long after I’d graduated.

Entrepreneurship is the perfect combo for me

Entrepreneurship is the perfect combo for me. I am very determined, ambitious and hard-working. I love contacting people. And I also love the responsibility of working on my own. Entrepreneurship offers me all that.

I enjoy the feeling of self-efficacy, planning and having the strings of the whole picture to myself. As an entrepreneur, I can choose what I want to do and get to do lots of interesting tasks. I would not be able to do all this working for an employer. My work is very satisfying, every day is different, and that keeps me happy. I do not decide only on financially smart deals, but enjoy my life and take on what feels interesting and motivating. 

I didn’t believe in myself enough back then

As a young psychologist, I didn’t have entrepreneurship on my mind, other than a distant dream. I think I didn’t yet believe in myself enough back then. I concentrated on learning and getting experience. In my field, ageing is luckily a benefit in terms of credibility. I am learning every day. 

In 2007, just five years after graduating from university, my friend gave me a call and asked me to partner her for private Theraplay-therapies. I was into it right away – started my first business then and had it going part-time for nine years. In 2016 I was laid off from my permanent job by my employer after a project was cut off along with all personnel. At the same time, I was offered the role of a psychologist in a documentary reality tv-show called Toisenlaiset äidit. I took it on and at the same time decided to go from unemployment to entrepreneurship, all in. 

That tv-project was a sign for me, even though I don’t really believe in signs! It definitely wasn’t easy to start full-time entrepreneurship, but it helped having had a part-time private business for ten years already. At least I was familiar with accounting and different government policies, and those really are numerous, in the field of health care. 

I built my website, got a logo planned, and started a blog. I was on my own, really enthusiastic about all that, and still am! 

Work is almost like a hobby more than a job

For me, the most satisfying part is the feeling that my work is almost like a hobby more than a job. I get to do the things I love and don’t need anyone’s permission. I try to cut down all kinds of bureaucracy and concentrate on the content. 

As there is no regular paycheck, I have worried tons about whether I will have enough work, and then eventually have almost always ended up having too much to handle. Learning to say no is still hard. There are so many cool things to do, and I’m always full of ideas and visions. 

My business is quite vulnerable, as I am the only person running it, and can’t have substitutes in my role as a psychologist or therapist.  

Corona-virus had me scared for a bit. Everything got cancelled, and getting everything online from home was a new challenge. 

I have one important piece of advice: make several copies of your hardware. My laptop crashed, and on top of that, my outer hard disk broke at the same time! It was a disaster, and I’m almost ashamed to reveal this. I lost everything, nearly all of my files in a second. Afterwards, I learned to put everything in the cloud plus making several hard disk copies regularly. 

It’s a lifestyle

At it’s best, it feels like a hobby. On the downside, it is difficult to separate work and personal life. I easily end up working too much and having too little time for all kinds of other fun things. But it’s a lifestyle, and I choose that every day over going to work for an employer. 

Don’t get distracted from fun and human connection

Having contacts is the MOST crucial thing. That’s where most of your mandates and assignments come from. Someone recommends you, and you get more work. In my opinion, that is the key to entrepreneurship!

Be brave and say yes to new suggestions. Think of your ethics and standards, and if it fits, go for it. You can try out everything as your own boss. Don’t make decisions solely based on financial goals. You need to have fun on the way!

The most essential thing in life is to be happy. What that is to whom, varies. But for most people, it is about meaningful relationships and engaging with other people. Don’t get too tangled up in work that you forget about fun and connection. 

The post “I get to do the things I love and don’t need anyone’s permission”, Leea Mattila – Founder at MindLink appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

As a kid, I was already investing in stocks

I was born in 1975 in Helsinki, I’m now a mother of three children, a wife, a serial entrepreneur, and a social media influencer. I spent my childhood in Töölö and my favorite book was “Diligence is our joy”. That book has influenced my life in many ways, and that is reflected in what I do today. Performing has always been in my blood, even when I was a little girl and I learned the basics of networking when I won a child modeling competition at the age of seven.

My passion for performance was ignited by Step up and Aira Samulin’s dance school where I danced until adulthood. By education, I am a graphic designer and I followed that at Edita and Focus Business Communication advertising agency until 2004.

The recession also hit my family and my parents did a lot of work to compensate for the increasingly high mortgage rates. My father is a Taxi Driver, so entrepreneurship is well known to me. I even started investing in stocks as a child.

Entrepreneurship gives me the strength and freedom I need

I am an entrepreneur because I am motivated by freedom and its finance aspect. My family has always supported me in my choices, so no one has ever questioned my career path.

I enjoy that my work is not tied to a time or place. I can work from home as well as from a trip to Lapland or under the shade of palm trees. For me, entrepreneurship gives me the strength to counterbalance everyday life with kids.

I had never planned to become an entrepreneur, but it is integral to me

The year 2000 was a year of change in many ways. I founded the Show and PR group for Espoo Blues ice hockey team and found my husband Jonni in Turku. In 2003, when the collaboration at Blues ended, I continued to run the group through my own company. We incorporated the company in 2004 and that’s where my full-time entrepreneurship began.

The journey has been pretty amazing. I had never planned to become an entrepreneur but it all happened by accident in a way. I boldly seize all the opportunities that came to me.

We bought Eventgarden in 2006 and ran it until 2017. I had a turnover of over € 10 million when I ran the event and employed 7 permanent employees and hundreds of freelancers. In 2007, I was elected Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Helsinki and I was actively involved in young entrepreneurs (HYNY).

The mental transformation from an employer entrepreneur to a lifestyle entrepreneur began as early as 2014. That’s when I started a direct sales business at Zinzino, a Swedish company listed on Nasdaq First North. It was one of the best choices for my entrepreneurial career and gave me the courage to sell Eventgarden’s in 2017. Today, I employ myself as a content producer and Marketing and Entrepreneurship Coach.

Being a mother doesn’t have to stop you from being an entrepreneur

My favorite memory so far was getting the Young Helsinki Entrepreneur of the Year recognition in 2007 and getting my story on the cover of Kauppalehti Option. Now if I recall, it felt great winning Finnish Team Build Of The Year in 2016 and Recruiter Of The Year in 2017 while I was at Zinzino. Aside from that, I enjoy every assignment where I can offer my expertise in marketing for the benefit of customers.

 The most challenging thing so far has been having children while working as an employer entrepreneur. Juggling all the different things that come with that, while at the same time having a small child in your arm.

That is why I am grateful that today you do not have to pay the salaries of others first before you can pay for yourself. I would rather employ other entrepreneurs and help them succeed than take entrepreneurial risks as an employer.

Entrepreneurship is my lifestyle

Since childhood, I have always been a leader; organizing everyone else at the school Christmas party for example. Entrepreneurship has always been a built-in trait in me. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Entrepreneurship is my lifestyle and I call myself a lifestyle entrepreneur.

Know your worth

You need to have networking skills. Don’t be afraid of change and find the courage to alter your direction if the activity is not profitable and does not feel good. You need a healthy amount of greed so that you don’t undervalue yourself. After all, you want a good reward for your work.

The most important piece of advice for a beginner entrepreneur is to believe in yourself and price correctly!

The post “Believe in yourself and price correctly”, Heidi Ekholm-Talas – Influencer & Entrepreneur at BSG Marketing Oy appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I grew up in a small village with only 100 residents

About my childhood, oh wow, that’s 40 years ago! I grew up in a small village in the Northern part of the Netherlands, Baijum, with only 100 residents! I think there were only two or three kids my age. There was an elementary school in the next village, so, from a very young age, my mum put me on a bike to drop me off to school.
As I grew a bit older I started cycling with my older brother. Then, once I started high school, I met a couple of kids from a village nearby. Together we formed a small bicycle group: meeting up in a crossroad in the middle of nowhere every morning and riding those ten kilometres through the countryside. I would always be 30-60 mins early at the crossroad, just hanging around in the fields, losing my thoughts while watching the cows, the sunrise, and nature.

So I was a terrible kid, a rebel already since a pretty young age!

I did not have any role models in my mind and certainly did not think about entrepreneurship as something stylish. Actually, I always questioned everything. I was raised in a family where the life path was: “You work hard, you study hard, you make lots of money”. I never felt it, it never spoke to me. That could not be the only path. Again, I questioned everything, including that path. So I was a terrible kid, a rebel already since a pretty young age!
One day I met this kid who was into punk. He let me listen to some mixtapes he had and a couple of bands really grabbed my attention. I got into the punk lifestyle. I shaved my head mohawk style, put chains on my belt and studs in my jacket. I even did a big drawing on the back of that jacket too. I still remember coming home that day with my shaved head. My father saw me entering the village and got out to our porch: “Don’t step into my lawn, you’re not my son anymore!!” [laughing]. I was a rebel.

I was showing respect to my friends by listening to their life problems

However, I already had a trait that I think applies to entrepreneurs: lots of kids in high school would come to me if they had problems. And I don’t mean it in a problem-solving way. I was not Mr Wolf from Pulp Fiction, but I was really good at listening. I was showing them respect by listening to their life problems. A punk attitude of questioning everything is not incompatible with listening: you question things, you are curious, and then you listen. I think this has transpired to the values I think a small company needs to have to be able to move forward.
I also remember the very first time I actually did something, built something, for others to really experience. I met a kid who was a skater and was playing guitar. We got along and thought: why don’t we start a band together? And we did. We put a poster in school looking for a drummer and one week later we were rehearsing in a shed. I was the singer – or the shouter! We borrowed the gear we needed from neighbours and friends, it was lots of fun, but it also impacted me beyond my own experience: ever since that moment I realized there is something special from being on stage and the journey to get there. The reaction from the audience, the building up to the moment, the challenges…

If the cows are having fun in the fields, I thought, why not us!

I felt it was something unique, a place and role where I might belong. We played until I was in my late 20s. I even learned to play bass! The funny thing is, I never woke up thinking “we need to have a more entrepreneurial approach to this, guys! We need to be lean!” [laughing again]. It just happened. Put posters, rehearse, word of mouth, have fun on stage.
When promoting our shows, when actually setting them up… that’s when I discovered the fun and exciting side of productions. We even organized a small festival with all the local bands: a concert in the middle of the fields. If the cows are having fun in the fields, I thought, why not us! And again: it was really fun to actually create this show from scratch and see people having a blast the whole day!

At some point, I realized I had enough of that lifestyle

Another experience that had an impact on my life was when I was living in Amsterdam, I got a job in one of the bars and got to run the bar on Monday evenings. It was a dead shift. But hey, I started playing music, having fun, really running the whole place with energy. After a year, Monday nights were one of the most successful nights of the week. I turned it completely around. I did that on my own. Since that was actually a paid gig, I guess it could be a proto-entrepreneur experience!
At some point, I realized I had enough of that lifestyle and I decided to study “Theatre Engineering”, followed up with “Management and Communication in Arts, Culture and Media”. That included event production. After graduating we started a non-profit foundation to support a festival we were organizing but it was more like a collective of people, really relaxed. However, I guess the seed was planted in my mind: it might be funny to produce events!

I had done so many things but I did not own any of it

I found myself working as an event producer. I was building stuff from the ground up and never felt I had ownership. I had to abandon it at some point, move on with my life. There was nothing left. I had done so many things but I did not own any of it. That’s when I started thinking: “what if I start my own company and actually nurture projects and see them through in the long run?” It was not really about ownership really, but more about a new way to see the journey while still developing projects. Higher stakes, a more fulfilling way of working.
I had met Huong then (Huong is the co-founder of ROND Productions and ROND House, you can read her story here) and we were a bigger group of people unhappy about their jobs. We kept meeting up and plotting: “Ok, so, if we were on our own, what would we do differently? How would we do it?”. The thing with Huong is that she always wants to learn and explore new paths. That is really inspiring. Always wanting to grow.
We are both very curious people. We will dare to take a leap just because we are curious and we know we will figure things out as we go instead of sitting and planning forever. In the end, Huong really pushed and encouraged us all. She said: “Let’s go for it”. So we did! ROND Productions is the first official company that I started.

Want to change things? Change them!

We started ROND with some other awesome people (shout outs to Abby, Laura, Kasper)! We wanted to do events differently, explore different ways to bring people together. Focus a lot on dialogue and open discussion environments. Quite often the best discussions in an event happen during the coffee breaks so, why not try to replicate this feeling throughout an event?
A lot of our first events were about gathering people together from the same industry and creating a relaxed and open space for all parties to really open up and speak up their minds: the trends they saw, the problems they had, the possible solutions. And you could see the attendees, including the so-called “higher-ups” really get something out of those sessions. Again: it’s all based on talking and listening. We also had with us Dr Anne Stenros who was a massive source of inspiration when it came to radical thinking. Want to change things? Change them!

I hate pitching

Obstacles… Phew! The biggest one at the very beginning was that we actually had no idea how to actually start the business in Finland. We talked to advisors and we joined the accelerator from Helsinki Think Company. I basically saw an ad for Mutiny Accelerator in the metro. Mutiny? Yeah! That sounds like me. We joined. That was a key moment. It was both nerve-wracking, exciting, scary… going to the first workshops and training, pitching – I hate pitching – it was really intense, it was a challenge, and it confirmed that I wanted to do this.
I really got into it. I started reading a lot. I have always read a lot about the topics I like and I began studying, learning about what it actually means to run a business. You are never going to prevent obstacles on your path – nor should you even try to attempt that – but at least you can make sure you hurdle through the easy ones without wasting too much time.

We have the know-how, methodology and also crazy ideas, that makes the difference

The day I knew we were making it as a business and not only as an idea was RecoTech 2018. Before that we had done experimenting with formats, open space formats especially, within the Smart City sector in Helsinki. It was going well, it was fun. We started talking about it with people and, suddenly… We are closing a deal to provide production support for RecoTech. That felt amazing.
But let me tell you, before that moment we had a huge amount of crazy ideas for productions, formats, solutions and that process helped us define ourselves: we are event producers. Once we know who and what we are we can actually then really push the boundaries of what our clients might expect. Approaching them only with crazy ideas might have been not enough. But telling them: hey, we have the know-how, the methodology and also the crazy ideas, that makes the difference.

500 people waiting to enter on a cold November morning to an event you have put together. Man, that gives you goosebumps.

One year later we actually got to produce RecoTech 2019 from start to end. We took a risky choice of venue and went for the Train Factory, in Pasila. That was just kickass. Such a contrast. And it gave me one of the most satisfying moments since we started our journey with ROND: when we saw the lines of people wanting to enter, 500 people waiting to enter on a cold November morning in Helsinki to an event you have put together. Man, that gives you goosebumps.
During the event, people kept telling us how amazing and especially, how different this felt to other PropTech events. A very seasoned speaker and worldwide expert took me aside just to say it: “This is the best event I have ever been to”. Wow. Of course, some loved but also some hated it because they could not expect this event in a location and vibe like the one we had created. Overall, I am happy with that too. It is also part of the experience: even if it makes you uncomfortable, you will remember it and you will get a lot out of it. We had amazing keynotes, workshops, matchmaking… It was one of the absolute best PropTech events of the year in the world!

The two ingredients of success: team and attitude

To reach that kind of satisfaction and success, you need at the very least two ingredients: team and attitude. The team and people working on an event will reflect on the actual event. The audience will feel their mood, their engagement. Even if only one person from your crew transmits stress, it can affect a whole audience. For real. That’s why we aim at ensuring that everybody in our team always keeps a positive attitude and mindset. Don’t stress, it will be fine. Even if the whole room is on fire, it will be fine. We kept that mindset, worked with the belief that we will fix it, we will find a way. And we did! We always do!
Of course not always easy. Things don’t go as planned. Unexpected things happen, last minute or not. Just let it be. No need to stress about things out of your control. Just focus on what you can do to fix it. Relax. Stress won’t help you think better. Keep calm and others will be calm.
I am not at all a micro-manager, quite the opposite, but I for sure want to have an environment where teams, clients and also audiences are stress-free. A relaxed mindset allows room for open thinking and open discussion. Don’t hold back on ideas, don’t be tense about someone snapping at you, it won’t happen with us: we will listen. We find solutions because everybody feels they can share their thoughts.

I don’t want to reach the top alone and I don’t want to only move forward with my vision

Collaboration is one of our most important values. We have had very tough moments. You are starting, you are a small team and realize you have committed to a lot of work and are running out of sleeping hours. We had stretches where we pulled through and I am not actually sure how, but I know we did. I give all credit to the team – to have created a culture where we know we must stay calm, positive, help each other, speak up and move forward.
My leadership style is… I don’t really lead. I encourage people to find their own way. You can ask me, of course, but I won’t take you by the hand. I can show how I would do it, sure but again: you are you, you do you, and we move forward together. This leadership style can be a problem if a person needs lots of clarity just to get started but it comes down to the same keyword again: team.
I don’t want to reach the top alone and I don’t want to only move forward with my vision. I want to bring everybody along with me. I am very quick to tell someone: join, let’s try it out. Then we will see if it turns right or wrong. But I am curious, are you too? Then let’s try. I don’t care about skillset: I care about mindset and attitude.

Be playful while you solve problems

One thing that I believe is super important to become a successful entrepreneur – or at least to be happy during your journey – is to be playful while you solve problems. I guess for me that has been very easy to apply to real-life since I have always liked games and solving puzzles.
When I was six my parents got their first computer from my dad’s work. The first PC we got at home: 8088XT, one the first IBM home computer. And he also got hold of some bootleg disks (I wonder how many readers will know what we are talking about) with games on it. I dived into them: Qbert, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem 2D… I loved it. Since then, I have always been passionate about games. Not only about playing: how they work, how to fix them – going into the code and trying to find why it was crashing – but also exploring…

Games have just taken massive leaps forward in terms of going way beyond the missions

With some of those games you had to mess around in DOS to get them to work, going really to the starting sequence of the computer and, well, not always being able to boot the whole thing again – dad was not happy. It was always good fun. Then I got my first Playstation, then the second, and suddenly you could connect with other people online!
Games have just taken massive leaps forward in terms of going way beyond the missions or goals themselves: you can explore, navigate, get lost, discover and even when realism isn’t at the top, who cares, you are still immersed in a brand new parallel world where you are solving problems and having a blast. The character in the game has a goal, for sure, but the game itself has a bigger purpose. You get way more than what you think.

We want to wow you, we want you to come back for more fun, we want to disrupt the ordinary of virtual meetups

A lot of this is reflected in our very new ROND Virtual platform, which we are launching this autumn. We have really focused not only on the teleconference side of things – to see others, good sound, share things, etc. – but in the gamified and exploring aspect: we want to wow you, we want you to come back. How many online events do you really think people would crave to revisit? Well, we are going to provide such a different experience than it will really change the perception – and the outcome – of all virtual meetups: events, conferences, seminars, anything, it’s gonna be awesome.
Plus, in a context where we have been locked down, quarantined and even starting to be scared to be around others, games provide you with a unique safe meeting environment: hang out, talk, laugh. You are not alone or isolated anymore. Companies are actually organizing meetups and conferences in Minecraft, Fortnight, hell, even in Red Dead Redemption! The six-year-old kid who was messing around with floppy disks would be proud to know that not only I am still a gamer, but I am actually integrating games into my working life, events, and inviting others to have an awesome fun time and experience.

The startup mindset feels fake

I never feel like an entrepreneur as the way many people understand the word nowadays. It seems to be too associated only with certain startup entrepreneurship stories and culture. I almost dislike the term. I don’t feel I fit in that box. And the startup mindset… something feels fake in that bubble.
Startups are meant to be unpredictable, exciting, surprising but in the end, the so-called startup ecosystem feels predictable. Of course, we work with startups and it can be lots of fun but if you ask me about how I identify myself, no thanks. No box for me.
Yes, technically, I am an entrepreneur but the truth is, I don’t care, I don’t feel like it: I am just a guy trying to get things done. That’s also the reason I don’t like titles either. I am me, Sjoerd. Mindset, attitude, experience, work… that’s what matters. What you do. We signed a new employee this week and her title is: “All-Rounder”. She loved it. Let’s go.

Someone has to step forward and say, “let’s go that way” with enough pull to have the team rally behind

The fact I do not call myself an entrepreneur or a CEO, or the fact I want my team to enjoy an unusual amount of freedom to fulfil their tasks and I’m always open to dialogue does not mean I will not make decisions. In a company, you do need to have decision making. That is a part of leadership I understand falls on my shoulders, especially when we do not seem to reach consensus.
Small teams might sometimes not dare to appoint a clear decision-maker, or a tiebreaker, so to speak, but you ought to have someone who can step forward and say, “let’s go that way” with enough pull to have the team rally behind.

I am not immune to be responsible for other people’s stability

Starting a company has affected my life, of course. It is a ride. My girlfriend has been super supportive and always encouraged me to try it and pursue it. However, I am not immune to the stress of running a business and being responsible for other people’s stability. Some obstacles are very big and some weeks are really packed.
Having your company is something that is going to enhance your emotional reach in daily life: higher highs, lower lows. When you are happy, you are going to be crazy high, but when you are down, it can be pretty dark and lonely.

Rest, reset, remember you have a team to help you out and keep moving forward

It can affect your personal life and the ones closest to you. When you have been working non-stop and putting off fires since it is your company, it does affect you in a deeper way than when you just take a salary: the worry, the tiredness, it really follows you home. You might have moments where you might feel lonely, insecure, you might even wonder “why did I even start this?”.
Whenever that happens, I take some time for myself, find some minutes to contemplate the views from my apartment, and I revisit the kid who used to gaze at the sky in the middle of the fields. And then I just pick myself up, rest, reset, remember I have a team to help me out and keep moving forward!

This society shaping a pressure to always show your best version of yourself

Also, don’t let perception or “peer pressure” get to you. During your working life, you come across a lot of fake people. People that are not the same whether you meet them at work or outside of work. There is this tendency, this society shaping a pressure to always show your best version of yourself: “I am the best, I am successful, I am perfect”. You can’t show flaws or weaknesses. However, once the suit comes off, you might become a completely different person.
The need to compete and to be better perceived is something that I have always rebelled against. Personally, yes, I want to improve and learn. It’s self-imposed pressure. And even then, not driven by shallow success but by the satisfaction of learning and seeing how I move forward.

I show emotions and I try to stay as true to myself as possible.

But pretending to be always perfect, awesome… I am not like that, I don’t conform to it. With me, what you see is what you get. I am open, honest and do not pretend. If I don’t know something, I am not afraid to say this openly. I show emotions and I try to stay as true to myself as possible. There is already enough fakery in this world and what we need now is real, real people, real feelings and real connections. Don’t be afraid to show your personality to anyone. If people like you they will buy from you and the only way to become likeable is to be yourself.
I guess this is connected to whom you meet and how you build your network. Doing business is all about having a network. I was lucky enough when I moved to Finland to start as an event producer for a startup hub that helped me get to know a lot of people. And some of those people are still with us until this day.
They are really hard workers, fun, and they certainly come as they are, no hidden agendas. It’s not about how much you know but who you know. Helsinki is an easy city to network. There are so many events, meetups, the startup community is insane in that regard. And the city is behind it – see Maria01 – which makes creating connections and getting to know new people way easier. That allows for faster personal and business integration.

Even though a lot of advice might feel off, others’ opinions do matter

Three top skills? Listening, empathy and a dash of rebellion. Dare to listen, and read a lot. Never stop learning, engaging in conversations and really listening: to your clients, partners, advisors, friends… Even though a lot of advice might feel off, their opinions do matter. Stay humble: listen.
Then, there is this general impression that entrepreneurship is cool, startups are cool. Guess what? It’s not! It’s freaking hard, you are going to lose friends along the way and all you can do and think about is business. Whenever you start a conversation you automatically switch to pitching mode. Your social media account is boring and all about subliminally selling your product or services. At a party, you are probably one of the most boring people in the room or you are too tired to even go to a party.

Only crazy and stupid people start companies

And then what are you doing this for? To become mildly successful, freedom, money, a greater cause? You probably won’t achieve any of those things and you are an idiot for thinking you might. Only crazy and stupid people start companies.
If after reading this you still think, wow that sounds amazing then I would say you are ready to get started. I don’t do pitching 24/7, I want to have conversations and know when to stop… And when the day is done, the day is done. Step away from work. Do something else: watch a movie, go for a walk or stand in the fields contemplating the cows – or if you are in Helsinki, go to a park at dusk and try to count the bunnies.
Learn to relax: you need to enjoy the journey, you need to stay positive, calm. You need to learn from the tough days. Appreciate the journey with a smile on your face even when the wind is slowing you down. Don’t kid yourself: that’s why you become an entrepreneur in the first place! And if you have this attitude: you will not lose friends along the way, you will not be 24/7 in pitching mode, and you will still enjoy all things that are non-work related.

Money is a massive source of stress

In the startup world, there is this failure mantra: high 90% of the companies will fail. I think a lot of those come from a lack of adaptability and, ironically, too much focus on raising funds. Money is a massive source of stress and there is a misconception that all startups need funding rounds straight away. In my mind that is not true.
You can build your company by finding your own path and moving forward. It ain’t easy, but nothing is! And you will be in full control of your next steps, which allows you to be flexible. I feel the lack of flexibility or adaptability is a big source of failure.

Too many companies want to force their product onto their customers

It’s nothing to do with a startup’s product or solution. If the product fails, you can change it. You can still be successful. Don’t give up. Interview your potential customers, give them time to talk, find out what they actually need and want, listen to them. Only then you will be able to sell them the solution they actually need and want.
Too many companies want to force their product onto their customers. Guess what? In the early stage, especially when you don’t have a name yet behind you, there might be a very limited number of buyers for a rigid product, no matter how good it is. But a flexible product – and mindset – can adapt to various needs, even keeping its essence, so you are better off truly listening to the client who gives you a bit of his/her time.

We decided to become not only event producers but virtual world builders

This literally happened to us this year. We were selling event production services but then COVID happens. We could have tried to continue selling physical events but it was obviously not gonna work. So what? What do we do? We adapt. What do they need? What do they look for?
They look for online events, they are looking for something that is going to be more attractive and fun than webinars and zoom calls and events. They want to go online but still have unique experiences. That’s what we did. We decided to become not only event producers but virtual world builders.

Why wouldn’t you be able to play games while being in a conference?

We have been working really hard and in very little time. We combined our passion from gaming and events to provide full virtual experiences where you can explore, meet people, talk, learn, attend events but still feel free to move and navigate a brand new space.
Why wouldn’t you be able to play games while being in a conference? Why not video chat with your peers while logged into a futuristic virtual space? And I say futuristic but we are designing all types of spaces: a cabin in the woods, a space station, a pioneer outpost in the middle of the mountains,…

People crave meaningful experiences

Our drive is our core belief – people crave meaningful experiences and being together, going through new journeys and meeting new people along the way. Online meetings have so far been too stalled, too focused on the content but not on the experience.
We turned it around: with us, you get a full new world experience while you also attend an event, whatever it might be. We can build any virtual world from scratch to meet the event, party, conference, seminar, or simply a casual get-together. Want to know more? Want to explore something new? Get in touch!

I don’t think you as a foreigner would live here if you don’t love the country and the people

People ask me quite often what the impact of having a core and founding team comprised only by foreigners. First of all, that’s just the way it happened. All of us have lots of Finnish friends, advisors, relatives even, but when we started the journey we happened to be a melting pot of immigrants.
We all love Finland. Since the weather is so extreme, I don’t think you as a foreigner – assuming you have a life situation where you can choose – live here if you don’t love the country and the people. That said, yes, none of our core people grew up here, therefore, we are dealing with the fact that we are adapting to a different country and also building a company.

We don’t expect a welfare network to save us

Some would see this as a disadvantage, we think it’s an opportunity. We have different cultural backgrounds but are all very resilient, stubborn – maybe being a migrant is part of that. You are in a new environment and you have to toughen up a bit, or a lot.
Because of all that, we don’t wait and see what others do, we don’t expect a welfare network to save us. We don’t overthink about consequences. We’re not reckless, we’re just brave. We have had to integrate and adapt – and Finland is a lovely country to do so – both socially and professionally while at the same time daring to be different. Granted, it’s not always easy but it’s a fascinating journey.

No fear to stand out, no fear to change what’s established or expected

You can be a happy and successful foreigner employee in Finland just by landing the first job and then keeping a low profile. Good salary, stability. But if you want to be happy and succeed as a foreigner entrepreneur in Finland, you better be radically different. No fear to stand out, no fear to change what’s established or expected.
We often get this conservative reaction: “it’s not possible”, “it’s not gonna happen in Finland”, “it’s not how things work here”. Well, we’re gonna make it happen. And we keep going. We are not bound by history with this country: we are not prejudiced, we are not fighting against a cultural upbringing here. We might as well bring our own prejudices and cultural biases, throw them in the mix and see what happens. Thanks for the welcome, Finland, but are you ready for us? We think you are!

The post “The only way to become likeable is to be yourself”, Sjoerd Postema – a guy getting things done at ROND Productions appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I wasn’t always very hardworking

I grew up in Helsinki in a pretty regular middle-class family and had a very good upbringing.

As a child, I was always very much into sports and technology. We got our first computer when I was around seven, and I remember spending a ton of time on it and later on even assembling my own setups. Even though I always did well at school, I didn’t actually put much effort into it before university since my other interests kept me busy!

When the time came to start thinking about career orientation, I was drawn by both business and technology. I eventually ended up choosing computer science as I knew first-hand how big of a role software would play in our society in the future.

“Whatever career path you choose, don’t become an entrepreneur!”

Growing up, I never really thought I’d become an entrepreneur. I’ve seen my dad being an entrepreneur for most of my life. I remember him occasionally telling me, “Whatever career path you choose, don’t become an entrepreneur!”. So, I knew that it’s a lot of hard work, and most of the time, not very glamorous.

When I began my studies at Aalto University (so-called Helsinki University of Technology back then), I was fortunate to be put in a freshman group with a number of like-minded people. We quickly became friends.

As our studies progressed and we’d learn about the possibilities in the industry, we started to get excited about pursuing entrepreneurship together and did a few hobby projects of our own.

At some point, once we were closer to the end of our studies and had also gained some work experience, we thought we’d take the leap and found our own company. To do that, we applied to the accelerator program that the entrepreneurship society of our university arranged, now called Kiuas, which helped push us in the right direction.

Things that really motivate me about entrepreneurship.

The first one is a sense of achievement. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the positive impact of your business and see how people get value and thank you for something that you’ve created from nothing by yourself, or with a small team.

Secondly, learning. When you’re building a company from scratch, you have no choice but to either learn whatever it takes to solve all the problems you’re facing or give up. You can’t really outsource or delegate your problems because you don’t have the resources to do that. As a result, I’ve had to learn the key things about every area of building a software business and also learn to do most of that by myself, which again has been incredibly rewarding.

Thirdly, the support from my loved ones. Everyone I know has always been very supportive of me being an entrepreneur, which is something I’m very grateful for.

As an entrepreneur, if something goes wrong, it’s always your fault

There’s a lot that I really love about entrepreneurship: creativity, need to innovate, solve problems and think outside the box, the variety of different disciplines you need to master, and of course, the sheer amount of responsibility you need to carry. As an entrepreneur, if something goes wrong, it’s always your fault, and that really forces you to be intellectually honest.

Some people are probably born to be entrepreneurs, but it’s definitely a skill set that can be learned. To be honest, when we first started, I really didn’t know much about it and still regularly find myself to be naive in certain aspects related to it.

Entrepreneurship is psychologically very demanding

Being an entrepreneur is hard. It’s a lot of hard work, and it’s also psychologically very demanding. To succeed, you have to be in it for the long haul, and for the right reasons.

I think becoming an entrepreneur is a great experience that could help anyone become a better version of themselves, both personally and professionally. But I definitely don’t think it’s a career choice that many people should choose.

As we know, most startups fail, and to win against these odds, you should be prepared to work long hours with minimal to very little pay for many years on end. What’s more, most of your work probably isn’t the fun and creative things you think working at a startup will be because you simply have to do whatever is most important at any point in time, and often by yourself. You usually can’t afford to delegate or outsource and have to learn what works and what doesn’t to ultimately build a successful business.

Working for someone else is easier, less lonely & more secure

As a result, the expected return, both financially and career-wise, for being an entrepreneur, is almost always much worse than simply working for someone else, and it’s also likely to be much more lonely and uncomfortable too.

However, if none of that bothers you, then you might just make a good entrepreneur!

For any entrepreneur, you are your own biggest enemy. To succeed, you need to know yourself well, be honest, and master your own mental game. A while back, I wrote about some of the most important lessons I’ve learned on the topic in more detail here.

However, when you’re starting to build the business, make sure you’re being completely honest about delivering real, tangible value for your customers. Before you spend too much time and money building any kind of a product or service, make sure you really are on the right path.

Discipline and time management skills drive long-term success

As mentioned, we founded Viima together with my friends from the university right after taking part in the accelerator program. We initially had a completely different business idea, but once we really had to test that idea with customers during the accelerator program, we soon learned that our original idea wasn’t very good.

As a result, we decided to pivot our business and help other organizations better collect, develop, and test their ideas, which put us on the path that Viima is still pursuing today.

It took us a couple of months to develop the first version of the product and get our first paying customer, and then a few more months to get the first big customer that really helped us get the key features of the product in place.

The beginning was really hard since we bootstrapped the company by not paying ourselves for the first couple of years. We still had our day jobs and were also trying to get our master’s degrees. That obviously meant that we were working very long days, and had to be extremely disciplined on where and how we spent our time in each of the aforementioned areas. However, the discipline and time management skills we picked up back then turned out to be extremely helpful in driving long-term productivity for us.

Having a purpose helps manage stress

Stress really wasn’t a very big concern, at least for me personally, and I think the biggest factor for that was that we really enjoyed the experience and didn’t have anything to lose. In my experience, fear, anxiety, and loss of meaning with whatever you’re doing often seem to be the primary drivers that cause people to lose control and eventually burn out.

I think one of the most satisfying moments on our journey was quite early on when we hired our first employee. At that time, we still didn’t pay ourselves anything, so it was really cool to see that we’d actually built a business that helped a handful of customers and was able to provide for the livelihood of someone.

Being bootstrapped, we’ve always been very resourceful, financially conservative, and have also invested heavily in providing our customers with a reliable service and solving any problems we face, so at least so far, we’ve managed to avoid major crises.

Invest in a highly automated & scalable online marketing approach

The biggest challenge has simply been the constant struggle of always having too little time, too little resources, and when we do things sustainably, everything happening slower than we’d like to.

One of the key decisions we made early on was to focus on being the global leader in our market, so we set out to provide more value for a much lower price than any of our competitors, and that’s still something we’re constantly pushing to do and get better at.

We’ve also invested heavily in building a highly automated and scalable online marketing approach, which has served us really well and has made our business model of offering more for less possible.

After years of systematic hard work, we’ve been able to get to a position where we’re now. According to a recent Gartner report, Viima is the most widely used software in our field of innovation management, has the highest customer review scores, and is also the clear leader in terms of our online presence and global brand awareness in the field.

The two most common startup mistakes

Having observed many startups up close, many of them make at least one of the two common startup marketing mistakes. The first is that they invest heavily in advertising, PR, etc. already before they’ve been able to create something that customers really love, in other words, achieve product-market fit. Most of those efforts will unfortunately be wasted, and that is something startups with limited resources can’t really afford.

The other big mistake is that when they do finally get the product-market fit right, they don’t make marketing a truly strategic priority, which means that marketing typically becomes just a support function, or could even be outsourced. Marketing is, in the end, what drives truly scalable growth once the product or service is solid, and is thus at the very core of what the startup has to focus on.

My advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

As the classic advice goes, you should be 10x better than any of the alternatives in whatever it is that you’re choosing to do, and unless you already are, I’d recommend you iterate your value proposition until you get that right.

That was certainly one of the key mistakes we made early on: we spent too much time building the product, not the value proposition. That decision really slowed the growth of our business early on.

The final piece of advice I’d give is to have really high standards of performance for who you hire, which is of course easier said than done. In our hiring decisions, we look for proactive people who are ambitious, driven, always over-deliver, and are hungry to learn more. The ideal hire is never satisfied with their current skills or achievements.

In a small company, the difference between having top performers, or just your average employees, will make all the difference in the world for the future of your business.

The post “Don’t fall into the trap of just building a good product”, Jesse Nieminen – Co-founder & Chairman of Viima appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

When I start the business, we had just taken a mortgage, had a 2-year-old son, and a new baby on the way

I grew up in the countryside in the small but historical municipality of Köyliö in Satakunta. My father is a farmer and mother a clerk in a bank. Now thinking back, I did have a connection with entrepreneurship from my father (as farmers are considered entrepreneurs in Finland) and a strong influence on finance thanks to my mother. At the time, however, I was driven by the need to live in a large city and surrounded by technology. These eventually led me to study at Aalto University in Espoo. My major was Radio Frequency Science and Technology.

Around ten years ago, I was studying Business Management in India where the idea of entrepreneurship caught me. It also prepared me for establishing a company in all fields such as sales, marketing, finance, HR, etc. However, the main driver for me has always been the creation of something new, and once done, take a step back and watch it flourish.

When I mentioned this to my wife, she was totally supportive despite the huge risk I was taking. We had taken a mortgage only a few months earlier, had a less-than-2-year-old son, new baby on the way, and I was the only income source for our family.

Our hesitation with the company name costs us our first customer

I used to work as an antenna engineer in Nokia and later Microsoft before they started to reduce their R&D in Finland. At the time, I got the opportunity together with my colleague Janne Heiskanen to switch to entrepreneurship. For me, the decision was clear, and it didn’t take much persuasion to get Janne onboard in the end. Our goal was simple: We wanted to help companies make better wireless products with the know-how generated over the years at Nokia regarding antennas. What it means in practice is custom antenna solutions for hardware products or integration of off-the-shelf antennas.

When we left Microsoft in 2015, we got some months to figure everything out thanks to resignation packages. But due to taxation there was not much left, so we had to quickly get cash flow in. When starting, the single biggest obstacle for us was a bit surprising – the name for the company. I think it took weeks until we managed to find a good name which was Radientum (Janne didn’t want our antenna company’s name to have insects (“Ant”) in it. Only after finding the name we were able to set up the company officially. Our hesitation with the name probably cost us our first customer who couldn’t order from us without VAT number and went to get the service elsewhere.

Satisfy customers needs and over-deliver their expectations

We got our first two actual customers within a month thanks to personal connections. We bought our first simulation PC with our initial capital. The first Finnvera loan was used for working capital to rent a simulation license and buy measurement equipment. Our headcount grew after the first customers by selling shares to Innoraattori Oy and Masoumeh Hasani. We had already discussed the possibility of them joining from the very beginning, so when we secured customers, the timing felt right. With them, we were able to broaden our service offering to even more complex devices and Radio-frequency identification (RFID). We continued to grow solely by bringing in more partners until 2017 when we hired our first employee for marketing and new business development.

Even after the first 100 customers, the most satisfying moment is still when the customer is happy – how their product ended up and the success they have achieved. I remember vividly seeing our customers’ products being used by my friends and hearing how happy they are with their purchase. It cannot be achieved without genuinely listening to your customer, satisfying their needs, and over-delivering their expectations.

Have plans always ready to be changed and your cash flow monitored

Hardships I would split into two groups: business and personal situations. For the first group, an example was from the early years, when I was visiting an exhibition, we had an emergency board meeting over the phone. The salary payments for company owners had to be postponed simply because we need to have some cash left in the account until more money comes from customers.

But all in all, no matter how stressful and desperate the situation is, there is always a way out and possible solution to be discovered. The main point is to have plans always ready to be changed, and your cash flow needs to be monitored and kept under proper control.

On the other hand, personal hardships are the ones that cause me to lose my sleep. Whether it is something directed to yourself like when we decided I was not good enough to be the CEO or when we had to lay off our people. However, losing a partner is the worst thing I have had to face in my time as an entrepreneur. Over the years, we have been in that situation twice, but business continues despite how much I miss working with my former colleagues.

It’s at home on our coffee table where I pitched the business ideas to my wife

I don’t know if I was born an entrepreneur (can’t really remember), but while growing up I did start to think about business ideas. However, it stayed on a very casual level. I was throwing ideas around and some heated discussions with friends and family.

It was only after I had left the day job that my way of thinking became more mature. The ideas were no longer just-for-fun, but I went to do more severe analysis, for example digging, looking for competition, running some basic numbers on Excel, and put down a PowerPoint slide or two to summarize my thoughts. It was visible at home on the coffee table where I would pitch the ideas to my wife.

The easiest way to sell early is marketing to your existing connections. The more they understand what you offer, the more likely they would find opportunities to promote you. Old colleagues, friends from studies, hobbies, and childhood but also family members are cheap “marketing staffs” to utilise. An important note is, however, if you want that to work, you need to be open to genuinely promoting others as well.

Know what you don’t need to do right now and pass on tasks as much as possible

I am not good at organising how I spend my time. I mean that I tend to switch tasks to something that might not be a priority but feels like it. Planning your daily priority tasks (only 1-2 tasks, not more) every morning helps you to stay focused. The stuff that feels important can be done after those priority tasks have been done. This enables me to have a split between professional and personal life as by the time priority tasks are done.

Once I have spent eight hours or more on the most critical tasks, I can take a step away from work, knowing that every other (important) thing can wait for tomorrow. Before, I was spending 12-16 hours per day on work which was too big a burden for my family. As an entrepreneur, your work is never done; the key is to know what you don’t need to do right now and pass on tasks as much as possible.

The post “Losing a partner is the worst thing I have had to face”, Mikko Parkkila – CMO & Co-Founder at Radientum appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I want to improve the competitiveness of 350 thousand small businesses in Finland

I’m born in Kuopio, raised in Espoo, and have lived in Vihti since 1997. Although I have technical education, my passion and skills have always been in business. When I was young, I got excited about selling insurances or meat at the local supermarket. I also dreamed that one day I could make my living from the 100-year-old family tradition of leather handcraft. This never happened, but entrepreneurship has always been my passion and now I’m living my dream.

My passion is to change the world from two angles.

1. Improve the competitiveness of 350 thousand small businesses in Finland and 300 million globally.

There’s a massive and global knowledge gap especially in selling and entrepreneurial skills of business owners, for example, building the sales processes that work, building strategy that brings the companies closer to its vision, understanding customers better, and many more. I can’t just witness entrepreneurs failing to achieve their goals. I want to help by offering them the outside view and my expertise in problem-solving and Lean-sales model.

2. Improve B2B companies WinRate via the establishment and deployment of the “Internet of Competition” (IoC) model.

The IoC model will be launched in August 2020. The winner of tomorrow’s business is the one who can learn fastest and IoC brings this closed-loop learning to virtually all B2B companies.

Lean Six Sigma could increase operational efficiency by 50% in small businesses

When I attended Lean Six Sigma (L6S) green belt training 17.9.2013, I had 2 “flashes”. It was a shocking experience and I still remember vividly writing down the time in my notebook. It was 11:37 AM when I realized that L6S is a fantastic business engine for all companies, but for some reason was only used in larger corporations. Small businesses easily have 50% waste in their operation and this needs to be fixed. To mention a few examples

(1) The sales processes are typically far from efficient,
(2) Companies are led by instinct rather than well planned and executed approach,
(3) The lack of clear direction and priorities lead to huge waste in terms of entrepreneurs’ own time management.

The end result is often chaos, stress and poorly performing business.

Also, L6S is massively used to improve production and services processes effectiveness (i.e. costs), but very few use it to improve the sales process and topline of companies. I knew that I needed to jump on it and I set myself a 3-year target to make this happen one way or another. On the same evening, I called my boss in India that we need to change my job description at Nokia (just signed it a few weeks earlier for something totally different), and next week I contacted the first small business owner – start executing my plan.

I’ve built a network of over 20.000 entrepreneurs

The forecasting process is absolutely the most challenging area and while I help others in creating it I sometimes also suffer from it myself. My target is to know future demand with ±20% accuracy six months ahead. If I can reach this target, it does not matter whether there’s a high peak (or sudden slowdown) in demand. I have enough time to plan and prepare.

The most satisfying moment is when I can link two small business entrepreneurs together. Over the past few years, I have created a massive personal LinkedIn entrepreneur network (over 20.000 direct connections to entrepreneurs, i.e. “the largest LI-entrepreneur network in Finland”). It’s great to be a matchmaker between two entrepreneurs who would not otherwise have a natural place to get connected and to create joint business opportunities.

As an example, I’ve just connected a professional photographer from Vihti with a supplier of LED-screens from Vantaa. Exciting new business business model was innovated and now planning how to launch that during the next few months.

Another one happened a few months back when professional musicians from Kokkola were connected with an IT expert in Vihti to develop a new live streaming service for musicians. Now all of us can enjoy a live jazz-concert at our summer cottage dock – a cool experience, isn’t it!?

I avoided the typical financial challenges of young companies

I started my company as a hobby and only quit my day job when my own company’s processes were finetuned and market demand tested. This way I avoided the financial challenges which are typical for 0-2-year-old companies.

I believe I was born to be an entrepreneur, even though I spent 20 years as an employee. Full-time entrepreneurship is a “career 2.0” for me and I especially like the fact that the time from idea to implementation is 1000x faster than in bigger corporates.

I have never found a role model entrepreneur

I would like to find a role model entrepreneur or sales executive who has the following skills (1) analytics and data reading skills, (2) process-driven sales leadership skills, and (3) sufficient knowledge on linking Artificial Intelligence to business. Unfortunately, I’ve not found one yet. I did receive support from my loved ones when starting out. Although my jumping to full-time entrepreneurship came as a surprise for many.

Entrepreneurship also brings possibilities to balance one’s own personal life. One of my most favorite aspects of being an entrepreneur is to help local small businesses. For this purpose, I established YritysVihti ry with a few like-minded entrepreneurs. Within only two years, we have created an expert community (30+ experts from different domains) providing business development support services for small businesses throughout their whole lifecycle.

YritysVihti’s target is to be the best quality, most cost-effective, and most agile service provider for small businesses in Finland. After successfully piloting this in our hometown, we’re now rapidly extending services across Finland with an innovative and highly digital service portfolio. How does this affect my personal life? Via close collaboration, networking, and joint ambition, we have all created tens of new business relationships, and many of them also at a personal level.

My tips for entrepreneurs

Below are absolutely the three most critical skills for today’s and especially tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.

• Data reading skills
• Sales skills
• Process skills

The key activity I’d recommend entrepreneurs to invest their time in learning and start with learning from your customer’s buying process and criteria. If you’re a first-time entrepreneur, remember you’re not alone, use mentors, external consultants, entrepreneurship communities, etc. to challenge you and to give an outside-in view.

One lesson I have learned a hard way: Don’t get stuck with multiple parallel challenges. Solve them one by one. And always use your “best time” (when you’re fresh and energized) to analyze the issues and work on solutions. Otherwise, the continuous flow of daily “critical routines” prevents getting the most important things done.

For me, early morning is the best time for deep work. Thus, I try to reserve 7.00 – 9.00 for the most important things and troubleshooting. Select 2 topics per day and within a few weeks you recognise that the endless backlog of challenges has reduced or even disappeared.

The post “All small businesses deserve to know the secret to get more sales”, Antti Leijala – Lean-sales pioneer & CEO at UltraLeanBusiness Oy Ltd appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

My parents emphasized how all work is valuable and important

I grew up in a small town in Eastern Finland in a wonderful family. Our parents encouraged us to try new things and emphasized how all work is valuable and important. I was also blessed by awesome and active friends and sisters, with whom all the great news was invented 24/7.

With my sister and friends, we run door-to-door flower & delicacy sales, played a lot of musicians & instruments, made paintings and took part of drawing competitions, bought piece fabrics and tried to sew those exciting clothes, which we had seen in fashion magazines in the library, and did several summer jobs even during one summer.

With powerful will and high spirit, we will win even in inhuman conditions

My role models are our grandmothers and grandfathers, who showed to the world and defended Finnish independence in the World War, especially in the Winter War. They had the wil and the spirit to win, even in those inhuman conditions. We can sleep nights in peace in our own beds, compared to the conditions in war fronts, which lasted for years.

Every morning, when having a strong cup of coffee, I’m thinking how grateful I am for our brilliant team to work with and Customers who trust us heavily. I am a proud mother of two energetic & wonderful boys who always encourage me to move forward, and also who I want to give back faith in entrepreneurship.

In the corporate world, you never bear the ultimate risk alone

Having done my part of a successful turnaround as a Group Treasurer in a global, Nasdaq listed company, I decided to resign, jump to the deep end to start everything from scratch. I can tell you, that even if I’ve been working for volatile markets, like FX, equity, and treasuries during economic upturns and downturns, it has nothing to do with entrepreneurs’ risk taking. In the corporate world, you never bear the ultimate risk alone.

The corporate background is not an asset to entrepreneurs, like vice versa. I got a lot of work to start everything from scratch. I have to forget the corporate mindset (mainly about decision-making mechanism), and try to adopt the founder mindset including the bias for action, aversion to bureaucracy, and so on. This mindset is so important because without it, there’s no innovation nor sustainable growth. Today, I’m so grateful and proud, that I somehow was encouraged to do it

Things seem impossible until you overcome it

The turning point was the summer of 2018 when I was accepted to Kiuas Accelerator. It was such an unforgettable experience. My team and I participated at first with a business idea. Then all of a sudden, I was the only one left to continue the program. Everything seemed impossible, I wondered how I could manage everything all by myself! Luckily, I found two new team members, we worked on a completely different concept. And that’s how everything got started. In August 2019, we launched riskrate.

Andrei and I are working full-time, having Jussi as an advisor. Together we share the passion for solving our customers’ needs to predict their buyer’s willingness to pay. We are the perfect combination for executing it based on our experience and knowledge from both customer needs, technology, and markets. And the diversity follows, based on our genders, ages, and nationalities. My takeaways from this experience are:
The unexpected event can turn to be a blessing with the right people and attitude.
Things seem impossible until you manage to overcome it.
I highly recommend people to join the accelerator program. It could be your life-changing experience.

Small and medium-sized businesses are the risk-takers in our society

When our time is limited, I think it’s important to use our time, passion, and energy to solve problems that make an impact. Small and medium-sized businesses are the risk-takers in our society, but far too underserved segment and deserve much higher pricing power.

My greatest passion as an entrepreneur is to help small and medium-sized businesses to sell more and take credit risks safely by the dynamic, predictive, and cost-efficient risk rating system.

Failures hurt but it takes you forward

I’ve had failures, setbacks, and misfortunes, I’ve tried to learn from everything. Failures often hurt, but it takes you forward. Eventually, failures are a crucial ingredient for success. I kept continuing and trying, taking one step at a time, because that’s the only way to find out if it’s worth continuing or not.

The most satisfying moment is always when a new customer registers to riskrate, nothing beats it. Also, when we get honest feedback from customers. The teamwork and the feeling shared together with a team when we have been working hard and eventually succeed. Despite all challenges and difficulties, the satisfaction when having the end result is worth the effort!

Entrepreneurship is work and responsibility, that follows you 24/7. I love the adrenaline rush when there’s a lot to do and battles to win to move forward. All the ups and downs are required to develop a better and better company culture and solution to our customers.

Understand your customers, know even the color of their socks

The most valuable time spent is to talk to customers, know even the color of their socks. We always try to understand their needs better than anyone else on this planet. To do so, we continuously talk to our clients, asking feedback in different ways. Improvement takes place only when we act upon the feedback generated. So in riskrate, when receiving feedback, we always come back to the customer on how to proceed further.

Another valuable thing I would recommend doing is to give back and pay forward to the other founders, entrepreneurs, and community. Helping others is one of the best ways to build your credibility, open doors for new opportunities, boosting team morale, and getting the instant satisfaction of fulfillment.

My recipe for success: perseverance + desire to win + humbleness

If there’s someone just starting out, I would say that remember to keep your Northern Star on your soul and start taking baby steps every day. Keep your faith that after a year, you would go much farther away. And never give up, because it always comes a new day for you to try again.

The post “SMEs are far too underserved segment and deserve much higher pricing power”, Päivi Kangasmäki – CEO & Founder at riskrate appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Coming to Finland? I still thank my brother for that idea

Here is my confession: I did not like the idea of being an entrepreneur at first. Sorry! I used to think I had a personality that required something stable and safe. So, still, when I was back in Vietnam, I worked for a couple of years teaching primary, secondary, and even 3-5 years old and I really enjoyed it. It’s a kind of work where you share your knowledge and, even better, help others learn and grow. I loved it. Still do. And it was not about the subject (I taught math, chemistry, and even English), it was about the experience of teaching. I never had the feeling of going to work. It was more like, “Cool, I get paid to do something I really like!”

Of course, I did not know I would end up in Finland: after graduating from high school my plan was to go to Medical University but that did not work out. I felt a bit lost, very unsure about what my next step would be. I had grown up in Hanoi with my parents and my brother and it was he who suggested that I go to study abroad. “Hmm. Why not?”, I thought. That’s when I started studying English and took the entrance exam to Laurea University of Applied Science for Business Management. And that’s how I ended up in Finland. I still thank my brother to this day for his idea!

I and my Co-founder have great chemistry, good understanding, shared values and vision

During my first year studying here, I started to wonder: would I waste 3 years focused on academics and wait until that’s over to figure out what I really want to do? That felt off. Instead, I decided to start working, already in that first year. I wanted to try different tasks to define what I’m interested in, what I’m good at, create my own trail of experience. I love learning by doing, that is the way I evaluate what works for me. That’s why taking this hands-on approach felt right. It was the best option for me to really figure things out.

That’s when I met Sjoerd Postema. Together we have co-founded both ROND Productions, which he leads, and ROND House, which I lead. At the time he was still working for an employer. We realized we had really good chemistry, good understanding, we were sharing many values and the same vision, so why not try to do it on our own?

We wanted to have the full freedom to do things differently

It was not an overnight decision but it happened quite fast: we reached the conclusion that even though we liked the jobs we were doing, we wanted to have the full freedom to do things differently and surround ourselves with the people we like. When you feel like that there is no turning back, that is one of the essential aspects of entrepreneurship – the freedom to do things your way. That’s why we finally took the step in 2018. We started from scratch: no capital, no team. Just the two of us and a small grant from Helsinki Think Company.

That’s how I became an entrepreneur. And believe me: up until that moment I really hated the idea of entrepreneurship! I had tried to understand what it really meant but it did not click for me: I felt it was too unstable, you needed to keep on having new ideas all the time or keep multitasking and pivoting. That was the vibe I got out of that.

Maybe because I did not have yet a clear idea or drive in my mind. But with Sjoerd and ROND, it just happened naturally. I thought about none of those issues, only opportunities. Plus, I was still studying so I thought I had really nothing to lose: it was quite risk-free. Suddenly, the whole entrepreneurship idea had turned around for me.

There is no book on entrepreneurship written for you

I faced the biggest obstacle in my entrepreneur journey right at the start: I didn’t know how to open a company or what it actually meant. When you actually start your company, you realize overnight how much experience and knowhow you lack. It’s a bit overwhelming! I realized I was not able to hit the ground running, so to speak, while I was studying at the same time. I had to revisit my time management and re-evaluate what goals I could reach.

Maybe I underestimated what it implies to start a company and yes, there is material online about what processes to expect and what mistakes to avoid but it’s not the same: when you write your own journey you still make your own mistakes and face your own shortcomings.

There is no book on entrepreneurship written for you. You learn by doing, the hard way! You make mistakes. You work so those mistakes tie you closer to your team and bring you closer to a win. But you have to get out there and face failure in order to grow and to improve. And one of the most challenging and exciting aspects of entrepreneurship is that it’s an ongoing learning process: the more your company does well and grows, the higher the stakes are and you have to keep learning over and over again to succeed.

After the market validation process, we have more motivation to complete the administrative works

Starting a company requires some administration and thinking: paperwork, SHA, etc. We, when we started ROND, decided we would start doing and then worry about the company! The first step for us was to test our idea and vision and confirm we had a business case, something we could replicate or scale-up. Once we knew we did, the administrative side of starting a company seems easier: you have more motivation to do it! I was lucky to have Sjoerd working with me on the company registration process.

In Helsinki, there are plenty of people you can talk to for advice: startups, advisors, even public offices. You just have to be focused and committed to your vision and take the steps – which, in Finland, are not many compared to other countries. I think if you are not able to open a company in Helsinki, even if you are a foreigner, it is not a problem of the system: it’s that maybe you are not committed to doing it in the first place.

You read a successful entrepreneur story and you get caught in survivor bias

The road to success is paved with hard work and no shy amount of failure. I read a lot of stories from other entrepreneurs. How they started, their struggles, their way of thinking. It’s motivating to read about other people’s journeys and, in a sense, it’s something I have done since I was a kid: I always liked reading inspiring stories of successful people. I would let myself get carried away and think that it might be easy to be successful. What happens is that you read a successful entrepreneur story and you get caught in survivor bias, so to speak. You think it’s not that hard, you feel inspired, maybe even hyped.

However, with time I understood it’s not about it being easy, it’s about it being doable: if they did it, I can do it too but… I have to be aware of the overall journey. It’s not their life: it’s yours. It’s up to you to make it real in your own life and on your terms. To write that book, your very own book, you need to fill a lot of pages. You need to work hard. Some people might have a really good start – connections, finance, business background, etc. – but for the other ones: don’t complain about your starting point, just keep working and keep improving.

People in a new country aren’t gonna welcome you with open arms to make your life easy

When you move to a new country, you start at zero. You cannot have the expectation that someone is welcoming you with open arms to make your life easy. My attitude is to not complain about if I can adapt or not, just understand I start from scratch and act accordingly. Hard work is going to pay off but complaining won’t. If you go into that mindset – the one of creating your own path by learning and hard work – all misplaced criticism you receive, all the feeling of exclusion, they get drowned into the positive vibes from the team you choose and the tasks you take on.

Now I realize this attitude of learning by doing and staying positive means I was way closer to being an entrepreneur than what I could realize when I came to Finland. Starting your own company is learning to dare to try, to dare to see opportunities over risk. Before I started this journey when I would hear an idea or opinion on whether “we could do this or that” I would immediately think of possible negative outcomes. This mindset would always prevent me from trying new things.

If you don’t try, nothing will happen - 100% guaranteed

When I started my own ROND House I realized it’s not about the question, it’s if you are going to try to at least answer with a solution in mind. It’s never a waste to ask and try. You might win or lose but what is 100% guaranteed is that if you don’t even try, nothing will happen. Nowadays I am still cautious but much more open to new ideas.

You have to turn negative thoughts into positive outcomes. And if it does not work, think why not and try again. ROND House has made it this far because we have really believed in this, we have put so much time into research and we have been willing to try, test, discuss, argue and always look forward to making it happen.

Find someone you can have fun working with, trust, argue, share values, and enjoy victories

You need support to succeed and having someone like Sjoerd as a mentor first and a co-founder later played a crucial role to be where I am now. At first, I did not even work directly with him but because of his personality, we bonded quite fast. He is fun and he understood how I like to contribute. He saw what I really wanted to do and that I was willing to learn more along the way. He has a very open way to lead that is not based on simple task delegating but actually tutoring at the same time.

When working with him I can learn in detail what I need to do and how but I am also allowed to make decisions and learn from mistakes. That’s how I knew back then he was a person I wanted to work for and work with. We started to make some tasks overlap in order to work more and more together and suddenly we’re discussing that if he quits and starts his own, I will follow. No hesitation.

I know now how hard it can be to find someone you can work with, trust, someone with whom you can struggle through the setbacks, argue and agree, enjoy the victories, keep the vision… Finding a good co-founder is really hard and I found a great one! Building a company is a long-term race so you better have someone help you out when running out of breath.

We were told to give up

The beginning of ROND House was not easy. We got accepted into Founders Institute and had to pitch an idea. The initial idea, to open coliving spaces in Helsinki, was well received in theory but when we started expanding our circle and telling people we were really going to do it. Everybody told us this is going to be way too hard. They gave so many reasons: industry, finance, culture, the market not being ready, many people before us have failed, etc. We were told to give up.

But guess what: I want to live there! I want to live in a coliving space in Helsinki. I imagine myself stepping into the building! I imagine myself there. Only one path ahead: I have to make it happen. I will work on it. I will change the living expectations in this town if I have to. Sjoerd is onboard, which gave me the extra confidence from the start, and we have a solid core team.

The stress goes away, ironically, by working

There are two different things for an entrepreneur that can affect your mood: stress and rejection. Stress is personal. It depends on you: how you handle your workload, your deadlines. Being an entrepreneur, especially at the start when your team is small – or no team at all – it means you have to do a lot. And sometimes too many things come at once. So, yes, I can get stressed but I also think it is a good sign that things are happening in the company. So, that is what keeps me moving forward. The stress goes away, ironically, by working. And don’t forget to find some time for friends and family!

Rejection is different: it does not depend on you. Someone else is saying “no” and sometimes, it is the end of that story. It does not really bring me down. I just try to learn out of that interaction what the “no” means: not now, not a good offer, not like this…? Rejection is a good tool to improve. And even when someone says “no” with no apparent logical reason to you, you cannot stay there forever: you move on. It’s a big world out there and many new people to talk to!

They say “Undoable”, I hear “Not this way, not this time”

Similarly, when other people tell me “undoable”, I hear “not yet”, “not like this”, “not right now”. And I will work on it until I get it right. And we are the pioneers in Helsinki but we know coliving is taking off in other regions, so let’s work hard and make it happen. By the way, how many people thought Airbnb would work? Letting strangers stay in your home? New living arrangements have been and are on the rise.

The idea for ROND House was anyhow for a long time in my mind. When I first came to Finland I lived in Espoo. It went really well, I made friends at the university but I did miss, in some way, to actually land a bit deeper in the country. To embrace and be embraced by the city. For many of us foreigners, when we land here, we easily insert ourselves in academic life. University is a very easy welcoming spot. However, you cannot rely only on the university to get a real feeling and scenario about what your working or social life might look like. You will graduate but still miss some practical knowledge that you should get by yourself.

ROND House is the balance between privacy and community

ROND House is meant to help you fill those gaps. We focus on community, yes, but also mentoring and learning opportunities – arts and crafts, health, and of course, business. A co-living space, the way we see it, offers you a whole range of possibilities for you to really dive into the city, grow as a person, and build a solid professional and personal network.

Living in a traditional shared apartment setup might give a negative impression to most of us because of the dynamics of the shared space – who is supposed to clean, who is making noise, and ultimately we are not able to enjoy the community and the fun part. ROND House is the balance between privacy and community. Make friends, get the most of the place you are – the building, the neighborhood, the city – and we take away the elements that make it annoying to actually share the common areas.

There are of course raising questions about whether the co-living sector will be affected by the Corona pandemic the same way as co-working spaces have been. We noticed that the co-working sector and the short term stay sector are those that got hit quite hard. But coliving is much more resilient, it is where you live. Also, coliving has proven to be a resilient asset class during this lockdown. We have seen it worldwide: with the right measures, a coliving space can provide a safe environment even during a pandemic. In my opinion, we are going to witness increasing demand for coliving due to the Corona pandemic and it will have an even stronger position in the future since people are definitely going to miss the social interaction after this quarantine.

I really find happiness in everyday small victories

If you ask me about a particularly satisfying moment in my entrepreneur journey, to be honest, I don’t have a concrete day or milestone. I don’t need good news, a good call or a good meeting: every day is an absolute joy, the whole journey has been a blast. When you hit a big goal, yes, of course, that makes me super excited but I really find happiness in everyday small milestones, the small victories.

I am really grateful for what I have because I work hard for it which means that I will be able to celebrate all small steps forward. I like to keep my eyes on the purpose and vision we had when we started. In this instance: I am looking forward to opening our first ROND House coliving property. But I guarantee you that when the building opens, I will immediately be thinking about how to improve it. The goals keep evolving but the small victories pave the way. For some that might be exhausting, for me it’s motivating!

Things will work if you are humble enough to listen and learn

I understand some people worry about how being an entrepreneur might affect their personal life, their balance with their free time. For me it has had a positive effect: my family also runs a business and we get to discuss a lot of what I am going through. We have found new points in common that were not visible until I took this road. I also get to meet more interesting and inspiring people. I get a lot of energy from that meeting and learning from them. I actually struggled with the COVID quarantine. Until I got used to the new ways of talking to the team and e-meeting new people, it was a bit hard to adjust.

We all have our own story and personality. No matter what your background is, you can still start your company and make it work if you are humble enough to listen and learn, find the team members to complement you, and just keep working on it! In essence, you want to solve a particular problem or you have a hobby that becomes a business. That is the starting point.

My advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

From there, first, you need the ability and curiosity to learn new stuff. Keep learning. We all have our strengths and weaknesses but you need to be receptive to learn. Second, keep an open mind: you must be eager to try something new. You can’t say “no” only because it is not done before and you can’t accept “no” as an answer too easily. Keep an open mind and an open path. Lots of successful businesses have had to more or less change their original idea until they make it work.

Learning, adapting, and finally, you have to be a team player: solo entrepreneurship can be really difficult, especially in order to scale things. Sooner or later you need others, not only internally but also externally: clients, partners, suppliers… you should embrace external input and learn how to become more than just a team player. This is how I try to approach my journey.

I could say I am also either “a bit stubborn” or “very determined”, which is to say I do my best to keep moving forward no matter what. It is my own personality, the way I feel about things: if I feel something can still evolve, grow, improve, I will work for that.

The post “They say undoable, I hear not this way, not this time”, Huong Tran – Co-founder of ROND House appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Don’t just study, experiment!

My parents come from two very different cultures, the Greek and the Finnish.
Growing up in Greece was the best childhood I could have asked for, carefree, safe, free to roam around the city, play with the neighbourhood kids, and enjoy the sunny summers.
Then came the time to decide what I was going to become. Now, how the hell are you supposed to decide that when you are 17 and just finishing high school. In Finland, the great thing is that you can take a break year and explore what you want to do. In Greece, such a thing didn’t exist, so I had to make my choice based on what courses were available, and what I was interested in and good at then. But the path was set, you had to go to study, and I didn’t question the path.
Fast forward 5 years of studies, the education systems I experienced in Athens and London, didn’t actually give me much practical experience, and as so many, I wasn’t well prepared for the job market that I encountered.
I founded amplaffy.io in 2017 because I had done all the right things; gotten good grades, finished university on time, got into one of the top 50 universities worldwide for my Master’s (according to the QS Global World Ranking), graduated from there, and all of this still wasn’t enough. How are you supposed to feel when you have done everything ‘right’, but you still can’t manage to get employed?

Taking part in a real-life initiative I learned more than during five years in universities

I wanted to save other young people from a similar fate, and set on a journey to figure out how to gain access to the data that will empower young people to make sound career decisions!
Through my startup journey, I learned that experimenting with a real-life project is the best investment you can make to your personal and professional growth. Taking part in a real-life initiative I learned more than I ever did during those five years in universities.
Is entrepreneurship the only way? Definitely not. You don’t necessarily need to become an entrepreneur, you can achieve this in many ways, and as part of a spectrum of types of legal entities, and in varying levels of commitment to suit your risk tolerance levels and life situation.

Having the right people on board

This has been the toughest part of my journey because I trusted the wrong people when I started out. Fast forward five iterations of the product, we launched amplaffy in March 2020.
Our first iteration was just a paper prototype done at a hackathon, showcasing the problem of access to information and networks. The second, and third were designs based on the initial concept, but the teams were not right. People were not ready to commit to the project, they wanted to comfortably be around and if the funding came through, they would join.
The fourth iteration was testing the concept of matching supply and demand for skills, with an excel sheet and email/LinkedIn connections. This gave me so much insight into the deeper issues in the job market, and the confidence to take the project to the next level and start building. Unfortunately, the fifth iteration, a coded prototype, also failed, because of the team. Again there was not enough commitment to the project, no time to put in for just shares, and tough life situations that demanded a salaried job.

Team commitment is important for success

Finally, at the sixth attempt, conditions were perfect for the launch. We grew our team since last summer to 10 people with multiple degrees of commitment and involvement. We are a mix of developers, marketing enthusiasts, designers, researchers, customer experience people, and advisors from a previously failed startup who guide us and support us.
We represent together Finland, Greece, Bangladesh, India, Brazil, Vietnam, Russia, and Mauritius so far. I am very grateful to each for choosing to become part of this story and taking this dream forward. Wherever this road leads us from now on, I know that we’ll solve the challenges and celebrate our wins together.
Today, our users can delegate their career planning and job search to amplaffy. Amplaffy will gather the scattered data for them, analyse it, and guide their learning process so that they will get employed in their target career faster.

Employers and employees don’t empathize enough with each other’s struggles.

If you want to start up, just do it as a project for as long as you can. Don’t establish the company just because you feel that you need to give yourself more credibility or for the promise of investment.
When you establish a legal entity, you will need to pay for a bank account, insurance, accounting, taxes, all sorts of tools, a place to work from, and people to work with you. The biggest part of costs comes from the last item on this list.
The unemployment office provides some support with work trials and salary subsidies, but still, more is needed. Because the outcome today is this: Salaries cannot really be negotiated, the cost is too high, even with the subsidy, and entrepreneurs choose to do everything themselves, from customer development to marketing, to accounting, to design, and development, lest being blamed for taking advantage of people through work trials, unpaid internships etc. While they get burned out with the workload, on the other side there are people who would love to be given a chance to practice their skills and build their experience. But the very system that was put in place with a very good intention to protect their rights and assure them a good salary, is leaving them unemployed, stifling their professional growth.
To the policymaker reading this, please engage more startups who have been through the first year, to learn from them what they would have actually needed instead of the programs you have in place. I was amazed to hear that some of these programs have actually been in place for 40 years and not been changed. Is this really the case?

Are women entrepreneurs having a tougher time than men entrepreneurs?

When asked to think of an entrepreneur, a company owner, or a business person, I always had this picture in mind – a man wearing a suit. I was definitely not a suit-wearing man. More importantly, I had no business education. Naturally, I was thinking can I really pull this off?
What I had was a passion to learn how to figure this problem out, determination to persevere, and a flexible attitude that allowed me to bend, instead of breaking at the first difficulties and criticism.
In a country like Finland with women Presidents and Prime Ministers, women entrepreneurs are having a tough time getting funding. This topic has been given light in many outlets, but we haven’t really gotten to the source of why it’s happening.

A popular explanation is that there are more men than women who apply for funding.

I looked into one of the prominent VCs in Helsinki, with which I had been in touch many times, and did a quick analysis of their team, and investments. Turns out their whole team was composed of male partners, and the companies they had invested in in the past had 86 male founders and 7 female founders combined.
I am not sure how many male and female entrepreneurs had been in touch with them, in order to confirm or debunk the popular explanation mentioned above, but this made me feel that my chances of convincing these men that I was worth it, were slim.
Maybe it’s because we think that we don’t have a chance, that we don’t approach them in the first place. We all have a bias towards what is familiar to us and what we have grown up with believing. To the investor reading this, how many women have you invested in? And why haven’t you invested in more women?

Don’t wait for the world to change to fit your dreams

And to the boss ladies reading this, create your own rules! Don’t wait for the world to change to fit your dreams, it’ll never happen. Create the reality that you want to live in, measure and document all your steps, and successes, and do research, as much of it as you have time for. Gather all the data that you can get your hands on, and find ways to make sense of it, to learn from reality what is needed and how you can tap into it with your insightful ideas that will change the world for the better. We are contributing to reality with every thought and every action.
Don’t get discouraged if you see everything is working against you. I’ve learned that nothing really matters, and this has become my motto in life. Not because I don’t care about anything, but because of the bad things that happen along the journey don’t matter.

What people say are just opinions, they are not reality!

I have been told that what we are doing is not possible multiple times. Did that stop me? No, and we made it possible, and we are here now doing it. Because what people say are just opinions, they are not reality!
You are the doer and you can change reality. Consider all the digital solutions we are using nowadays, 20 years ago, none of them existed. Our reality has shifted rapidly, and there are still people who stupidly dare to say something is not possible when actually everything has a probability of being possible at some point in time and space.

My top three skills for humans

1. Empathy – Kindness – Curiosity
To be brave to show people how you are feeling, to open up, to share your frustrations, to let others express their frustrations, to understand the human condition from different life walks, to show others it’s ok to be frustrated, and to be able to not get offended, but keep the conversation up, learn why someone is telling you the thing you don’t like to hear, challenge them about their opinions, learn and teach.
2. Communication – Honesty – Time
To be able to tell people how you feel, what you can do and what you cannot, what is ok and what is not ok. To be brave to say no when you are not interested. To communicate your needs is to be kind to yourself and others. It is respecting your time and other’s time, by sharing thoughts and coming to mutually understood terms about a given situation.
3. Experiments – Learning – Purpose
To continuously learn, in whatever you do, and to know that it’s time to buzz off when you’re not learning anymore. Learning has become so accessible now, so you don’t really have an excuse. And if your excuse is that you are busy working, find work where you will learn what you are most curious to understand about this world before your time here gets close to its end and you realize you haven’t really understood anything.

The post “2,5 years running a startup taught me more real-life skills, than what I had learned at university in 5 years.” – Elisabet Miheludaki, CEO & Founder of amplaffy.io appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

I got my laziness rationalised

I grew up in Haukipudas, a small town in northern Finland on the Kiiminki river delta. We were surrounded by a forest where I explored; trying to catch the colourful pheasants with my home-made spear. It was very close-to-nature: we also did a lot of fishing with dad.

Through my youth, I was often idle. I got through my education with minimal effort, getting good grades without studying or doing homework. Once I was a bit lost with some chemistry and was stressing about memorising it for the exam. My dad then asked “Does the exam matter that much? Wouldn’t understanding matter more?”. I think that stuck in my head, and I got my laziness rationalised.

One summer I found out about online chess. I was familiar with the basics but now I started playing it a lot. In high school, I was distracting myself during the classes with blind chess with my mates. One of the first trips I made after getting my driving license was to the national youth chess championships, on the other side of the country.

At the age of 15, I was convinced that life was about finding peace through deep concentration on difficult subjects

I read a lot and loved the classics; first Tarzans and Zorros, and later Dostoyevsky and Hesse. The existentialists, in particular, removed some of my remaining motivation. How could anything earthly matter? At the age of 15, I was convinced that life was about finding peace through deep concentration on difficult subjects. For me, that was most likely math or physics in academia. Chess is similar too: I can rest my mind by playing, not having to focus on anything else.

I always did lots of sports. I played soccer, ran, and then during winter, I did cross-country skiing. I started combat sports in high school with Taekwondo, and later moved into kickboxing. However once I started working as a developer, I soon quit them. It was just too hard to focus and not get beaten after a rough day. Sparring is quite a mental practice. It took time, but then suddenly there was this silence. No fear, anxiety, or anything else. Just focus. I’ve only experienced that once in an equally pure form; when fetching fishing nets on a particularly rough sea with my dad.

After finishing high school, I had two possibilities: physics or mathematics. The physics exam was first so I only bothered with that one. I was a loner at university, without the discipline for studying. At the time poker was taking off and all my friends were playing. Even my roommate started making money, so why not me too? I invested 50 euros and started from the penny games, rising to tables where I was making 50e per hour. I played an hour or two a day and lived comfortably.

My best way to learn is to do something too difficult for me

While playing poker, my hunger for meaning in life grew. I applied to study literature and philosophy but didn’t have the discipline to get in. Then the next year I applied to do something that came more naturally. I applied for computer science, the exam required no studying and I got full points. I always chose overly difficult programming challenges, e.g. poker AI for the most basic algorithm course exercise. The results weren’t perfect, of course, but that’s how I’ve learnt the best – doing something too difficult.

Then life went on and I moved to Helsinki to live with my girlfriend. At the time poker wasn’t going well. I started looking for developer jobs and once I had finished the basic Java courses, I somehow got one. The company wasn’t succeeding, but this was actually a blessing. My work mattered to the people around me, and there was more of it than one person could manage. People changed jobs and my role grew.

In a succeeding company, I could have gotten more mentoring and comfort, but I needed the challenge more. I think laziness is just a lack of motivation and discipline, and meaningful work can solve both. Back then, entrepreneurship was already a distant dream. I loved building things and I always had some side project going on.

I’m an optimist at heart. If I don’t see why something cannot be done, I assume it can be.

Asking the right question helps a lot. You don’t influence people by telling facts, you ask the perfect questions that trigger them to think. When I got to join the company, Futurice was just selected as the best place to work in Europe. Working there boosted my self-confidence and ambition. In the beginning I looked up to every single person. One year later however, a few beers led us to discuss who was the best developer of the company. Suddenly I was asked: “Why not you?”. I was still relatively junior, but the questions made me think.

At Futurice I also got directed into business books. Trusted Advisor was one that affected me a lot at the time. Although Futurice was a fantastic workplace, I had learned to enjoy the struggle of being underqualified for the task. Until I became an entrepreneur, I moved onto a new challenge every time in less than two years, leaving behind four relatively short jobs.

I started my entrepreneurial journey with all kinds of meet-ups ​

My route into entrepreneurship started from a meet-up visit. I was a regular in local tech gatherings, but it was my first and only time at the “Searching for a Co-Founder” meet-up when I met Sakke. Sakke wanted to see how AI could change the world of patents. He was a physicist with 13 years of patent attorney experience, a background that could have slowly cooked a key innovation for the domain. I had just been working with an idea for a new kind of language model for Finnish. This AI for patents would have many of the same elements, but a much clearer path to value. We started talking, and he shared his idea about the graph model behind all patents.

Slowly it became apparent for us that the search would be in core for any kind of AI-based patent tool. Whatever you intend to do, you need to get to the relevant data. There were existing search engines, of course. The keyword-based ones had no hope of narrowing down something complex, and the free text ones were just fuzzy. Our graph model seemed like a path to something exact. I’m an optimist at heart. If I don’t see why something cannot be done, I assume it can be. So if we can model patents in an exact machine-friendly way, I don’t see why searching patents couldn’t be solved.

Empathy makes a leader

It was clear that we were after something but it wouldn’t happen overnight. I wanted to involve Juuso, my old colleague from when I worked at Adadrive, from the very start. His complimentary technological skillset was important, but what mattered more was his attitude and the ability to grasp the bigger picture better than anyone.

In Adadrive, he was the only one who managed to work across the code base of the whole company. Simply an amazing engineer, but what is at least equally important is his empathy. He always manages to take others’ points of views in account, and that will eventually make him quite a leader.

It gives you a sense of meaning to commit to something uncertain

Sakke and I had created proof-of-concept for the UI, and we had big ideas. Juuso was involved and we seemed to be ready for something. Then things just happened.
We were visiting a meet-up with Sakke and stumbled upon a VC investor. We were way too early for them, but they wanted to introduce us to this earlier stage investor called Icebreaker. The people from Icebreaker end up liking the team and the domain, and suddenly they wanted to invest! We had to seriously think about what we wanted to do, things happened that fast. Regardless, we took the investment, IPRally got officially founded and the real work began.

When building our product, there was one particular part that might have been impossible. We had the UI for graph-based search input, but we wanted the database of tens of millions patent documents to be graphs too.

It might not always be healthy but it also gives you a sense of meaning to commit to something uncertain. We decided to build a parser that converts every single patent document into a graph. Data matters more than the algorithms, and with these graphs our data would be unique.

My peers thought this is a collection of impossibly difficult tasks

When discussing the high-level plan with my developer friends, I could read from their faces they thought it was just a collection of impossibly difficult tasks. Building the parser was hard. There is almost nothing similar to work from as the graph format is novel and you don’t have any training data. But Sakke had the perfect domain knowledge and patent text happens to be quite structured, from the point of view of a machine. We got the parser working with patent claims but there was an issue with speed. We were magnitudes away from a performance that would work for the full texts which can be a hundred times larger.

I was ready to give up but Juuso didn’t agree. He explained that unless we get the complete patent documents converted into graphs, we have no competitive edge. And he wasn’t wrong. I was thinking about solutions every part of the day and even when sleeping. One night a breakthrough hit me. We got past the slug, and suddenly we were able to parse full documents. The first big graphs were bad, and I think Sakke was actually quite shocked. Nevertheless, I was happy and certain that everything remaining could be solved.

It took us one year for us to be able to properly sell the product

We’ve been solving difficult technical challenges from the very beginning to this day. It took us one year to get to the point we could properly sell the product. Now the search engine is so good that the Finnish patent office took it into use. I highly value their opinion, as a patent examiner is the best patent searching expert there is. And we still have lots to improve. It may take years, but we aim to make IPRally the dominant solution for patent searching. And one day, science and technology may be searched with graphs too.

Even compared to the technical breakthroughs, by far the best moments have been when a new person joins our team. Joy, and quite a selfless type as well. You’ve lived for the company, and now the company has become one person larger.

For me, entrepreneurship is the only natural profession

For me entrepreneurship is the only natural profession. You get to create and grow. We plan to turn IPRally into something huge, and if for some reason that didn’t happen, I would start over. If I was a millionaire, I would still be building a company, just with fewer limitations.

Courage alone is not enough of course, but without it, nothing else would matter

It’s an old concept but courage is more important than anything. You need to have integrity, but that doesn’t happen without courage. You need to have difficult conversations, and yes you need to be smart there but without courage that doesn’t help. Courage is the basis for everything. Alone it is not enough of course, but without it, nothing else would matter.

You need to respect yourself. For me one example is losing weight. When I got my motivation and discipline fixed, I got obsessed about becoming the best possible developer but started neglecting my body. You need to be the best version of yourself to succeed, and last autumn I simply stopped any emotion-based use of alcohol and sugar. I may have a beer when I believe it is useful, but not just for fun. I’ve lost 15kg and I don’t plan on going back.

The past is just material for learning

Then you want to combine self-respect with self-acceptance as you will end up in difficult spots and there will be lots of mistakes. Those can be painful but it is important to accept that this is the new reality. The past is just material for learning. You want to be merciful for yourself and others.

Building a company is more difficult than just about anything else, and worrying about the old mistakes is counterproductive. Yet you want to aim to the moon and keep super high standards.

“Perfect is boring, you are what you are and should be happy about it”

I used to be quite nervous and self-critical, and it made me socially awkward at times. It may still show up somewhat. Regardless, the key there is to accept it with self-respect. “Perfect is boring, you are what you are and should be happy about it”.

Without being too full of yourself of course. That’s another big factor, building a team forces you to limit your ego. I was on top of my game as a developer and could have done pretty much any part by myself. But that doesn’t scale, and if you want to empower the team, you need to focus on them to succeed, not you. I think that’s the beauty of building a company, it forces you to find a balance for this difficult equation. It forces you to grow.

The post “If I was a millionaire, I would still be building a company, just with fewer limitations”, Juho Kallio – CTO & Co-Founder of IPRally appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

As a girl, entrepreneurship was definitely a NO

I grew up in a small town, Kota in the Western part of India, in the state of Rajasthan. One of the most beautiful yet patriarchal parts of the country. From a very young age, I understood the existing bias and privileges prevailing in society. I was lucky to be born in a family that valued the importance of education, for their son and daughter equally. However, society would remind you every now and then, what you are supposed to do and whatnot as a girl, and entrepreneurship was definitely a NO.

I remember during the economic depression, I was 7-8 years old and people would come to my home and try to convince my parents that their daughter doesn’t need to go to a good school, it will help to save some money during the financial crisis. Luckily, my parents tried to keep me away from these things, they always told me I could do whatever I want to. However, as a kid, I think it did impact the way I would see myself. Ultimately, it was also one of those childhood experiences that made me who I am today.

We came from a very humble background with my parents working in a day job, we had no connections to entrepreneurship in our family. Having your own business was considered very risky and only for those who have plenty of money.

I knew I would become an engineer even before I knew what it means

I wanted to become an astronaut and a physicist when I was young. Of course, science and maths were the only two streams that made you a responsible person as per the society. I was no different, I knew I would become an engineer even before I knew what it meant, luckily for me, I loved studying science and maths. Later, I did study physics and became an Electronics & Communications Engineer.

However, a part of me always went out for those girls in our society who were the victims of the patriarchy, poverty and were not allowed to go to school. I decided to take action and do something about it. I started reaching out to families, encouraging them to send their girls to school. When I was 14, I started teaching some of those girls at my home, I borrowed some money from my parents for books, pencils and it began. It was also then, I entered into public-speaking, raising awareness about educating young girls in our society. I continue to teach and mentor young girls from the rural parts of India twice every week through an online platform, eVidyaloka.

Take action for what I believe in, not to wait for others to solve it for you and create an impact that makes you happy

I think this was my beginning, something years later I realised, influenced me strongly to take action for what I believe in, not to wait for others to solve it for you and create an impact that makes you happy. This experience shaped my journey even before I knew I would take a plunge in the entrepreneurial world. But before that realization, I was still too much influenced by the norms of the society, and the path I thought was the answer to everything.

I graduated as an Electronics engineer in 2012 and in India, the sector was still very small and highly male-dominated. Also, the IT boom was happening, and I decided to go with the flow. Joining the first company, I had a huge student loan and I did not really have many choices back then. I worked very hard and got a job in one of the world’s largest IT corporate firms. I thought this was it, I have achieved what I planned for, so many girls from my home town were not even given an opportunity to achieve this much. But, who knew it was just my first step.

There’s a feeling of not belonging as a woman of colour working in the tech industry

I worked in the IT sector for long and got an opportunity to work with many international clients across the globe. One of my clients was a big telecom company from Finland and that is how I landed up here, consulting them. The one thing that was common working for all the international clients as a woman of colour in tech, was the feeling of not belonging.

I asked my colleagues about it, some of them felt the same and some did not, so I thought maybe there is something wrong with me. I started reading more about diversity management, inclusion and did some training. I was a tech consultant for the Human resource department, so I volunteered to handle the Learning & Development aspect of my project. I gained more knowledge but implementing changes in corporate companies was not easy.

When I physically came to Finland to work, something took me back to my childhood. I had the same feeling I had back then, a feeling of being excluded and not being valued at the workplace or in society. There were many small incidents within the workplace, happening because of the sheer ignorance of understanding different cultures, values, and non-inclusive leadership. This was causing anger, dissatisfaction, and even distance within the teams. Some of my colleagues felt the same, but nobody ever said anything, the message was clear, you work the way it is or you leave. Many of them left for the next opportunity they got, but I knew I had to do something, take action on my own to solve my challenges. This was not something that can not be changed, everyone wants to work in a good workplace, feel good, and be a good leader, they just did not know how to.

I had huge emotions attached about representing all those who never got or will get a chance to raise their voice

My inspiration was my younger self, who taught me that if anything is bothering you, do something about it. I had a strong motivation to create a society I want to live in – a place that was fair, where I could feel that I belong without any labels.

I just wanted to be seen as me with all my uniqueness, differences, similarities, and get an equal opportunity to grow. And I had huge emotions attached about representing all those who never got or will get a chance to speak. And then I knew, I want to do something to make a world where everyone could get equal opportunities in their life. That is what I always wanted.

While I was working as a consultant, I already decided to learn more about entrepreneurship, and the best way I knew how to do it was by going back to university. So I applied for an MBA, all the application deadlines were closed but I managed to get a place in Lappeenranta. I always wanted to do an MBA and I was happy I could do it in Finland. I went to school 2-3 days in Lappeenranta and worked during weekdays in Helsinki. It was challenging and I understood, I need to give it my 100 percent to succeed.

That is when I quit my corporate job, in a foreign country, with no networks, no language skills, no knowledge of entrepreneurship, and suddenly no source of income. My family was worried about my decision but happily supported me. I first needed to find out what I will do and how will I follow my passion. So after quitting my job, I continued doing MBA a few days a week, and the rest of the days I was in Helsinki working with different startups, volunteering in almost every possible event, and attending every relevant workshop I saw was happening. I finally started understanding what entrepreneurship actually meant and how to go about it. During this time I also met people who later became the backbone of my business.

Nobody looking like me was doing public speaking in Finland about Diversity and Inclusion

I slowly entered into public speaking in Finland, speaking about Diversity and Inclusion in English as an immigrant when nobody looking like me was doing it, I guess it was 2017. It was a challenge, to get the audience, or to even convince people to let you speak because nobody knows you. But I took every chance I got to share my message, from student platforms like Student Talks, startup events, to bigger platforms like Nordic Business Forum speaker contest.

Slowly, things were falling in place, people started knowing me and they understood what I was speaking was important. During this time, I also finished my MBA, and from being an active speaker about my cause and freelancing for almost 3 years, setting up my company was a natural next step. I was doing it for so long that finally setting up a company did not come as a surprise, it was just as planned. I put in all the groundwork required and then I finally took the plunge.

The key to attract, engage, retain diverse and international talents within the companies

In retrospect, that was a very good decision to build a network and get clarity on my business idea by experimenting before I finally registered an entity. I registered my company, BusinessWiz Oy in 2019 with a vision to help businesses become more diverse and inclusive. Our mission is to encourage and assist organizations to create a workplace culture that is profitable for the company and also provides an equal opportunity to every employee regardless of their labels.

It is also the key to attract, engage, and retain diverse & international talents within the companies, combat the skill gap, and help in their internationalization process. There is a huge business case for being diverse and inclusive, we try to raise awareness about it and tell the companies how to use it to become more productive, innovative, and profitable.

The importance of understanding diversity and creating an inclusive workplace for Finnish companies

I started the company with my business and life partner, Samuli Yrjönen, who happens to be the Business Director of a construction company. As a Finnish man, he understood the privileges he had in his career. Previously he was the youngest manager at 30 in a company where the average age of decision-makers was above 50, he realised the importance of understanding diversity for Finnish companies and helping them create an inclusive workplace culture, something which is clearly missing at the moment.

However, due to his full-time job he mostly remains a strategic partner, helping me understand the Finnish marketplace and our customers. It also helps our company to see situations and solutions from different perspectives, we think it is our greatest strength to have diversity within the core team.

The people I had worked for free or as a freelancer, became our first clients

Within a month of starting BusinessWiz, the people I had worked for free or as a freelancer, became our first clients. Until now we have helped leaders from over 40 companies to understand the business case for diversity & inclusion. Most of them were from my network.

I also believe in collaborating with different actors in the industry. For example, I collaborate with different entities working on the same topics like International Working Women of Finland Ry, European Digital Society, Inklusiiv, Huipulle Naiset, CBW Global, We Encourage, and other entrepreneurs to bring together solutions and create a bigger impact. We are also now looking forward to expanding, having more employees but also looking towards other markets.

Entrepreneurship gave me this confidence that I can inspire other people

My journey of learning, preparing, and then being an entrepreneur has been very empowering. It has given me more confidence to take risks, believe in myself, and create an impact on something I strongly believe in. Growing up in a society that keeps telling you what you should and what you should not do, it makes you question yourself at times. It is challenging when people see you as a bad example of choosing the life you want, but my family was the best gift I could ever have.

They supported me in all my decisions and gave me the courage to do something I wanted to do. I get many messages and comments from young Indian girls, telling me that it is inspiring to see someone pave the way for us. Entrepreneurship gave me this confidence that I can inspire other people.

It was like you want to bake a cake but you don’t know what on earth is sugar

And then I decided to explore this journey in Finland. A place where I knew nobody, did not know the language, or the culture, I was using up all my savings and had no financial security, it was like you want to bake a cake but you don’t know what on earth is sugar. But I learned, I met people, I attended events, I volunteered, I worked for different startups, I tried different ideas and it all worked. I met my now business and life partner who helped me throughout the journey navigating all the challenges. It would not have been possible to start this business without his support, his understanding of the Finnish marketplace, and his help in bridging the language gap.

A three-day workshop in Sweden was my turning point

One day, I randomly walked into a workshop happening in a hotel. They were talking about how to be a speaker and build a business around it. I purchased the ticket for a three-day workshop in Sweden and that event was my turning point.

I had been speaking and freelancing about diversity and inclusion for almost 3 years, but I had way too many ideas on how it could be turned into a business and everything I could do. But this event helped me streamline my thoughts and gave me clarity. Sometimes, you are so involved in your idea that you don’t see the obvious, that moment it is essential to have a mentor, coach, or just a friend to brainstorm with you.

I promote inclusion because it is the way I want to be treated within a company

It is still challenging at times, Finland is very new to the concept of diversity, the understanding is not very high about why having a heterogeneous team is beneficial for the company, or how to manage the diverse teams and create a good workplace culture. I have to create a business case for companies to show them the benefit.

People tell me that you have picked a very difficult topic to work with and my answer is always the same. It is not just a topic for me, it is the way I want to be treated myself inside a company, it is my way to put an effort to create a workplace everyone would love to work in and a future of work that works for everyone.

I was a social entrepreneur back then without even realizing

I was definitely not born an entrepreneur or at least I did not know what it meant for a very long time. All my associations of being an entrepreneur were negative. But now when I look back to my teen self, I think I always had the urge to do something about a problem that bothers me, I was a social entrepreneur back then without even realizing.

My favourite aspect of being an entrepreneur is the freedom and creativity you can put into solving challenges that matter to you. Looks like I fit nicely into the “millennial stereotype”.

Entrepreneurship became my lifestyle, now I can’t think of being anything else

I think I had some aspects of being an entrepreneur in me but I acquired a majority of them along the way. It slowly became a lifestyle, now I can’t think of being anything else. I like the fact that I am putting efforts into building something I believe in, working for others especially for a cause I don’t relate to would not be very satisfactory.

The one thing I don’t like about it is it makes you judge yourself if you take a break or if you couldn’t make a timeline or couldn’t reach your targets. In the beginning, I would beat myself a lot, but now I have grown a bit wiser. I understand that your cause and work are important, but the most important thing is your mental and physical health.

I try to stay fit, I am a martial artist (Wing Tsun Kung fu), I train almost 8h-10h every week. I meditate and read books. I realized giving excuses to myself at the expense of my well-being was not smart for me or for the business. I like to have focused working hours and free time for my well-being and family. But still, there are days when I end up saying, I could have done more. I am working on it.

Enjoy the present while you envision your future

Entrepreneurship has definitely helped me in my personal life quite a lot. I have the freedom to design my own work schedules. I have become more grateful as a human being, going through challenges help you appreciate what you have and help you enjoy the present while you envision your future.

I have somewhat achieved a good balance in my life, I know what makes me happy and that is what I pursue. In my opinion, having a strong sense of purpose and vision is very important for an entrepreneur. If what you are doing is close to your heart, and you feel strongly about the purpose or the impact you are creating, it will help you keep going towards your vision and remain persistent in your efforts.

Investing in your well-being is the utmost priority

I would recommend the entrepreneurs invest their time in continuous learning, self-development, building strong networks, and most importantly investing in their well-being. For someone who is just starting out, ask yourself do you want to do it because it sounds cool? Or is it really something that would make you jump out of your bed in the morning?

I would also recommend them to keep experimenting, most of the time your final offering would be very different from what you originally thought. Especially, if you don’t know exactly how or what will be your solution or you are struggling to find your passion, keep testing ideas, and experiment, it will give you clarity.

You can not make everyone happy and that is not what you’re supposed to do

In my personal life, I was being influenced too much from the outside world, my community, and society. I learned that you can not make everyone happy and that is not what you are even meant to do. I had to learn to stop seeking validation outside and start believing in myself. And today, I feel very happy about all my small and big achievements in life.

In professional life and as an entrepreneur, I learned that things don’t always go as planned. You need to be able to adapt quickly, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. I learned to stop focussing on short-term goals and rather keep an eye for the long game.

These two attitude shifts, of believing in myself and focussing the long game took time to come by but once I learned it has helped me in many situations.

The post “I quit my corporate job in a foreign country to explore my passion with no networks, no Finnish skills, no knowledge of entrepreneurship and suddenly, with no source of income”, Priyanka Banerjee – Co-founder and CEO at BusinessWiz appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.

Listening to my father’s stories made me the entrepreneur I am today

I was born and raised in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon; which is more familiar and welcoming to all Vietnamese. As a child, I was very close to my father – Lap. I remember listening to his stories and lessons about finance. He would talk about how to control cash flow, how to sell a product, and most importantly, how to keep promises and earn trust.

He is an entrepreneur himself, with a very good reputation in his network. I would always be easily recognized by my father’s friends or teachers as “the son of Mr. Lap”. My journey to becoming an entrepreneur was led by my father’s example, and I still follow it today.

Being an entrepreneur and a parent can be double the pressure but I’m lucky my family is a solid supporting force

Before Reactron Technologies, I was already working as an entrepreneur. I always know that I want to learn more and can do more than a normal full-time job. Therefore, during my free time after work, I would join some startup companies and work as a freelancer. Luckily, my wife and family are very supportive of what I have been doing. They always encourage me to be a full-time entrepreneur because they know that I can do much better than just some freelancing work.

I am a workaholic. Many years ago, I used to work 10-12 hours per day and during the weekends. My wife has sacrificed a lot to take care of the family. I must admit I am really lucky to have a life partner like her. After a while working non-stop, I have gained a great deal of experience, know-how to better manage my time, and learned to efficiently reduce working hours so as to have more quality time with my family. One unbreaking rule is that I must have at least one full day during the weekend for my family.

"If you want to change the world, do it while you’re single. Once you’re married, you can't even change the TV channel”

There is a fun saying: “If you want to change the world, do it while you’re single. Once you’re married, you can’t even change the TV channel”. I think it’s true somehow. When you’re running a business, you will always feel like you’re running out of time or there are too many things to complete. Now, imagine you have to halve your time for both work and family. That is like double the mountain of pressure.

However, I consider myself very lucky for having my family as a solid supporting force. Whenever I finish work, I always have a place to fall back on, with my wife and two little angels. Especially with my youngest daughter, all I ever need is to hug her tightly, and all of my burdens will be gone while what’s left is pure happiness. To me and many international families that I know, Finland is one of the best countries to have a family and settle down. With its high-quality educational system, plentiful social welfare, good healthcare, and a green peaceful living environment, Finland gives us the most ideal work-life balance that everyone is aiming for.

It’s hard to find the right team and the right co-founder but eventually, the right time came

I started my journey as an entrepreneur with Jarvis Luong, my Co-Founder. I met him four years ago when both of us worked together in the same startup company. Although I was his supervisor, after just two months, he outshone me in technologies and actually began to teach me. I thought I won a big lottery knowing such a genius.

Picking out a co-founder is a very complex task. Alongside his technical skills, Jarvis has a really great personality, discipline, work ethics, and a hunger to learn new things. We shared a similar vision and had a good history of working together as well as a mutual understanding. We both recognized that our strengths complemented each other. He has everything that I have always wanted in a partner.

Our core team members are also from our close networks

Although the startup turned out to fail we both kept in touch. One day, Jarvis approached me and told me that he would like to found a consultant company with me. Since we both have existing clients, it makes much more sense to merge the networks and work together. That moment is when I knew the right time had come. Shortly afterward, Reactron Technologies was founded.

It was both nerve-racking yet exciting at the same time, to finally be able to do what I love. With the help of our Sales Partner, Mr. Jussi Pitkänen, the stones needed to build the foundation of our company were steadily put in place. Our core team members are also from our close networks, so it was very easy to kick off. We have had so much fun working together since.

Watching talented and amazing people gradually bonding into a family is what keeps me going every day

The most satisfying moments would be receiving positive feedback from clients and the first time our company organized a team bonding get-together, known as Reactival. It was in December 2019 when the full team managed to reunite for the very first Reactival.

We talked, laughed, and wrote our goals and wishes for the company in 2020. I was lost for words reading all the sticky notes hung on the whiteboard. Everyone had so many plans to work and grow with the company, and nothing could make a Co-Founder happier than that. Observing the group of such talented and amazing people gradually bonding into a family is what keeps me going every day.

Coronavirus pandemic has interrupted our expansion

However, the coronavirus pandemic has interrupted our expansion and become the biggest challenge for us. We had to slow down our company’s growth and pause some planned projects to balance our finance. No one had ever thought of such a dangerous pandemic and its drastic damage on a global scale. So, my key takeaway would be to always prepare for the worst. Be flexible and have plenty of backup plans, because in a fast-paced and unpredictable world like entrepreneurship, you will never know what happens next.

As a co-founder, I often encourage my team to leverage their free time and learn something new. This will help draw them away from negative thoughts, especially during this pandemic crisis. On the other hand, they’re equipped with new knowledge which will not only benefit them personally, but it will also help the company grow faster and meet more requirements from the clients once the market starts warming up again. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone.

We often update the team with positive news from our finance prospect as well as clients so that everyone can rest assured and just concentrate on their work. I always try my best to organize online meetups so that the team can bond and catch up with each other. Running the business as a family gives the members a sense of belonging, and that is what makes them invested in the company.

I’m an entrepreneur because I want to have all the freedom to create, innovate and do what I love

Founding my own company has affected my life quite significantly. Since the company is new, and there are so many things to solve, I get busier and have less time for family. Nonetheless, my wife is very supportive and it’s what gives me the strength to keep moving forward. She helps me pursue the freedom to create, innovate and do what I love. Which is why I want to be an entrepreneur in the first place.

I enjoy that being an entrepreneur allows me to make decisions that others will follow and I love working hard because I know there are no shortcuts to success. When you’re born into an entrepreneurial family you will somehow take on the mindset. I believe that’s where I got my entrepreneur’s spirit.

You’re not as smart as you think you are - there’s always something new to learn

The three top skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur are a willingness to learn, a capability to listen, and perseverance. Firstly, you need to have that hunger for knowledge and improvement if you don’t want to get left behind in this constantly changing world. You will also need to learn how to listen and importantly how to listen actively. You don’t just hear words. You will need to listen carefully to the hidden wishes, the unspoken difficulty, and the changes in your surroundings in order to fully understand and make informed decisions.

A company is not a one-man entity

A company is a team, not a one-man entity. You need to let your teammates know that their voices are heard. Take Apple as an example. Steve Jobs wouldn’t have made such a ground-breaking success story if he hadn’t had a great team and listened to their opinions. Lastly, perseverance is vital in helping the entrepreneur continue walking their own path.

Invest your time in learning. It will only do you good if you know something new, especially when you’re working as an entrepreneur where you need to know a lot of different things. No matter how smart you are, you’re not as smart as you think. There is always something that you can learn in life. Whether it’s something out of a textbook, or a stupid tutorial on YouTube about how to contour your feet — there’s always knowledge you haven’t absorbed yet. Keep absorbing. Keep learning. Keep improving.

Similarly, go out of your comfort zone and join as many startup conferences or communities as you can. Go out and meet other people, you will learn a lot and get enough knowledge or spirit, then you can start your own journey with great partners.

The post “I used to work 10-12 hours per day including weekends” – Trung Nguyen, CEO & Co-founder of Reactron Technologies appeared first on Entrepreneurs of Finland.