The Unsung Hero
In the stories, the hero fights for the people, faces failure and great uncertainty, and ultimately wins.
In Finland, we think he’s a fool who thinks he’s better than everyone else, disrespects the rules and is probably Finnish-Swedish.
Entrepreneurs are the same. They are opportunists and idealists. In its original French, the word means: somebody who will attempt to create something.
On one hand it’s a risky, lonely and difficult endeavor. But on the other hand, it’s thrilling, challenging and potentially offers great returns (value, jobs). I believe we Europeans, and especially in Finland, spend too much time focusing on the former and not enough on the latter.
This country has its share of negativity. We’re often happy to complain about our bureaucrats and consultants, lack of experience and money, the failures, the taxes, the weather and the suicide rate. The culture here promotes equality, so we defend ourselves when we try to differ. In an “I told you so” mindset, we’re happy to point out the others who tried and failed.
It is a telling thing that the most commented stories on this blog are about the failures of Fruugo, Nokia, and our tax system.
Yes, people fail. So what?
Even the best do: Google has failed with Wave and Buzz, Apple with the Apple TV and the iPhone 4 antenna, Facebook with Beacon and privacy. But this is not what we remember and praise them for.
I have no lesson to give to Finns about determination. But just as you can’t raise children without ever encouraging them, we need to inspire people and give them hope if we want great things to happen.
We have to recognize success.
I salute our public funding organizations, particularly Tekes and Tuli for fostering young innovation, Sulake for restructuring, Muxlim for receiving a prize from the president, Audiodraft on their media coverage, Arcticstartup for creating a blog scene in the country, many local startups on their recent rounds of funding, the local scene for becoming more international and pushing to the Baltics, the media for their increased interest. We must recognize success, not only when it fits our agendas, and not just when it’s a big thing.
We need to educate young people.
Tell them about how rewarding it is to have your first prototype, your first users and paying people, your first failure, funding round, conference and maybe even exit.
I thank the entrepreneurship societies in Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and soon Oulu, as well as the coaches at programs such as Bootcamp, Summer of Startups and Garage48 in Estonia, for telling the new blood that it’s doable and giving them an environment to experience this.
We must discuss with the media and our politicians on these matters.
Explain them why it’s important to focus on small and medium size companies, rather than emulating the next Nokia. Talk about success stories of startups and the amounts of value that can be created. Tell them about the changes that are happening right under their noses.
The deficit of the Finnish budget for next year is 8Bn euros. I say that’s only 2 Skypes or 8 MySQLs. As Tom Keller said: “One thing that is wrong with the Finnish startup ecosystem: that people think that there is something wrong with it.”
Here here!
Ramine, thank you for the choice of an excellent topic! It sure is important to bring entrepreneurship into the discussions, and of course, not only discuss but do something. And you do! The unnecessary fear of the failure is often deeply rooted in us, at school I think. The Summer of Startups for young students (not yet stuck in traditions) is a great initiative; I wish there had been such when I graduated and was thinking about career alternatives. However, it is never too late – I am an example of it. After years of “corporate life” it is very refreshing and rewarding to be an entrepreneur. Even in Finland. Looking forward to your next post!
Good post Ramine, especially the reference to Keller's words really stopped and made me rethink all of this!
ps. Your comment "probably Finnish-Swedish" is a good proof of your deep understanding on Finnish culture ;)
ramine, great post!
promoting innovation and entrepreneurship is on the lips of many politicians around the globe and in many cases budgets exist to support the creation of new companies and quality jobs (another topic that is on the front burner)
my observations on countries in europe is that where money is spent and policy-making is too often decided by people that fail to understand what entrepreneurship is all about and so i see poor results. so you idea to use media and educate policy makers is right on
cheers
george
ps: the u.s. has its own obstacles not least dysfunctional immigration policies
Great post Ramine!
BTW what about Oulu's entrepreneurship society you briefly mentioned, can you share more details about it?
Thanks for the comments.
Well there's the Center for Media Excellence or something which is starting an ES. They will be in Helsinki for the ES summit :) I'm pretty excited to see Oulu getting one also!
Thanks Ramine. I fully agree with you.
As you happen to mention MySQL, here some related reflections.
I think one key element in making MySQL successful was the positive culture in the organization. The team strove to focus on the positive, giving authority to people doing well, and not broadly dig and dwell in problems. In short: Promote positive thinking&results and contain negativity.
Certainly, a few challenges did exist that could have used some more attention internally (as always), but overall and to a much larger extent this culture was essential in so rapidly producing a highly productive, positive and forward-driving team on a global level.
A lot of credit on this goes to the CEO (Marten) who through his personal example planted and expanded the mentality in the Company.
amen! complaining and throwing stones from the sidelines is the easy way out. if, could, should, would. get over it. there are always reasons how anything could be improved or might fail....so what....the world marches forward....what are you going to do about it?
dream it, believe it, do it....use negativity as motivation.
I fully agree with the importance of encouragement and making entrepreneurship a desirable career choice, this is supported by academic research on entrepreneurship. ES's are doing it for students but also as Riitta pointed out - ane maybe we need more than ArcticStartup - to reach those who have a career path in the industry already.
Just a little detail. My French is quite weak, but I think that the word entrepreneur comes from entre (in between) and prendre (to take). The simplest and oldest entrepreneur was a trader or artisan, someone who bought something with a lower price and sold it with a higher price, often by creating something of raw material (e.g. a tool or a cloth). Maybe there's some other explination as well?
Entre and Prendre are good. A more direct translation would be "undertaking" as is "this is a considerable undertaking", however in common english, entreprise is a more adequate word :)
Ditto & kudos!
Hi & thanks for excellent analysis of different sides of Entrepreneurship in Finland.
Despite of many risks and challenges entrepreneurship offers great personal learning experience, it increases your productivity at least 50% (compared to previous jobs) and motivates to live & work everyday more fully - unlike in bigger organisations where internal political battles, policies and current strategies can not be much changed.
In general I believe that SME's are this nations hope of future, because small firms are much more agile, innovative and usually also more productive. It is a fact because in smaller company your work and results can really be seen and recognized, motivation level is usually better and people have sense of having their future road in their own hands.
Therefore too black-and-white image of Entrepreneurship should be changed in public medias and especially in minds of politicians. It is our task to spread this word and have the right attitude to tell about all new opportunities in our industry, as well as try to collaborate more with those who make the decisions about growth money sharing, initiatives etc.
We must think and behave with "yes we can" attitude.. usually thinking positively leads to much better achievements!
Thanks!