Arctic Startup

Talk about clear value proposition? How about getting your own webstore opened and running within one minute? That’s how it works with MyCashflow, a recently opened service for creating your own shop on the web.

With signing up, the Middle Finland-based company instantly sets you up with search engine optimized store including most usual payment methods, inventory management, and easy admin tool. The subscription-based plans range several options from free, max 10-product store, to an unlimited premium one currently priced at EUR 249/month.

The service is currently provided only in Finnish, but listen up as the co-founder Ismo Ruotsalainen tells more about the company.

1. Could you introduce briefly what MyCashflow is all about?

MyCashflow is an elegant webstore software designed for small businesses and web designers.

2. How do you position yourself against and differentiate from the
other webstore providers?

There are lots of differences. For example, you can open your own webstore in few seconds, but I think the most important ones are the admin interface and HTML/CSS themes.

The admin interface is practical and dead simple to use. We have been working hundreds of hours to improve workflow and productivity. We’ve got tons of great feedback about our admin interface – people really like to use it.

HTML/CSS themes are something what web designers really respect. Finally they can design premium quality webshops without any programming experience. They just embed codes like {ShoppingCart} into HTML-template.

3. Can you let us know what led you to the idea for MyCashflow?

There’s nothing particular. We have worked with webshops for a long time and the idea just evolved naturally. We noticed that there is a lot of need for improvements in the e-commerce software business and thought that we have a lot to give.

4. What have been the early successes and challenges with releasing your service?

We launched 2 months ago and there are 350 shops at a moment. Also web designers have been pleased to MyCashflow. There are now more than 10 marketing agencies that use our service. Whole thing has started well but there are still lots of things to do.

5. What can we expect from MyCashflow in the future? Are you going to release international versions?

MyCashflow is designed for the global market, that’s why the English name. We started with Finnish version on purpose, because we wanted to learn how to walk before running. Finland is like a beta-test or a dress rehearsal.

Global, multilingual version is a next big step. First step of testing starts in few weeks and we launch when we are ready.

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Thanks Ismo, and good luck to MyCashflow with rolling out the service on a large scale! With all the talk regarding entrepreneurs and small businesses not utilizing web enough in their business, there should be healthy demand for a simple and fast to adapt no-nonsense solution.

I did a video interview of Kai Lemmetty and Joonas Pekkanen from Floobs some time in February. I never had time to edit and go through the video, but I finally managed to do so in the Easter holidays. During the editing of the video, I noticed that the add-on microphone was slightly faulty and it only recorded the left channel - therefore the sound quality is quite bad, apologies for that. Nevertheless, I decided its better to release the video late than never - so here it is:

Alma Media, or more precisely Iltalehti has bought the Finnish online TV-guide Telkku.com.

Telkku.com gathers over 500 000 unique visitors each week and is growing. Our guesses are that Alma Media is growing Iltalehti to be the biggest online “portal” in Finland. Many of the media sites are still lacking in innovative revenue models apart from the traditional display advertising and thus the more unique visitors you gather the better media you are when the advertiser considers her options.

It remains to be seen, whether Telkku.com will remain independent under the Iltalehti brand or not.

(via HS)

Following up Antti’s recent post regarding the importance of growth companies, some observations regarding entrepreneurship education here.

A while ago I had a chat with a Canadian exchange student, and learned there is a special government summer program in Canada to promote youth entrepreneurship. The program is called Summer Company. For 15-29 years old students, whose planned business is eligible (there are some restrictions, e.g. partnerships, franchises, or distributorships are not accepted) the program offers the following:

• Up to $1,500 to help with business start-up costs
• An additional $1,500 in the fall after successfully completing the Summer Company program (students must give regular updates on their cash flow and keep a business journal throughout the summer)
• At least 12 hours of business training to get started
• An opportunity to meet every two weeks with a business mentoring group

The student I was discussing with told me that while the majority of the companies founded in this program are simple, like “lawn mowing enterprises”, nothing prevents from being more ambitious - this friend for example had founded an energy audit firm, which faced booming demand after a few weeks. By the end of the summer the founder faced a difficult solution - should he build the business further, hiring employees, or, come to Finland to do the exchange. Well, he decided to come over since he’d been planning that for over a year, but not before he sold the company forward with a hefty profit.

Now, I know there are some high school entrepreneurship programs in Finland where the pupils found companies for one school year, but in my opinion something similar to the Canadian program targeted to all undergrads would be really welcome also, don’t you think? It would provide the possibility to safely explore entrepreneurship (while receiving professional guidance), and also to employ yourself, should one not get a summer job. And who knows, maybe we’d see occasional stars also rising from these kinds of startups.

Well, there is at least Helsinki School of Creative Entrepreneurship, but it’s only open for students from the participating design, business, and technology universities (TaiK, HSE, and TKK). The concept is great anyway: students will be put into teams where they get some prominent research project or company assignment to commercialize, while studying business skills hands-on and getting mentoring (check out HSCE Creativity Bootcamps by the way).

Are there any similar schools/programs elsewhere in Finland? Anything already existing that could be extended to national level?

There’s been some discussion on the American entrepreneur blogs about Twitter’s business model. Apparently the discussion spread first on Twitter, then blogs started picking it, such as the CenterNetworks, A VC, Jason Calacanis and even Evan Williams himself (founder of Twitter).

The general concensus among the opinion seems to be that you don’t need a business model as long as you can scale and build a mass of million. Calacanis even goes on to say, “Running a startup is NOT about revenue anymore–it’s about critical mass.” However, in the next paragraph he states something that applies to Finland quite well, “…if you’re not a player like Ev, and you don’t have unlimited access to capital do not take this advice and focus on building revenue streams.”

The fact that venture capital is very limited in Finland, many Finnish startups need a viable business model a lot sooner than startups in Silicon Valley. I think this is something that European startups in general face a lot more than their US counterparts as our domestic markets are culturally very fragmented and thus building mass is more difficult in Europe.

In Finland, the most successful startups have had viable business plans and done relatively well revenue wise. Even if you look at the fastest growing startups that have been successful in the recent years, they have all had a business model in place. Dynamoid (ran IRC-Galleria), that was bought by Sulake, has a business model and it’s profit margins were in the 30s percentage wise (source). Sulake Corporation hasn’t been turning a profit yet, but has income in the millions (source). Another good example is Futurice (source). The only one that didn’t have a viable business model in place from the early days is Jaiku (easily comparable to Twitter), which was acquired by Google October last year.

So am I alone in my thoughts about business models and Finnish startups or is there someone who agrees? I am not judging which way is better - scaling or building revenue streams, but merely making a statement. Which ones do you see more viable or applicable in Finland/Europe - do we have a choice?

Update: Just wanted to add that all these startups I talked about above are internet companies. Futurice perhaps the least, but they do have business online.