Morning seminar: Virtual Communities as a Tool for New Businesses

April 15th 2008
Miikka Kukkosuo

Technopolis

Technopolis and Technopolis Ventures organize a brief morning seminar on April 29th in Espoo with a theme “Virtual Communities as a Tool for New Businesses”. The free of charge event is quite short, light even, but does feature a keynote from the software business research legend David G. Messerschmitt, what might make it just worth your visit.

More information and registration (due April 24th).

Get your webstore running quicker than you can say MyCashflow

April 15th 2008
Miikka Kukkosuo

MyCashFlowTalk 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.

TechCrunch finds Scred

April 3rd 2008
Antti Vilpponen

Scred.comThere’s some good comments being thrown around as Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch interviewed the developers of Scred in Amsterdam’s NextWeb Conference. There are a lot of competitor’s names as well and it just shows what kind of competition you usually end up with once you execute.

I’d be even daring to say that the idea is nothing, execution is everything.

What’s happening to Jaiku today?

April 2nd 2008
Antti Vilpponen

Something’s definitely happening in the UK and Mountain View today - according to Petteri’s Jaiku post. Petteri is the co-founder of Jaiku working in the UK, while Jyri Engestrom is working in Mountain view with his wife and son.

Yesterday we got our 20 invites and Petteri even replied to his Jaiku announcing those invites as “OK, sounds good. Expect some news shortly :)” - we’re on the lookout!

Eniram takes in a significant boost from Conor Venture Partners

March 27th 2008
Miikka Kukkosuo

EniramEniram received a major investment from Conor Venture Partners earlier this month. The exact amount was not disclosed, but it’s believed to be around €1 million (major by Finnish standards). The purpose of the investment is to strengthen Eniram’s marketing and sales operations in order to expand globally.

Eniram was founded in 2005 as a spin-off from US-based engineering consultant Edec, which remains a partner to Eniram. Eniram focuses on the maritime industry, providing system integration solutions allowing its customers to save costs and lower emissions through lower fuel consumption. The team reportedly has a great deal of knowledge of the industry and software development. The rumor also has it that Pekka Roine from Conor joined Eniram’s board, bringing the company extensive experience of running technology and software business.

Press release.