ArcticStartup have earlier reported about a promising Nordic visual search engine initiative – the Stockholm based Spezify.com, a visual multimedia search engine founded by Felix af Ekenstam and Per Persson, digital creatives and freelancers. Their concept have a great potential to grab a big piece of this market. Continue reading »
Spezify, Doing Well In The Visual Search Boom
Sales Guy vs. Web Dude
I know this is old and most of you have probably seen it, but I just had to share this with you. I tumbled into the video again and could not stop watching. If you’re having a heavy and hectic day, take a few minutes to watch this. Its worth it and best of all, its true. A Classic!
The Bad And The Ugly: Entrepreneurship In Europe and In Northern Europe
This is one of those issues that is always topical and never gets a clear answer. Why do we comparatively suck so bad at building companies in Europe and especially here in the arctic latitudes vis-a-vis our cousins in the US. In the age of the Internet and ‘born global’ it has to be more than the size of the home market. Now, I’m not saying things have to be that way, nor am I saying that things are not changing. They are and we, but to what extent and what is it exactly that we need to change?
Here’s a video of a group of prominent European and US entrepreneurs arguing around the topic. The one just below is from this year’s LeWeb and the one below that from 2008 (when we took the Sauna Truck to France with a group of Finnish startups). Both videos are insightful, but even more than that they are entertaining. Make sure not to miss these.
The third video is Mårten Mickos‘ brilliant talk about entrepreneurship in general and entrepreneurship in Finland in particular from last night at Aalto Entrepreneurs Society gathering. The talk is a must see for every single entrepreneur regardless of the continent they are building their startup in, but it also sheds light into the cultural challenges that are in the way of building world’s biggest anything.
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Richard Youngman: Why Copenhagen Does Not Matter For Cleantech Startups
We visited Lahti Cleantech Venture Day a few weeks ago and were able to talk to Richard Youngman of Cleantech Group. Richard is based in Cleantech Group’s office in London and is responsible for the company’s global membership offering – its industry-leading data, research, and conferences – as well as driving the growth of the group’s activities in Europe, India and the Middle East.
In the first video we discussed what will happen in 2010 in cleantech and whether Youngman believes the cleantech market in India is finally catching fire.
We also talked in length why he believes Copenhagen does not matter. As we all know, the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) is going on in Copenhagen, Denmark right now. Businesses have already a long time argued for a clear road map what kinds of policies governments will implement, what will be taxed, what will be supported and so on. The missing clarity will inhibit or at least defer all the investment decision to the new technology, which in turn influences the number and the amount of investments, trade sales and even IPOs in the sector, when nobody knows what horse to bet on. Youngman argued it’s not quite as what is seems. See the videos below for more.
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Downsides Of Running A Business In The Silicon Valley? (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places. This is the final post of the series. See also the previous posts on the differences between VC firms, how to enter the US market and our chat with Mårten Mickos.
I talked with two seasoned entrepreneurs, Risto and Markus, who live in Silicon Valley, but are originally from Finland. It was invaluable to hear what Silicon Valley is alike from someone who is not a superstar entrepreneur, but is just like us, a passionate and proud entrepreneur working gradually towards building a successful business. We talked about how is it to run a business in the Silicon Valley and the downsides of the location (yes, there are some). The guys also told us what is the number one best thing about the location. See video below.
Richard Youngman Of Cleantech Group On Where The Innovation Is Coming From
We visited Lahti Cleantech Venture Day a few weeks ago and were able to talk to Richard Youngman of Cleantech Group. Richard is based in Cleantech Group’s office in London and is responsible for the company’s global membership offering – its industry-leading data, research, and conferences – as well as driving the growth of the group’s activities in Europe, India and the Middle East.
We discussed Cleantech Group’s offering and what they do in particular, how does the clean tech space currently look like and where the innovation is coming from.
In the second video Youngman told us how he sees the Nordic space and what are the hot areas to follow. Similarly he addressed whether he sees clean tech continuing to attract the most venture capital going forward, just as it did in Q3 this year.
Rene Savelsberg: Which Markets To Enter In Clean Tech (Video)
This is our second video from Lahti (see the first here) where we visited at the Clean Tech Venture Day. I talked to Rene Savelsberg, Managing Director and CEO of SET Venture Partners. Rene is responsible for managing the € 50m Sustainable Energy Technology (”SET”) Fund based in Amsterdam with a pan-European investment focus.
We discussed which markets to enter, whether to focus on the home market or go big from day one. Rene went on to explain the pros and cons of each option. We also touched upon the role of entrepreneurs, scientists and PhDs, and how these different skill sets play out in a growth company.
The Lean Startup In Helsinki By Eric Ries (Video)
Exactly a week ago we had a privilege to have Eric Ries here in Helsinki to discuss The Lean Startup and what it means for startups. In short, The Lean Startup is a way to get product/market fit fast and agile.
More particularly, The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation.
As Ries explained, contrary to the general belief, The Lean Startup does not only work for consumer facing Web 2.0 companies. It works just as well for B2B software companies and in fact for any company that is facing a market risk instead of technology risk.
This is probably the one presentation that I would not miss as a startup out all the presentations ever made. Real gold dust! You can watch Eric’s video presentation below.
Chat With Mårten Mickos (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places. This is the third post of the series. See also the previous posts here and here.
We talked to Mårten Mickos about the his experiences in coming to Silicon Valley, How MySQL made the decision to establish a presence in the US and his advice to young entrepreneurs wondering where they should set up a shop. Mickos became known as the CEO of MySQL before Sun Microsystems acquired the company in 2008 for a whopping $ 1 billion. Now the buyer is being bought if the regulator in Europe allow Oracle to snap her up. Mickos is currently an Entrepreneur at Residence at Benchmark Capital.
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Tesla Having 10 Percent Of Danish and Norwegian Sports Car Market. Oh, And They Are Profitable (Video)
Electric cars are all the rage currently and in many ways its also the holy grail of Detroit and thus plays a disproportionately large role in the US politics. To get an idea of how big a role cars alone play, the federal program paid individual car owners up to $4,500 to replace their current vehicles with new ones that get higher-mileage. Whether this was just an indirect subsidy to Detroit or a real environmentally responsible policy is another discussion.
If the electric car is a hot topic in US, it could be even bigger globally if someone gets the economics right and makes a pure electric vehicle a real alternative to the combustion engine.
During our trip we visited the most talked about contender that has been claimed to be the future of car industry, Tesla Motors. I talked to Rachel Konrad, Senior Communications Manager at Tesla, in length about the car itself, the future of the industry and most interestingly is Tesla’s business model really working and making real profits for its visionary founders and investors.
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Tero Salonen On How Dazzboard Entered The US Market (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places. This is the second post of the series. See also the first post here.
I talked to Tero Salonen of Dazzboard (see our earlier story on Dazzboard here) and he told me how he first entered the US market and got the first contact there through Finnpro (the Finnish Export Association) and Plug and Play Tech Center, what resources he used and what are the next steps for Dazzboard in getting established in the US market. Not only that, Tero actually broke it down how much it cost him to do all of this. Tero wanted to emphasize to us that even though he happens to be a Finn, there are plenty of startups from other Nordic and Baltic countries at the Plug and Play Tech Center. See the video below.
Where To Build Your Startup: Differences Between VC Firms (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places .
Especially we wanted to know what their advice would be for the aspiring young startups that try to figure out whether it’s worth to relocate to the Silicon Valley from Nordic or Baltic countries, or whether the whole Silicon Valley hype is just hot air and Northern Europe is just as good a location to build a startup as any.
Here Mia Lewin, a Finn, a former VC and an entrepreneur, talks about the differences between VC firms between Europe and the Silicon Valley, how to figure out where to locate and how Mia herself plans to build her startup and raise funding. See the video below.
Michel Wendell On The Big Opportunities In The Mobile Space (Video)
We bumped into Michel Wendell of Nexit Ventures (a VC firm focusing on mobile and wireless communication) during our Silicon Valley trip and asked him where does Nexit Ventures see the next big opportunities in the mobile space. See the video below.
Powerkiss Goes From Wireless Charging To A Service Platform (Video)
We all know Powerkiss from before, but to be honest you can get only so excited about wireless mobile phone charging.
But Powerkiss is not really what it looks like on the surface. One could easily think their core offering is wireless charging. Think again. Increasingly in the future it will be centered around Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled service platform which acts as a glue between different consumer services. Think location based advertising, where the location has been pinned down to the level of a restaurant table, or really selling any other service that is tied to a location. The variations are endless.
Continue reading »
Flowdock Combines Yammer And Google Wave (Video)
A Finnish startup Flowdock is coming out with a new real-time collaboration tool Flowdock. On the face of it, it looks like the company has combined Yammer and Google Wave into a one service which currently runs in the browser.
Flowdock has been developed by the same founders that are behind Nodeta, a software developing consultancy that also offers hosting services. Now they are building a new independent product and have assembled an own team to make it happen. They are considering spinning the company into its own entity, but at least for the moment its living under Nodeta’s legal entity.
The idea for the product was born out of a need that the founders had when they did not find a good product to log hours for the client projects they did. As with most products, what came out is something completely different as the idea evolved.
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