#17 - Taneli Tikka
This week we talked to one of the most well known serial entrepreneurs in Finland - Taneli Tikka. He's been part of many startups, but also built some of his own companies and also bankrupted one, and failed in a few. We talked to him about the ride along all the years and what he has learned, both from the success cases as well as bankruptcies. In addition to this we also discussed a little how the startup environment has changed in the 10+ years from the perspectives of investors and entrepreneurs. Did you know he got 5 million euro investment on a 20 million pre-money valuation on his first company, just based on slideware?
#10 - Interviewing The Interviewer
This week, well, this week was different on Unfair Advantage. Our guest on the show is Antti Vilpponen, the Co-Founder and CEO of ArcticStartup. We work in the same office, but haven't talked in detail how ArcticStartup got started and why it does what it does. Instead of having this discussion over lunch or beer, we decided to record it and make it into an episode of Unfair Advantage. We discuss the backgrounds of ArcticStartup, the role of media and also what are some of the ways ArcticStartup sees itself going forward. Fully experimental, so do give us your feedback in the comments!
#9 - The Amount Of Time Put Into That Blackhole
This week we talk to the CEO and Co-founder of Flattr, Linus Olsson. Flattr is a social micro payment system that has recently received a €1.6 million investment that values the company at €10 million. We talked to Olsson about the investment as well as their philosophy behind Flattr. The company has also recently announced partnerships with 5by5 Network as well as Instacast, both working in the space of podcasts. Carrying with the interview, we decided to implement flattring to our podcast as well. If you're using Instacast on the iOS platform to listen to podcasts - you can now flattr us through the arrow link at the bottom of the window.
This week we are supported by Gapps.fi - a Helsinki-based company that brings the Google productivity tools to your workplace. They've got a special offer for all those who ping them and say they came from ArcticStartup. Also, they are looking for talented people to work with them in the area of sales and technical implementation. Big thanks to Gapps for supporting the show.
#6 - I Try Not To Play Minecraft At Home
Unfair Advantage has reached its sixth episode and on the show we talk to Daniel Kaplan of Mojang. We've covered Mojang many times in the past and they are the creators of Minecraft, the hugely popular game where you...err.. listen to the show to hear how it's pitched. Daniel joined the company back in 2010 already and he was the first employee. It was only Markus Persson and him back then, so Daniel has enjoyed the company ride quite sometime.
Our sponsor for this week is Gapps.fi - a Helsinki-based company that brings the Google productivity tools to your workplace. They've got a special offer for all those who ping them and say they came from ArcticStartup.
#4 - They Have To Suffer For Another Ten Years
The fourth episode of Unfair Advantage takes us to Denmark as we chat with Klaus Nyengaard, the Group CEO of Just Eat. Just Eat is originally from Denmark, where it was set up more than 10 years ago. In the last five or six years, the company has seen a huge growth in internationalisation and now operates in 15 countries. Their currently run forecasts that they will deliver somewhere around $750 million worth of food this year. Klaus Nyengaard gave us a very detailed view on their internationalisation strategy both from setting up shop yourself and acquiring existing players in the market to grow.
#3 - Do Things In Unconventional Ways
In our third episode we talked to Nikolaj Nyholm, a partner at Sunstone Capital in Copenhagen, Denmark. We wanted to talk to him as Sunstone had recently led a large investment into Gidsy. In the show we also talk Sunstone capital's way of doing business and what areas they see currently hot. He also shares some insight on Soundcloud and Prezi. Oh, and you need to listen in to hear what were some of the hot Nordic and Baltic companies they've passed, but have since then become successful.
#1 - It'll Get Better
The first episode of our new podcast is now out and it's called Unfair Advantage. In the weekly talk show we interview thinkers and doers from Northern Europe to understand what makes them tick. The show is co-hosted by me, Antti Vilpponen and our writer Greg Anderson. In our first show we interviewed Alex Esser from Sweden. He is one of the founding members of Tunaspot, a location based music discovery service. The service got its start from Copenhagen Startup weekend in 2011.
Podcast: Interview With Klaus Nyengaard Of Just-Eat
I had the privilege of interviewing Klaus Nyengaard, the group CEO of Just-Eat, a Danish originated company that currently employs over 400 people with revenues in the tens of millions of euros. First I was supposed to interview Nyengaard for an article on ArcticStartup, but the discussion flowed quite nicely so I decided to make it into a podcast. We touched on quite a few items of Just-Eat's business, including how they see expansion as well as plans for an IPO. We covered Just-Eat just last week and I have to say - very, very few people have reacted which such pace as Nyengaard did (not to mention he's the group CEO) to get back to me on the article.
Listen To Blogs - Blogs Turned Into Podcasts With Real Voices
Listen To Blogs is one of the online services created during the 24 Hours Business Camp held in January this year. The service was literally developed within 24 hours with no sleep by Henrik Berggren, David Kjelkerud and Eric Wahlforss. Listen To Blogs is today run by Henrik and David, Eric having the role of an advisor.
Both Eric and Henrik are part of the Soundcloud team, and so is ListenTo Blogs built on the SoundCloud API, using Google AppEngine and Twingly.
Listen To Blogs is exactly what its name suggests - a way for you to listen to your favourite blogs, as podcasts. You don't even have to have your own blog, you can just pick any of your favourite blogs and turn it into podcast using your own voice.
This is where Listen To Blogs differs from other similar services, it uses real voices, is crowdsourced and free. There are quite a few number of services offering conversion from text to speech, TTS, but so far I've only come across ones using variety of digital voices. PimpMyNews with a paid iPhone app is one of the popular ones, but to quote Mark Hopkins from Mashable, they're “fun for 10 minutes”.
Zipipop Prepares for Investments
Helene Auramo, Zipipop CEO, hinted ArcticStartup that the colorful Finnish start-up is finally preparing for 
taking in investments.
Zipipop will head to San Francisco to present in Mobile 2.0 on the 3rd November after winning at the Mobile 2.0 Europe. This will also be a good change to kick-start the talks with potential investors on both sides of the Atlantic.
On a related note, we just heard that Zipiko CTO/CPO Stefano J. Attardi (Taro being the CTO of Zipipop in large) was approached by four(!) Bay Area startups to join their ranks. He interviewed with all of them but finally rejected all their offers to join Zipipop instead. Acrctic Startup congratulates Stefano for the choice.
Stefano told us that shortly after he joined Zipipop, Biz Stone, the Twitter co-founder, heard about him and asked him join Twitter. According to Stefano, Biz was "excited to speak to him" for a position as an interface designer and front-end developer. Stefano decided to turn down the offer.
Incidentally, another CEO wrote to him again last week renewing the offer he made earlier saying that they still haven't found anyone as good as Stefano. Stefano prefers not to name all the start-ups in question.
Stefano further explains that the reason he turned down the San Francisco offers was because he wanted to start a project of his own and Zipiko gave him the possibility to do that. He started Zipiko as a collaboration with Zipipop Creative Director Richard von Kauffman.
Here’s Stefano on Technology Gazette Podcast talking about Zipiko service, how it compares to Twitter and what they have in plans for the future.
Below you can find Zipipop's latest presentation (in Finnish).
