Posts tagged:

reijo syrjäläinen

Fruugo’s Presentation From SIME

by Miikka Kukkosuo, November 20, 2008 — 1 Comment

Taneli Tikka posted a video of Fruugo “launch” last week in SIME (there wasn’t any product launch as such, most things mentioned where the same as we reported before the event).

The video shows Fruugo’s VP marketing Janne Waltonen giving a presentation and then answering a few interview questions.

Fruugo talk in SIME by Taneli for http://tane.li from Taneli Tikka on Vimeo.

Fruugo will be present today at digital marketing seminar DiVia in Helsinki, and might tell a bit more, although they’ll still not show their actual product.

The Finnish business newspaper Kauppalehti released an article last Friday, stating that Fruugo has “forgotten” (as commented by Fruugo) to leave their financial statement to Trade Register at the end of August as required, but has just posted them a statement of losing the company’s share capital. That doesn’t necessarily mean the company wouldn’t have cash or other liquid assets to run their operations, though, but looks like they’re most likely looking for more money. Also, the previous CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen has left and Fruugo is now run by the company’s operational director Juha Usva.

Rumors Circling Around Fruugo

by Miikka Kukkosuo, November 5, 2008 — 8 Comments

There’s a number of gossips around the big stealth mode Finnish startup Fruugo currently. The rumor has it they are firing a lot of their employees, their product is late from launch and it hasn’t been that well received by potential customers. Fruugo commented earlier they are aiming to become the “trusted 3rd party of e-commerce”, set out to solve the problems in the internet ecommerce supply chain making online shopping safer, and “more fun”, for both consumers and etailers.

Fruugo is assumed to have tens of millions in funding, and they state having 150 employees. Taneli Tikka also addressed the rumors in his recent blog post, mentioning Fruugo may have been still hiring last month. Fruugo is burning through the cash quite fast with that amount of employees. However, even if the company would be spending around 1M 11M euros [typo corrected] per year, the assumed funding of tens of millions should be enough to carry on operations for quite some time still. If the funding is not as generous, though, Fruugo might be having tough time in the current economic situation.

Fruugo’s CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen mentioned in our interview in the summer that the service would be available in closed Beta in a few months. We should see that coming up very soon if the rumors are not true. Taneli has also heard Fruugo would be going for bigger PR at SIME Stockholm.

Building a service sized what Fruugo’s comments so far hint of, is likely to be a huge and difficult a task. Thus it may not be any surprise if the old “Pi rule” of startups might have gotten Fruugo as well (take your original plan and multiply the time-to-market by Pi, and divide the expected revenue by Pi).

Fruugo’s CEO shares plans with Arctic Startup

by Miikka Kukkosuo, June 27, 2008 — 8 Comments

Fruugo, the new Finnish startup gathering loads of interest with Jorma Ollila and Risto Siilasmaa on board among others, has been in strict stealth mode. Today, CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen revealed a bit more about their plans to Arctic Startup in a breakfast meeting.

In short, Fruugo positions themselves as the “trusted 3rd party of ecommerce”. The major problem Fruugo sees and is trying to solve is in the internet ecommerce supply chain. Reijo described that purchasing from the web is still quite painful; you enter some product name to a search site, and from the thousands or millions of hits you need to figure out where you could and should get what you are looking for. Then, after finding some etailer, the next questions arise around whether you trust the seller, payment options, etc. Also for the etailer, especially in Europe as an example, it’s hard to deal with varying regulations, laws, taxes etc. in different countries.

Fruugo believe they can offer the consumers and etailers easier, simpler, and safer way to do web purchases. They see big inefficiencies in the current web ecommerce supply chain, and believe they can streamline it a lot. Reijo didn’t want to comment the business model nor the technical concept in detail yet. Fruugo is essentially a consumer company, and their marketing activities will be heavily focusing on creating buzz and interest in the internet.

Currently Fruugo is building the technology platform with especially scalability and partner integration automation in mind, and establishing partnerships with key players in the industry. The service will be available in closed Beta in a few months. So far Fruugo has “some plans” for including also mobile into the equation, people’s roots being strongly in the mobile world, but not right from the start. Reijo comments they naturally see a huge potential in the mobile web, as mobile handsets are becoming the main way of accessing web in many parts of the world.

Fruugo's success formula

So, what does the mystic equation 1L + 1M + 1P = ? on their web site stand for? There have been all sorts of wild quesses thrown in the air, but Reijo now reveals it’s simply “1 Language + 1 Mind + 1 Purpose = Success”. So it rather describes the company’s culture and mindset than its offering, as was speculated. They are building the company around a strong vision and hand-picked people with strong can-do attitude.

Reijo also states all the key supporters have positioned Fruugo for real success – they didn’t even think about establishing the company anywhere else, as all share the same love for Finland. They really want to show that it’s possible to create a top-notch internet startup here as well. Naturally Fruugo is going to bring more international color to their team, but the “heart and soul” will be Finnish in any case.

We’ll be revealing more about Fruugo later on as things progress. Also note that Fruugo will launch their renewed web site by Monday, with a bit more content than currently.

Arctic Startup Exclusive: Interview with Fruugo CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen

by Antti Vilpponen, June 24, 2008 — 1 Comment

This Friday, Arctic Startup will be among the first to know what Fruugo, the super secret Finnish startup with Jorma Ollila and Risto Siilasmaa on board, is really up to. We have received an invitation to a morning event this Friday.

Fruugo will be hosting a breakfast meeting with a few bloggers. Fruugo is taking this first step seriously as the host for the session is none other than their CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen. VP of marketing, Janne Waltonen does not want to reveal anything regarding the event, however he wants to point out this is one of the first initiatives to support their open attitude towards social and participatory media.

If we could ask just one question from the CEO, Reijo Syrjäläinen – what would you want to ask?

Disclosure: I have worked with Janne Waltonen on founding Gyllene Skor, he is also a share holder in the company.