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).
Interview with Helene, CEO of Zipipop
I did a small e-mail interview with Helene Auramo, HSE student, MA student in TAIK and CEO of Zipipop. Zipipop was founded July 23rd 2007, but Helene and Richard von Kaufmann had started planning the company some 9 months earlier. The young company has 5 Facebook applications as their products.
Helene, you're the CEO of Zipipop – what does Zipipop do?
We make social media applications that help make life easier, for example getting your friends together for drink. Our current focus is on Facebook, however, we are about to start developing for other social networks too. And we're always thinking about mobile possibilities.
At the moment most of our income comes from making custom applications for various clients. However, these are mostly based on our own Zipipop platforms. One example is the Laika application "What kind of dog are you?" inside Facebook. Laika Design is a cool Finnish company that produces bags and accessories with a dog theme.
Can you tell us how you went about starting the Zipipop – did you plan to do Facebook applications from day one or was that a result of some other decision?
I have a background in Helsinki School of Economics, but also in University of Art and Design Helsinki, in media lab. I met other two Zipipop partners; Richard von Kaufmann and Tuomas Laitinen in media lab. And the idea of Zipipop came in one UIAH's course together with Richard.
One Friday last summer we had our normal afternoon tea break, when we started to talk about Facebook and its applications. We had an idea that we should test the platform and create an application there. And one week later, we had the first version of Friends Pad online. We also thought that the Facebook platform might be suitable for spreading our other web-based software.
You started the company while studying – how well does studying and running a company mix together?
I just had one week holiday from Zipi office because I had to study. But otherwise I haven't been that much away from the office. However, I hope to graduate on June 2008 from HSE. At the moment I'm working days and trying to study on evenings and weekends. My thesis is also related to Zipipop.
Being in school at the same time has been good in the sense that we have received a lot of help from other students and teachers. And some courses have really given me good ideas related to running a business.
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Thanks to Helene for the interview! Although there is a lot of capability to grow the business in a difficult industry, I'm glad to see people taking initiative already earlier on in their studies.
