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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ideal Conditions To Build A High Growth Startup Like Heyzap: Y Combinator & San Francisco?
There's been a lot of talk lately about all kinds of accelerators and Y Combinator like set-ups in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Most recently Aalto Entrepreneurship Society announced that they are in the process of building their own 'Y Combinator', although this would be directed only to Aalto University, which really makes it a university incubator.
Just as much there has been discussion on whether Seedcamp model or Y Combinator like model is the better one (Y Combinator leading the pack at the moment), the respective differences and most importantly whether you need to be a Paul Graham to make it work. And even the workings of Y Combinator model has been under strong scrutiny by those who don't believe before they see the first major exit.
Building The Infamous Bridge
As long as I can remember there's been talk about building a bridge between Silicon Valley and one of the many want-to-be-a-startup-hubs. Several locations have taken turns building this golden bridge, which has come to be the holy grail of every emerging technology hub regardless of the nationality. There's many who have tried their luck including China, Israel, Bangalore and earlier on even Helsinki to just name a few. It has been studied to death and visited by the ministers, mayors, professors and venture capitalist, all trying to figure out how their respective institution, city or country could become like the Valley or at least enjoy the benefit from a distance.
