As mentioned before in the summary of events for spring 2010, we will be organising three ArcticEvenings this spring. The show will most likely kick off with an ArcticEvening in Helsinki in April followed by ArcticEvenings in Tallinn and Stockholm most probably in May and June respectively. However, this time I thought it would be great to hear your ideas regarding the events and what kind of events you would like to participate this spring.
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We’ve been looking closely at the startup scene in the Nordics and Baltics for the last two and a half years and I have to say, the amount of events on the market these days is very attractive. There are a lot of different kind of events and I’m sure there’s something for everyone. While these events have their own functions and drive their own agendas, there’s no getting round it – they’re great fun and will surely improve your business if not by any other means than at least by networking with the other visitors there.
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ArcticEvening Tallinn sold out yesterday, but we decided to add another 50 tickets to the event. The evening will be a very interesting one with 3 entrepreneurs in different stages of their company explaining about the importance of marketing and how it is made successful for the company. You can read more about the event in our previous blog post, but just to sum it up we’ll have Martin Koppel from Fortumo, Petteri Koponen (former Jaiku Co-Founder) from Lifeline Ventures and Kai Lemmetty from Floobs.
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Early next month we will go to Tallinn, Estonia to hold our end-of-the-year ArcticEvening in co-operation with OpenCoffee Club Tallinn and Connect Estonia. The event will take place on 3. December and focus on startup marketing. We will hold a panel under the ‘What is marketing for startups and how to do it effectively’
Yet again, we have a solid lineup coming: An experienced serial entrepreneur that have a several exits under his belt and two young guns who are on their way to their fist big hits. See our list of panelist below and figure out who’s who.
The ticket sales are open and the price is the only right one, the tickets are free. Go get yours while they last! We will announce the venue in due course once we get them confirmed.
If you haven’t been to ArcticEvenings before, we suggest you take a look at videos from previous events.
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A nifty little Estonian startup called Scarfmaker, has launched its less than a month ago. As the name suggests they make scarfs, but not any kind of scarfs – custom tailored ones. The company was founded in October 2008 and has been around a little over a year to develop the service. In the year of developing the service and company, I have to say I like the end result and makes me want to test their service.
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DailyPerfect, an Estonian startup, has launched an interesting predictive news service. We wrote about DailyPerfect earlier with a quote: “it predicts users’ interests through an automated semantic analysis of information publicly available on the web.” Now the time has come to validate whether that holds true.
I took a ride with their service and I have to say it got me saying, “ooh, nice” couple of times. The unexpectedness of the new valid content with content that I follow already was in perfect harmony.
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I’m writing this on a ferry over from Tallinn to Helsinki coming back from a pitching event we organized in collaboration with Enterprise Estonia as part of the second annual International Technology Law Association conference in Tallinn, Estonia. The pitch competition was held with support from Connect Estonia. I very much enjoyed the conference as it mixed nicely technology law and venture capital finance. There was some interesting comments from a top-of-the-line Nordic and Baltic VC panel, but I’ll get into that in another post. Here’s about the line up of companies that pitched themselves to the jury.
Based on the application process five startups had made their way into final pitch competition. Here’s some thoughts on each of them.
Even though Skype is not a startup anymore, I believe there is a great story behind this news item. Wall Street Journal has written about Skype, how they are under pressure from eBay stockholders to create more revenue or be sold off. Reports show that Skype has hit 400 million users and has created some $145 million in revenues during the first quarter of 2009.
Sten Tamkivi told us in Tallinn this January that they have seen a rise in Skype usage as the recession hit the finance markets. Seems the figures support this strongly. Even though Skype has been built as a consumer product they are under pressure to create more revenue for their owners. One of the new areas they are targeting is the business communication industry as well as moving into the territory of other Nordic VoIP companies such as Rebtel.
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Whatever you say about the materialized synergies of Ebay and Skype after Ebay paid $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock in 2005 to acquire the IP telephony trail blazer, Skype is currently really making me smile by changing the landscape.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the spiraling global economics outlook, Skype last year earned US$550 million in revenue, a 44 per cent rise, year on year. During the last ArcticEvening that we held in Tallinn, Stem Tamkivi, Skype’s Chief Evangelist, told me during the panel that interestingly Skype actually saw the economic downturn coming quite early as their usage started to rise like it has not risen in years.
Not only that, according to PCWorld, Skype maintains that separate research points to 95 per cent of business users saving money using it, with about a third cutting their phone bills by half. Almost 80 per cent of the survey of ‘Skype for Business‘ users, showed that nearly 80 per cent had seen an increase in productivity and were working closer with their co-workers because of using Skype … [And] the research shows that some 62 per cent of business subscribers were using Skype to better communicate with their customers. Some impressive figures. For us, here at ArcticStartup, this is clear sign of the times.
Mark my words. If it wasn’t clear to you before that IP Telephony was taking its next significant step speeded up by the economic belt tightening in the firms, now it should be crystal clear and I believe we see sigficant even if gradual changes very soon in the way small businesses and individual employees start to exploit this opportunity in cross border communication.
I already personally make 100% of my business calls to Tallinn via Skype. Many firms in Estonia have even a separate Skype button on their website to contact them via Skype. This is surely something we could take upon and start running our business more wisely, not only across the Scandinavia and Baltics, but globally.
Yes, some still claim it does not cut it when it comes to the quality of the sound, and you just can’t afford to have a bad connection when you’re talking to customers. A fair point. But Skype 4.0, should now offer higher quality audio, through ’super wideband audio’ and a new bandwidth manager for video calling.
And we’re not alone in our praise. The Finish giant, Nokia, has also made a big move. On Tuesday Nokia announced that they are planning to fully integrate Skype into their devices:
The first Skype-enabled Nokia N97 devices will be rolling out from the third quarter. Using Skype on your S60 device isn’t new, but the level of integration with the service and the device is. Skype won’t be running as a separate application, but actually plugged directly into your contacts…
Congratulations for both companies and especially to the users. I have high expectations and it makes me hopeful seeing Nokia having the balls to stand up to the operators. The same enabler that works for small businesses can do much more for the developing countries, which are exactly the markets where Nokia is strong. This announcement alone could mean a bigger chance towards a higher quality of life over time to many people in developing countries than a whole lot of World Bank projects together. Yes, there’s a long way to go and now for example the WiFi hotspots are few and far in between in the least developed countries, but there’s still a lot of people who can benefit from this from South America to Africa.
Last night we held ArcticEvening in Tallinn, Estonia in co-operation with Connect Estonia, so we could bring part of the Finnish startup scene to meet the Tallinn scene. This is a great way to get people from different scenes to meet and find new opportunities to work together beyond national borders. The night was a success. We had a four startups presenting, Scred, Edicy, Snoobi and Nutiteq. The audience put the startups to test during the Q&A, but for the most part the startups surviced well.
The panel was equally good. Sten Tamkivi, Allan Martinson and Taneli Tikka gave the audience what they came for – a very interesting and thought provokin take on the current economy, the startup ecosystem, most interesting companies and events of 2008 and what they predict will the ones to follow in 2009.
What stuck with me was Allan’s remark that you should look beyonnd just the Internet for new business ideas. The focus has been so squarely on the Internet for the past few years that the biggest opportunities might now be on the edges of the Internet where the Internet meets the real world, or in totally different areas, like for example the food industry that’s trying to cope with the EU legislation. Similarly, after I grilled Taneli for a while to reveal the areas he is looking most closely at, he mentioned the fast improvements in the genetics industry and the possibilities to link the social web to the improvements in that area. Similarly, Sten made us think beyond the ‘Skype as phone’ concept talking about mobility and how Skype is looking at possibilities of introducing an Open API.
A great evening, that we want to build on also in the future. Look out for more ArcticEvenings around the Baltic and Nordic countries.
Due to a very high demand, we will issue fifty new tickets to the ArcticEvening in Tallinn, Estonia that we are organizing in partnership with Connect Estonia. They are flying off the shelf. Sign-up fast! For Finns, you can find affordable packages for Tallink Ferry & Hotel here.
Also, if you’re a startup, you should definetely apply to pitch at the event! We have extended the deadline to the 25th January, so all startups have the time to put their application together.
If you would like to pitch at the Tallinn ArcticEvening on the 28th, do send us a short pitch (max 1 x A4) to events-at-arcticstartup-dot-com, where you outline:
1) The name of your team or company
2) Your contact information
3) The product/service idea and business model
4) Market size for your product or service
6) Why should you be picked to pitch
We will choose the four best startups to present. The deadline to apply is 21st 25th January 2009! Possible travel costs will be paid by the startups.
What: ArcticEvening in partnership with Connect Estonia
Where: Tallinn, Estonia at Von Krahl Bar (Rataskaevu 10/12, map here)
When: 28.1.2009 at 6pm to 9pm (the bar is open until wee hours for networking after the event)
View event on Amiando. The official Twitter/Flickr tag for the night is #arcticevening
We have also confirmed our very high level panel, which includes the following panelists:
Sten Tamkivi is Skype’s Chief Evangelist, building relationships with engineering communities, media, governments and academia around the world. Based in Tallinn, he also looks after Skype Estonia, our largest office globally as local General Manager.
Allan Martinson is currently the Managing Partner at MTVP. During his career as an entrepreneur, Martinson has been launching, managing and exiting several companies in the Baltic TMT sector, all of which became leaders in their respective industries.
Taneli Tikka, a serial entrepreneur and dealmaker, has an active history of startup life. Taneli has been an entrepreneur since 1999 and has headed multiple companies including; IRC-Galleria.net (Sulake Dynamoid), RunToShop, Magenta, MobileCRM, and Taika Technologies.
We have only 50 more seats available. Remember that signing-up is binding even though it’s free!
Edit. Sold out
We are happy to announce our 4th ArcticEvening in partnership with Connect Estonia which takes place in Tallinn, Estonia on the 28th January from 6pm to 9pm at Von Krahl Bar (Rataskaevu 10/12). To see more on what type of an event ArcticEvening is go here.
The evening goes as follows: We kick off the evening with a very brief introduction off the Estonian and Finnish startups scenes. After that we will have 4 hot new startups pitching their products each having 3 minutes for their pitch. After each pitch we take a short Q&A. If you’re a startup see intructions below to apply.
After the startups are done presenting we will continue with a Panel of prominent figures from the Finnish and Estonian startup scenes discussing the respective startup ecosystems, startups, entrepreneurship, investing and everything that comes with it. To give you a taste, the high level panel include for example Sten Tamkivi of Skype.
We will end the evening with a lively networking where people from different scenes meet each other, find partners and make valuable connections that can lead to concrete business deals.
We will cap the participation to first 100 participants that sign-up. The participation is free, but once you sign-up you should show up or you’ll end up on our black list. We recommend to sign-up fast since all the previous ArcticEvenings have been sold out. You can sign-up below:
What: ArcticEvening in partnership with Connect Estonia
Where: Tallinn, Estonia at Von Krahl Bar (Rataskaevu 10/12, map here)
When: 28.1.2009 at 6pm to 9pm (the bar is open until wee hours for networking after the event)
View event on Amiando. The official Twitter/Flickr tag for the night is #arcticevening
Are you a startup? Pitch on stage!
If you would like to pitch at the Tallinn ArcticEvening on the 28th, do send us a short pitch (max 1 x A4) to events-at-arcticstartup-dot-com, where you outline:
1) The name of your team or company
2) Your contact information
3) The product/service idea and business model
4) Market size for your product or service
6) Why should you be picked to pitch
We will choose the four best startups. The deadline to apply is 21st January 2009! Possible travel costs will be paid by the startups.
If you would like to know about sponsoring opportunities for ArcticEvening drop us an email at ville-at-arcticstartup-dot-com
Sten Tamkivi is Skype’s Chief Evangelist, building relationships with engineering communities, media, governments and academia around the world. Based in Tallinn, he also looks after Skype Estonia, the company’s largest office globally as local General Manager.
Allan Martenson is currently the Managing Partner at MTVP. During his career as an entrepreneur, Martinson has been launching, managing and exiting several companies in the Baltic TMT sector, all of which became leaders in their respective industries.
Taneli, a serial entrepreneur and dealmaker, has an active history of startup life. Taneli has been an entrepreneur since 1999 and has headed multiple companies including; IRC-Galleria.net (Sulake Dynamoid), RunToShop, Magenta, MobileCRM, and Taika Technologies.
CONNECT Estonia is an entrepreneurial membership-based business network with the aim of stimulating the development of growth companies by linking entrepreneurs with know-how, venture capital and other business resources. Connect Estonia is the leading network for supporting start-up’s and technology growth companies in Estonia.
Connect Estonia has operated over 5 years across different sectors as an independent non-profit organisation bringing currently together some 70 member businesses.
Jüri Kaljundi is also bringing the OpenCoffee Tallinn to the ArcticEvening.
We have only 100 seats available. Remember that signing-up is binding even though it’s free!
Nordic Mobile Media Conference will be held in Tallinn, Estonia on December 3-4th for the fifth time. The conference will address different perspectives to mobile media strategies and act as a networking forum for mobile media professionals, and those eager to collaborate to further develop the mobile media industry and grow the market. Participants will have the opportunity to exchange ideas, share and learn from experiences, and hear about new exciting opportunities. Present will be media companies, mobile operators, content producers, mobile media companies, handset manufacturers and marketing companies.
ArcticStartup and Nordic Mobile Media Conference announce a search for the “most interesting Nordic or Baltic mobile startup”. The winner startup will get 2 free passes and in addition an exhibition stand in the exhibition hall in the networking/coffee breaks area. You will get a table, chairs, electricity and WIFI internet connection for introducing your startup to the conference delegates and to demo what you are doing.
To claim the free passes, please send us your pitch and reasoning why you would be the best candidate to participate at mart.kikas [at] aspiro.ee and info [at] arcticstartup.com. You have time until November 3rd to apply. We will announce the winner in the beginning of November. If you don’t fit to the target category or don’t believe in your chances, you may also register right away on the conference web page.
I interviewed Jüri Kaljundi about his past and how he sees the startup market from Tallinn. Jüri runs the Open Coffee Tallinn and will share some insight regarding the Estonian startup scene.
Starting off – who are you, and what do you do?
About my background, started with developing commercial web services and Internet marketing in Estonia back in 1994, when I was 19. Then spent a few years doing enterprise data security systems. From 1999-2001 spent 2,5 years as a co-founder expanding the largest Central and Eastern European online recruiter CV-Online (www.cvogroup.com ) from Estonia to 8 countries, living a year in Prague and Budapest. CV-Online in 1999 was also the first Estonian Internet company to raise VC financing. Again switched to enterprise IT for 4 years, working as a Sales and Marketing Director for MicroLink (www.microlink.com), the largest IT services company in the Baltics. Got bored there and in early 2006 with 3 friends started Nagi as a user-generated online media company in Estonia. This is my third startup and next years I will celebrate my 15 years in web development and Internet marketing :)
Today Nagi operates 3 of the larges photo sharing sites for different target groups in Estonia: Nagi, Fotoalbum and Album.ee and a small local video sharing site Toru. In August we also started Keskus, an Estonian social network, which is also an umbrella site for our 4 photo and video sites. Keskus hosts all the user accounts, profiles, friend lists, groups, mailboxes etc for those sub-sites. We have over 100 thousand registered users and over 130 thousand weekly users. Over 30 million photos have been uploaded, so statistically we are doing quite fine.
In business terms we are still small, just a few employees (the founders) and revenues of around 10 thousand EUR per month. Monetizing user-generated content on social sites has not been very easy. Also one of the problems in Estonia and our region in general is that majority of online advertising revenues go through large media agencies. Most of the online banner ad campaigns are distributed via them between top 5-10 largest portals and newspaper sites, so for small and medium sites it is hard to generate any real revenues. 20% of the top sites get 80% of the revenues, that’s how life goes. So for us, the main thing is to get into that 20% :-) Luckily some ad networks (like Klikivabrik) that also cater for smaller websites have emerged. Google for some strange reason does not allow AdSense in Estonia, probably they still us confuse us with Elbonia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbonia (any help from Petri Kokko here?).
TNS Metrix gives a good overview of the top Estonian websites and there is also Google Analytics based GMetrix for small and medium sites. Looking at the Estonian top 10, 4 sites (Neti, Rate, Hot, Everyday) are owned by telcos (Elion, EMT, Tele2) and 6 sites (Delfi, Postimees, SLÕleht, Elu24, Auto24, EPL) by large print media groups. We are lucky to be among the 2 startups that follow, together with Kava.ee (a TV guide, like Telkku.com in Finland).
The unfortunate thing for Estonia is that looking even at the top 50 lists of Estonian websites, there have been almost none which were created by startups and have an impact on the local market. 2007 saw the creation of almost no significant local web-based businesses and 2008 has not been any better. There is a lot of stagnation and standing still, like startups have given up to large established media companies. There are many reasons. There is no enterpreneurial culture. Life as an employee has been quite rewarding for many, as companies have done well in our local booming economic situation. Creating business models for startups in small markets has not been easy, so even if you could create popular web services, the money might not always follow. So the problem for Estonia is not as in many countries matching financing with startups, but to have the startups and people with new ideas at all.
You also run OpenCoffee in Tallinn – how has that gone?
We started OpenCoffee Club in Tallinn in December 2007 and have had 20-50 people at each event. My goal there is not just for startups and investors to meet, but also for tech people from established old IT companies or universities to come and chat. The problem we need to solve there is getting people energized and willing to take the plunge into the startup world. It will take time and pushing and educating. Examples of Estonian founders of Skype and Playtech who made hundreds of millions EUR from their shares has not been enough to get people to follow them. At the same time, the 200-300 employee offices of Skype and Playtech in Tartu and Tallinn is a good educational ground for future entrepreneurs. One of the things I always say is that I am waiting for people to start leaving those 2 companies in numbers, so we would have more startups. Those people should join future OpenCoffee events and of course international visitors are more than welcome. We meet each first Thursday of the month 9-11 AM, sometimes with presentations, sometimes just for networking.
Estonia also lacks people with previous international sales, marketing and commercialization skills, even if we have good product development skills. So the key would be to join forces between people in Estonia and those who have done these things already in Western Europe and USA.
Thanks Jüri for taking the time to answer our questions and giving us some interesting insight with regards to the local startup scene in Estonia. Definitely interesting issues as well as obstacles that we also face here in Finland.
Biovakka Suomi Oy 
BitbarHelsinki, Wroclaw, Oulu, Cambridge
