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Saturday, January 10, 2009
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Startups in Helsinki
I was invited to go to Artic Startup's event, where entrepreneurs and others interested in starting up a business in Finland can meet, make connections, and exchange ideas.
There was a talk show in which Antti Vilpponen interviewed three people who are working on their growing startup companies. It seemed that people agreed that Helsinki is probably not the best place for startups, due to the fact that there is no venture capital culture, and that people are not so willing to take risks.
Despite low opportunity in financial support, I think it's important to mention, though, that Finland is a very nice place to start a company. Things get done so fast here - and very efficiently. The co-founder and CTO of XIHA life told me he really thinks the best startegy is to start a company here, and move to somewhere else - well, he meant the Bay Area, lol.
To stay or not to stay: that is the question. It seems there are going to be more of these meetups so I will attend a few more and make up my mind then :)
There was a talk show in which Antti Vilpponen interviewed three people who are working on their growing startup companies. It seemed that people agreed that Helsinki is probably not the best place for startups, due to the fact that there is no venture capital culture, and that people are not so willing to take risks.
Despite low opportunity in financial support, I think it's important to mention, though, that Finland is a very nice place to start a company. Things get done so fast here - and very efficiently. The co-founder and CTO of XIHA life told me he really thinks the best startegy is to start a company here, and move to somewhere else - well, he meant the Bay Area, lol.
To stay or not to stay: that is the question. It seems there are going to be more of these meetups so I will attend a few more and make up my mind then :)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Education, money, and nice place to live?
Last summer my friends and I organized a workshop at the Industrial Design department, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, about design education. One of the topics that we discussed was what constitutes good conditions to start a business (a startup).
So Paul Graham suggested that a place that has the right humidity for starups to condense is a place where there are smart people and rich people. And of course, to make sure they want to live there, the place must be 'nice;' in other words: good food, nice weather, nice infrastructure, etc.
How about Finland, the top of the list of Richard Florida's creative index or Pier Abetti's competitive country index? It seems so promising when one measures the country's performance from the grades of students or the amount of top engineers being graduated. But from my personal experience, these numbers don't say much about innovation.
Innovation may take knowledge and skills, but it also takes ambition. Finnish university students study for free their entire life. Who cares if they take seven years to graduate. Along the way they can work in the university's research group, go and sit in the office at 10am and leave at 4pm and get a full-time salary. Maybe in class they prop up their laptop with word document opened ready for notes to be typed in, but one can hardly see it because the windows of skype (or IRC for engineering students) block it.
When you have a group meeting, they have to walk their dogs, or have 'personal commitment,' or have social plans (I call thos things parties, by the way). So here I see a lot of unmotivated individuals enjoying state benefits. Have I been so unlucky to only have met non-motivated entrepreneur?
Hopefully taking this course (Creation of Innovative SME) will allow me to meet more people with ambitions and similar kind of thinking. but hey, i have not got to the point yet!
okay, where was I? let's go back to the three conditions: smart people, rich people, and nice to live.
from my experience, education in Finland is on - if not above - par of many other leading European or north American Universities. It produces a lot of extremely smart and competitive graduates. Tick one.
Rich people? Definitely (probably Nokia executives). But spending culture here is quite different than those in the Bay Area of California. They don't invest much in new businesses. they don't take many risks. In fact, venture capital may be even too flashy for many Finns, probably for the same reason why they don't drive a Ferrari even if they can: they don't want people to think they show off. Half tick.
Nice place to live? I'm not the best person to ask, as I will become a different person you normally talk to. But if you have lived here, you will know the answer is probably no. As for me, i will just list my favourite things about Finland: summer cottages, sauna, super-duper power shower, and floor heating in bathrooms.
So why is Helsinki still on the top of the list of Richard Florida's index? Has he been here?
So Paul Graham suggested that a place that has the right humidity for starups to condense is a place where there are smart people and rich people. And of course, to make sure they want to live there, the place must be 'nice;' in other words: good food, nice weather, nice infrastructure, etc.
How about Finland, the top of the list of Richard Florida's creative index or Pier Abetti's competitive country index? It seems so promising when one measures the country's performance from the grades of students or the amount of top engineers being graduated. But from my personal experience, these numbers don't say much about innovation.
Innovation may take knowledge and skills, but it also takes ambition. Finnish university students study for free their entire life. Who cares if they take seven years to graduate. Along the way they can work in the university's research group, go and sit in the office at 10am and leave at 4pm and get a full-time salary. Maybe in class they prop up their laptop with word document opened ready for notes to be typed in, but one can hardly see it because the windows of skype (or IRC for engineering students) block it.
When you have a group meeting, they have to walk their dogs, or have 'personal commitment,' or have social plans (I call thos things parties, by the way). So here I see a lot of unmotivated individuals enjoying state benefits. Have I been so unlucky to only have met non-motivated entrepreneur?
Hopefully taking this course (Creation of Innovative SME) will allow me to meet more people with ambitions and similar kind of thinking. but hey, i have not got to the point yet!
okay, where was I? let's go back to the three conditions: smart people, rich people, and nice to live.
from my experience, education in Finland is on - if not above - par of many other leading European or north American Universities. It produces a lot of extremely smart and competitive graduates. Tick one.
Rich people? Definitely (probably Nokia executives). But spending culture here is quite different than those in the Bay Area of California. They don't invest much in new businesses. they don't take many risks. In fact, venture capital may be even too flashy for many Finns, probably for the same reason why they don't drive a Ferrari even if they can: they don't want people to think they show off. Half tick.
Nice place to live? I'm not the best person to ask, as I will become a different person you normally talk to. But if you have lived here, you will know the answer is probably no. As for me, i will just list my favourite things about Finland: summer cottages, sauna, super-duper power shower, and floor heating in bathrooms.
So why is Helsinki still on the top of the list of Richard Florida's index? Has he been here?
Pier Abetti: Creation of Innovative SME
This morning was the start of a course called "Creation of Innovative SME" by Prof. Dr. Pier Abetti from The Lally School of Management and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Abetti comes to Helsinki School of Economics once a year to host this course.
He is short and amiable; half-deaf, but animated, lively, and joyful. When he talks with you he grips your arm tight - and he really learns about who you are,
After the frequent chit-chat and tories he told as we (there were about 20 students from TKK, TaiK, HSE and Hanken) introduced ourselves, he told us his life story. 87 years behind him, through the war, working with GE, saw its values quadrupled, and then got fired because a new guy who was young didn't want any old timers.
What was interesting was the suggestion, through examples in his funky overhead projector slides, that brand, brand, and brand add values to businesses. To sum up some of the things that I found interesting or useful:
How did the top ten (most valuable companies) get there? They are:
- built to last (GE, NTT, Shell)
- pioneers (Intel, Microsoft, Nokia)
But they got hit hard during the past several years. Abetti divided companies into three generations:
1st Gen: GE, IBM
2nd Gen: Microsoft, Intel
3rd Gen: Cisco, Dell, Yahoo!, Google
The new waves are the pioneer - but are they built to last?
Finland is the world most competitive country - criteria based on
- basic requirements (institutions, infrastructure)
- efficiency enhancers (higher education and training, technological readiness)
- innovation and sophistication factors (innovation, business sophistications)
But he asked a very good question: "Did Finland make Nokia, or did Nokia made Finland?"
Anyone who has been living or studying in Finland would have learned that Nokia has a very close relationship to academic institutes. I mean, let's face it: all my friends - well, a LOT of them - who have graduated work for Nokia. Half of the graduating class in my year are writing theses in partnership with or for Nokia.
But in a bigger picture, I see a very closely knitted network of academics and private sectors with the aids from the government to really push Finland as a nation of innovation. Almost every design project, business case study, market research, etc. in a Finnish University will involve a real company. It's a good opportunity to build a lot of connections with and learn a lot from the companies/industries.
In this way, the academic bodies receive sufficient funding, while the companies receive academic support and research. Regulating and ensuring balance of influences on academic activities from the private companies could be difficult. In any case, I think it's a very good way to foster innovation, and Finland can be a very good example/role model for other countries who wish to pursue economic growth through technology and innovation.
However, my experience and knowledge here contradicts many researches that show Finland as a competitive and innovative country. Since Finland is a rather small country, a lot of connections in these networks lead back to few corporations (e.g. Nokia...oops). In fact, Nokia's revenue is half of its nation's GDP. I'm tempted add that another 20% of the country comes from local companies, such as food catering services, that serve Nokia's businesses and employees, but I have no solid proof for that.
So what do we have here: a country with a large and extremely successful company that supports its economy. Where will innovation come from? A friend of mine said once that "iPhone would never come out of Finland." It's true. Nokia has been increasing its sales by looking at new market segments and lowering costs. But where are the real innovations?
He is short and amiable; half-deaf, but animated, lively, and joyful. When he talks with you he grips your arm tight - and he really learns about who you are,
After the frequent chit-chat and tories he told as we (there were about 20 students from TKK, TaiK, HSE and Hanken) introduced ourselves, he told us his life story. 87 years behind him, through the war, working with GE, saw its values quadrupled, and then got fired because a new guy who was young didn't want any old timers.
What was interesting was the suggestion, through examples in his funky overhead projector slides, that brand, brand, and brand add values to businesses. To sum up some of the things that I found interesting or useful:
How did the top ten (most valuable companies) get there? They are:
- built to last (GE, NTT, Shell)
- pioneers (Intel, Microsoft, Nokia)
But they got hit hard during the past several years. Abetti divided companies into three generations:
1st Gen: GE, IBM
2nd Gen: Microsoft, Intel
3rd Gen: Cisco, Dell, Yahoo!, Google
The new waves are the pioneer - but are they built to last?
Finland is the world most competitive country - criteria based on
- basic requirements (institutions, infrastructure)
- efficiency enhancers (higher education and training, technological readiness)
- innovation and sophistication factors (innovation, business sophistications)
But he asked a very good question: "Did Finland make Nokia, or did Nokia made Finland?"
Anyone who has been living or studying in Finland would have learned that Nokia has a very close relationship to academic institutes. I mean, let's face it: all my friends - well, a LOT of them - who have graduated work for Nokia. Half of the graduating class in my year are writing theses in partnership with or for Nokia.
But in a bigger picture, I see a very closely knitted network of academics and private sectors with the aids from the government to really push Finland as a nation of innovation. Almost every design project, business case study, market research, etc. in a Finnish University will involve a real company. It's a good opportunity to build a lot of connections with and learn a lot from the companies/industries.
In this way, the academic bodies receive sufficient funding, while the companies receive academic support and research. Regulating and ensuring balance of influences on academic activities from the private companies could be difficult. In any case, I think it's a very good way to foster innovation, and Finland can be a very good example/role model for other countries who wish to pursue economic growth through technology and innovation.
However, my experience and knowledge here contradicts many researches that show Finland as a competitive and innovative country. Since Finland is a rather small country, a lot of connections in these networks lead back to few corporations (e.g. Nokia...oops). In fact, Nokia's revenue is half of its nation's GDP. I'm tempted add that another 20% of the country comes from local companies, such as food catering services, that serve Nokia's businesses and employees, but I have no solid proof for that.
So what do we have here: a country with a large and extremely successful company that supports its economy. Where will innovation come from? A friend of mine said once that "iPhone would never come out of Finland." It's true. Nokia has been increasing its sales by looking at new market segments and lowering costs. But where are the real innovations?
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