The deal was tied up with a handshake. In Helsinki that’s all it takes.
This is how Finnish-Israeli entrepreneur Aviv Junno remembers starting up his first company, and it tells a lot about the startup scene in Helsinki.
The business circles here are quite small, people know each other, and handshakes can be relied on. Back in Israel, for example, Junno would have had to sign an agreement. The business environment in Helsinki is based on trust.
Kun Junno palasi Helsingin Kallioon maailmalta puoli vuotta sitten, kaikki tuntui sitten edellisen Suomessa asumisen muuttuneen. Ihan kuin Suomi olisi kokonaan toinen maa.
It was almost as if Finland was a totally different country.
“A couple of years ago I would not have recommended this country to startup entrepreneurs, but now Finland has become the best place in the world for starting a business,” Junno says.
So what exactly has happened?
There are now several very visible and influential players in the startup scene in Helsinki. Aaltoes, the Aalto Entrepreneur Society, and its home, the Startup Sauna accelerator, still play a vital role, as does Slush.
The newest arrival is Maria 0-1, a community house for ambitious tech startups that opened this year in a former hospital. At the same time the StartUp School at the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences is encouraging students to go into business for themselves by offering credits for taking part in the programme and coming up with their own business plans.
The most important factor, however, is the friendly and helpful culture that is being nurtured by these players. As Jan Bubienczyk, CMO at Startup Sauna, tells us, they all form a kind of self-supporting network.
“I myself have studied at Haaga-Helia and was active in the Startup School. I then helped organise events at Aaltoes voluntarily for around a year before I was recruited by the Startup Sauna. Together with Slush we are like one big family; we do stuff together and share contacts and resources. Maria is now headed by Voitto Kangas, who was one of the organisers or Slush and active with the Startup Foundation, under which we also operate,” Bubienczyk explains.
The fact that everyone knows each other is a big advantage, Bubienczyk adds. Everyone is part of the same ecosystem in which everyone shares information and where help is always within easy reach. It is a young and enthusiastic community where everyone interacts with each other and is also dependent on each other.
Yhteistyö on kannattavampaa kuin kilpailu.
“In Finland you can do things together,” Bubienczyk says.
Aviv Junno has noticed the same thing. He compares Finland to his second homeland, Israel, where he says entrepreneurs are ruthless. Nothing stands in their way, giving up is not an option, and mutual competition drives them forward relentlessly.
If an Israeli startup entrepreneur wants to set up an important meeting with someone, he has to call 50 times. If he needs funding, he has to talk to a thousand investors, not a dozen.
This trains them to succeed, but the flipside is an aggressive culture where one has to be strong to survive.
In Helsinki, instead of having competing communities, the ecosystem for startup entrepreneurs is one and the same for everyone, and it is defined by mutual trust. For entrepreneurs this means that handshakes can be counted on.
Does the fact that the community is so tight in Helsinki mean that it’s hard for outsiders to get in?
Not according to Jan Bubienczyk.
“Our culture is all about letting everyone take part who wants to. There is plenty for everyone to do, and each year we introduce something completely new to our programme,” he says.
To participate in the Startup Sauna you do not have to be a student at Aalto University. Instead, the communal space inside the former industrial building at Otaniemi is open to everyone. Someone from Aaltoes is on hand just about 24/7, Bubienczyk confirms.
Aviv Junno too praises the culture here for being open and helpful. He himself has an office at the former hospital at Maria.
When I was looking for people to test by beta app, I simply went around the offices here and asked people if they could download it. And everyone did.
And when Junno has contacted investors, everyone has been keen to listen to what he has to say.
A few years ago he approached his first investor at a startup event, who was admittedly sceptical: “If you get that idea off the ground, I’ll buy you a beer.”
Each week over a period of four months Junno sent an e-mail to the investor describing his progress and everything he had learnt – until the investor eventually changed his mind. Instead of buying him a beer, he became a shareholder in the company.
Text: Tiiamari Pennanen