Category: Startup

BLOG POST: Startup networking tips

There’s no need to hit a brick wall! We are here to help you to network with some proved and useful tips!

Networks are for startups as important as water is for plants; without networks you simply will not survive. May you find the tips refreshing and be able to put them into action straight away.

If you have in mind an awesome startup related networking tip share it through our form!

TIP NB 1

GIVE BEFORE YOU GET

You need to establish some sort of a connection or a relationship before you run towards a person asking for favors. Don’t assume that people will help you without expecting nothing in return. You have to show them that you are willing to return the favor now or in the future. 

When networking/connecting with new people it is important to remember that the point of networks is not to only help you in a professional way. The point is to establish some form of a relationship with them and show that you are interested in them and ready to help them as well. 

It is super important that you treat your networks with respect, care and understanding. 

Sometimes your giving can be a smile to brighten the day or a moment to listen without interrupting while sipping coffee together. Get creative! Give and you’ll see you’ll get even from the act of giving. Be the person you want to network with.

This tip is from our form. Thank you!

TIP NB 2

ASKING FOR HELP IS A SIGN OF TRUST

It is really important to remember that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of trust and strength. Don’t get locked in thinking about how well you know a person in order to ask for help. Rather think about how you would feel if someone would ask for a small favor from you; I bet that you would feel happy, appreciated and ready to help. We usually enjoy helping others.

Many people think they are not good enough if they ask for help and that is why it is so hard for majority of us. Asking for help and trusting is a great foundation for a connection. Take a leap of faith and try yourself!! It is one great way to expand your network and improve yourself.

It’s good to keep an open mind when networking. There’s no way you can imagine now which connections will be helpful for you after five years. Give time and understand that we are all in a journey and none of us knows for sure how we or our surroundings will be in five years.

With some persons you will soon realise that the mutual trust just isn’t there. Maybe a person just keeps asking and expecting but gives nothing at all. There is no need to carry on with people who don’t show respect to themselves or others.

Don’t compare apples to oranges. Trust and trust again. No one survives alone. We need to keep on going, asking and having those fruitfull conversations. Just by showing up and brainstorming together with a new person you may both benefit enormously. Ask, trust and give whenever you have a chance.

This tip is through an inspirational conversation with Joni Ramu from HUBS. Thank you!

TIP NB 3

TAKE CARE OF YOUR DIGITAL BUSINESS CARD

How does your digital business card look like? You should keep in mind that for a potential customer or business partner your LinkedIn page could be the first thing they see regarding you . Please check is your profile picture presentable, have you updated your latest job experience, and overall would you enjoy going through your own profile? Remember that if the information is not easy to find and all in all your digital business card is messy it doesn’t give that good of a picture of you. It is good to keep it simple and updated all the time.

While taking care of your digital business card remember that the tone you choose to represent your work and you is essential. Digital business card is not only your LinkedIn page. It’s worth to take some time and check your overall information, approach and visual presentation in different social media channels in addition to your other web appearances.

Easy way to get some beneficial activity to any of your social media pages is by following, commenting and liking key companies and potential customers. Don’t forget talents in your field for collaboration and peer support possibilities. These actions help the algorithms to show in your feed relevant and interesting posts and people giving you opportunities to come across even some unexpected awesome new contacts.

When the number of followers is increasing keep in mind that it is not about the amount, it is about interacting, learning, understanding and possibly even creating together. Oona Kankkunen believes that no one wants to have just thousands of faces as followers. The quantity of people who are following you is one measure, but far more relevant is to really realize and think who the people in your own network are and are they engaging with you.

TIP NB 4

FOLLOW UP AFTER THE FIRST MEETING

Time is valuable so it is important to keep that in mind while networking. Don’t waste another person’s time, but don’t be afraid to ask for a meeting. If you are sincerely interested in the person and their interests they will most likely make time for you then. 

You can follow up by thanking the person again for their time and help, by giving them some more ideas or sharing a beneficial tip or an article. Do however follow up without delay. Use the channel that you feel is the most appropriate and practical.

When you follow up after the first meeting, it is a lot easier to continue the conversation later on, because also this way of communicating has already started. Keep in mind that following up doesn’t have to happen just after the first meeting. You could send a message even after a quick chat you had while enjoying some hot beverage.

A good message is personalized and to the point. There is a human in the other end of it who also has needs, weaknesses and time limits. Please consider this when choosing the form, tone and timing of your message. Always appreciate the other person’s efforts. And do keep in mind that networks work both ways. Please be ready to bring your effort to the table also. Maybe you should consider scheduling few minutes every day in your calendar for networking messages and some time for lending a helping hand?

This tip is inspired by a conversation with Tommi Uitti who is Startup Ecosystem Community Manager at Business Tampere and Vesa-Matti Ruottinen who is Senior Specialist at City of Tampere. Thank you!

TIP NB 5

BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR CONNECTING

Webinars are an awesome opportunity to connect with some new people while getting some valuable information from your field of expertise or about a generally interesting topic. 

While attending webinars, remember that you have an opportunity to use the chat box to introduce yourself and from there hopefully form some connections. Do not overthink it. Just put a polite message in the chat box telling who you are and link your LinkedIn page there so people can get to know you better and stay in touch.  

While telling about yourself remember to be clear why people should connect with you. Don’t be a company sales guy pitching your company. You are an expert. Bring that value into your introduction and be YOU, genuinely!

These are the key factors in building some new meaningful connections. Best webinars for connecting are the ones that are nearest to your field of expertise. How about you mark straight away in your calendar the webinar when you will give this a try!

This tip is through a lovely conversation with Oona Kankkunen. She has her own company called Network & Growth. Thank you!

TIP NB 6

TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT

When you grow your network you grow yourself also. Don’t be afraid to try something different when networking. It might be wortwhile to challenge yourself with something new.

Maybe if you have always looked for a friend to join you to an event you could consider going by yourself? Or one time you could decide beforehand that you’ll bite your tongue and listen more than you usually do. Maybe you can even copy someone who you think is a star of networking. You could even schedule a mentoring moment with a star to get some light if you still think networking as a big monster.

Whatever network you are building virtually or in real life always keep asking why. Why I’m spending my time here? Why spending it in this way is important?

Consider scheduling a new networking theme for each month. Choose a new way, a new style or a new approah and take some beneficial steps for you as well as others. What will you be especially working on the first month of 2022?

This tip is from our form. Thank you!

These Startup Networking tips have been put together by Tribe Tampere marketing intern Leila Ali with the support of Marketing Lead Mirella Mellonmaa and marketing intern Farzaneh Esmaeili during the Autumn of 2021.

BLOG POST: Startup dictionary for dummies

We realized that entering the startup world can be intimidating for many reasons, and understanding some of the relevant terms can make it a tiny bit easier!

That is why we are here to explain the most common words used by the startup community for everyone to get an idea of what the heck are they talking about!?!

Accelerator

Accelerators are timed programs to help build startups. Accelerators enable stuff like mentorship, education and fundraising opportunities. Check RBA and NSS if you are hungry for info and wanna know more.

An exit

Keeping it simple as always, lets get to it. Are you angel and invested a huge amount of money in a startup? Well using an exit strategy you can reclaim your investments. It is kind of like playing poker and knowing the right time to quit the game. Exit is a gamble where you drop your cash out after collecting the spoils and walk away.

Angel investor

True to the title, an angel investor is a godsend for startups and entrepreneurs alike. An angel investor typically is a wealthy person who offers you money in exchange for a slice of an ownership in your company. Meet some real life angels here.

Assets

Assets are things that hold value to a company or an idvidual can benefit from in the future. Your assets can be stock, bitcoin, your car, your education, even your dog. (Assets= Equity + Liability.)

B2B, B2C, B2G, B2B2C

 

These are business models that define who are you selling your product or service to.
B = Business
C = Consumer
G = Government
2 = to (You already knew that)

  • B2B = the big guy sells to another big guy.
  • B2C = big guy sells to the small guy.
  • B2G = big guy sells to the big brother.
  • B2B2C = the big guy sells to another big guy (the middle man), who then sells it to the small guy.

BML

The molten core of lean startup is BML, build-measure-learn-cycle. It is a loop of ideas and opportunities that form a model to take businesses to the next level. Let us give you a step by step instruction on applying BML to your business, life, anywhere feasible.
Step 1: have some plan, shooting in the dark gets you nowhere.
Step 2: Get your prototype ready, or MVP as we startup nerds like to call it.
Step 3: Measure your results, is this what you wanted for your end result? this step will define the next step.
Step 4: If you are not satisfied with your end results, get back to the drawing board and PIVOT. If satisfied, congratulations! Time to hit the market.

Bootstrapping

Bootstrappers strap your boots. Just kidding. They are startups who don’t depend on investors. They rely on combining their own savings along with talented awesome people and pure luck to fund the starting stages of their startup. Check out this awesome example of Bootstrapping!

Burn Rate

Burn rate is the rate at which a company is losing money, in other words, how much money you can spend before the cash flow is negative. A company’s burn rate is usually the total amount of money they spend in a month. So if you manage to spend one million a month, it means your burn rate is one million. It also means you are a big spender.

Business model

Basically a business model is how you plan on making money with your product. It is not all about the money but it is about generating value. What value do you offer your consumer? Why would they pick your service over that of the competition? Your business model is your framework to creating a successful business that can achieve long-term goals. For a business model you may require something called value proposition. Remember that? If you don’t remember there is a chance you need to read the dictionary thoroughly…..

Buyout

Buyout is simple. For example, you have a beautiful cottage by the lake but the up-keep is hard, or recent events have made your cottage super popular among real estate buyers. An interested party with a LOT of money, offers you a huge sum for your cottage. You sell…and ta-da! that is a buyout. A larger company, private equity and new investment rounds are a few reasons startups decide to buy out.

Capital

Capital this, Capital that! What the s**t is it? Capital is basically Money or financial wealth that is necessary to start a business OR invest to make more money.

Churn

Not everyone loves or commits to a product or service. Churn is the number of paying customers who cancel their subscription. A low churn rate is usually a good sign.

Co-founder

Everyone’s had an epiphany with friends over “a few” drinks to start their own company. The next morning after popping that painkiller to numb the hangover from last night, you still find that idea interesting. You decide to start working on this vision and of course you need helping hands. The person who helps you along the journey from idea to viable company, is your co-founder. Your co-founder is there with you from the get-go or hops in to the wagon in the begining to fill the skills you lack and complete the picture.

Crowdfunding

If you have a product or a service that you are super excited to develop, but for some reason the big investors don’t see the value, you might want to try crowdfunding. If you plan your crowdfunding campaign to be as cool and sexy as possible, you might get the attention of a large number of early adopters willing to put a small amount of their money to help you launch your stuff.

Disruption

Disruption, something we have heard when we make a little too much noise. Keep quiet kids! In startups, especially our friends in the tech startup; disruption is a mindset adopted to begin simple and progress within your market, and eventually replacing the existing competition. A great example are companies like Netflix and invention of an engine vehicle that replaced horse driven carriages. Certain products today are referred by the brand name because they have established themselves so well that they become a primary selection. Make some noise!

Early adopters

We all know a person who got a new gadget that no one else has yet, and can’t keep their mouth shut about how cool it is and how everyone should have one. Those are early adopters. The people who use a new product, innovation, or technology before others. Startups benefit from early adopters because they are ambassadors of the new product, and can also give valuable feedback on the possible flaws.

Equity

 

To break it down: As an individual equity could be applied to your car, house or your business. Let’s say your house is worth 10,000 €, and you are selling it. You still have 4000€ of unpaid mortgage, so if you sell the house and get 10,000€ your equity is 6000€. (Equity= Assets – Liability)

FFF – Friends, Family, Fools

People around you who may want to invest or purchase an ownership in your business venture! They can be your beloved friends and family who want to support you, or just fools, who are eager to invest in risky businesses.

Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a mentality of failing fast to succeed, experimenting, creativity and trying s**t out. If you want to know why to hack growth, here’s a brand new article about the subject by Red Brick Accelerator! 

IPO

Initial public offering. Think of it as a yard sale, except everyone who buys a piece of something you own, now shares in a piece of it. Initial public offering refers to the first time a company allows the public to invest through stock. If the entry to the market is successfull it allows the business to grow bigger with the newly aquired capital. Additionally, it allows for initial investors to plan an exit strategy and cash out!

Iteration

Try, try, try again.If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try, try again (William Edward Hickson).We have all heard of that proverb! We are not here to talk about William, he is cool tho. Iteration is making small changes to your product/service based on how your customers are accepting your product. Remember not many of these changes make it, the idea is to try different things and repeat while aiming to do better. In short iteration is trying fast and failing fast and moving on! It is also the core process of Growth Hacking.

Lean startup

The lean startup favors iteration over rigid planning. The terms we have discussed MVP, iteration, pivoting are a few fine words that have existed before the official rising of lean startup and form the principles of lean startup. Think of it as +planning a trip; instead of planning every single second of every single day of the trip, you ask your mates what they prefer and how they feel on different days of the trip and plan accordingly. Life happens, a plan never goes exactly as you planned it in your head.

Liabilities

 

As an individual your liabilities would be your student loans, weekly groceries, monthly bills and payments you need to make in order to thrive. In businesses liabilities are debts you own to employees, other businesses, bank loans, taxes and operational expenses. (Liabilities = Assets – Equity)

MVP

 

The real MVP…..most valuable player..Wait…thats not it. Minimum viable product is your first ever (continuing to keep it simple). Did you just create and app to feed your dog from work? COOL! but you need to have a prototype first to understand your customer’s needs. Sure, everyone is behind a cool new app but how does it work in practice? Instead of conducting surveys and asking people if they would like such an app, why not create a simple version of it and see how it is received.

NDA – Nondisclosure Agreement

NDA protects sensitive information that is not meant for anyone else’s ears except people involved. If you sign an NDA when you start in a new job, you can’t tell anyone about the secrects at your workplace. Secret things protected with NDA can be their business model, recipe of a product, new innovations or other similar things. 

Pitching

 

Do you love Shark Tank? Well, so do we. Enterprenerus shoot their shots at the judges and share their business idea and concept, in hopes of getting attention and investors. They basically ‘pitch’ their idea. Your main goal while pitching is to get new customers, investors and just letting people know you exist and have a cool idea that can make everyone money. Then there is also pitching in cricket but that is not our area, Sauna Pitching is.

Pivot, Pivoting

When you read ‘Pivot’, does your mind go to Ross screaming ‘PIVOT’? Us too! To Pivot is to change the product or service to respond to the problem better. Think of it as finding a better place for your couch where it aligns better with the television. According to Red Brick Accelerator, on an average 30-40% of startups pivot during their incubation period.

Pre-seed

Money isn’t everything but you gotta start with it when you have a new business. Pre-seed round is technicaly hitting up your friends, family and fools to invest in your awesome idea. Don’t only leech, you can put in your own money as well. This round gets the ball rolling!

Problem solution fit

Problem solution fit is the foundation for product market fit. Remember Value proposition? We wonder if the customer would buy or subscribe to the product or service. So time to do some exploring by series of testing and validation if your solution is actually solving the customer’s problems. If it doesn’t, then back to the drawing board you go!! Ask any of our community startups at Platform6, no company or product has stayed the same since creation.

Product market fit

Product market fit is the specialisation process after problem solution fit. This part is all about developing your awesome product / service, talking to your target group and finding out who exactly are your customers. In addition this is something startup accelerators work with often, and guide the startups to find the right product market fit.

Proof of concept

Remember MVP? If you do, then this term will be easy to understand. PoC , Proof of concept, is the starting stage of your product/service. Is it a practical idea that will work in the real world? Your proof of concept is your backing for why your product deserves a shot and why there is a need for it. You start with an idea, you iterate a few times and then land on your proof of concept, in order to gather support for your product. PoC is your first step into reality; where you idea is given life.

Scalability

Your business is considered scalable if it is managing to grow rapidly at the face of increasing demands. Thanks to the advancements in technology you can now satisfy the needs of multiple customers even if you do not have multiple providers. Are you adapting easily to the changing environment and keeping up with what the world demands of you? Congratulations you are scalable!

Seed

This is the first official funding round. True to its word, it is literally the money invested here that helps grow your business; you are planting the seed. There is this one dude who loves this stage of funding; Angel Investor. Remember? Once you have this round of funding, you can hire employees and begin to develop your product or service further!

Series A, B, C

 

Let’s have a quickie with these rounds of funding:
Series A funding is where investors give you money to fund your product and user base and help the business create a strong strategy that can soon start generating revenue.
Series B funding is all about growth. You can invest further in marketing, branding and work on scaling you business. Your business model is looking good and now go and grow.
Series C funding. If you have made it here, it means you are a successful business and are planning to take over the world with your product, expand into new markets and maybe even expand your product line.

Shareholder Agreement

As you might expect, a shareholder agreement is an agreement between parties who have invested to the company and own a share of it. Usually it is made to protect the investment and set out fair rules between investor dudes and govern of the company so that nobody gets bamboozled.

Social Capital

Best way to define this would to take Tribe as an example. Our main capital lies in our networks, talents and you guys who make Tribe. Our shared goals, values and efforts in the startup community that lead to growth and can be considered as social capital.

Startup Ecosystem

Like in nature’s ecosystem, the principle is the same. People, startups, communities and other operators interact together, supporting and helping each other to grow. Tampere’s startup ecosytem is born from people, passionate startups, organisation and a bustling city that has birthed 285 active startups.

Takeover

Remember playgrounds when you were younger? You play with random kids, share your toys, the works! Now a takeover is someone buying your toy in the sandpit. Your sand truck, if you may. Now, let us use this to discuss the different types of takeovers in business.

Friendly Takeover: You and your playground buddy negotiate terms, and they get your truck on terms you happily agreed. Good for you both.

Hostile Takeover: Big lousy bully of the playground, you disagree with the terms bully has suggested. Regardless, your truck is acquired, and you need to go rat on him asap.

Reverse Takeover: Remember IPO; you will need it here. Usually, companies need to go through an IPO to be listed as a publicly owned company, a tedious process. When a private company takes over a public company, it becomes a public company. Kinda like if your teacher at pre-school takes your truck and it becomes a school property; now everyone can play.

Backflip Takeover: Who can do a backflip? Come to Tribe and lets try? A backflip takeover is acquiring a company because of its strong brand presence. After the merger, the brand name is preserved. The person performing the takeover becomes the subsidiary of the target acquired. Imagine buying your older siblings truck but telling everyone it is his truck so they dont take it from you, also your older sibling is cool at school.

Traction

What is traction? Technically the grip of your tires while driving down an icy road. Aren’t living in Finland, but somewhere warm? Lucky you! Well, traction in startups is about having validation from your customers to show investors that you aren’t going down a slippery slope but have enough traction to move forward. You build momentum with traction in your business and have a chance at creating a successful business model. Higher the traction, happier are people to invest.

UI – User Interface

User interface is a space for friendship of humans and machines, where interaction between these two occur. Your computer’s operating system is a perfect example of UI.

Unfair competitive advantage

If you have something so unique that is almost impossible for anyone to copy, and also something that your customers really need and value, you have an unfair competitive advantage over your competitiors. You are just simply the best. Better than all the rest.

Unicorn

Mystical. Magical. Single horned creatures. Quite the fantastical beasts. These beasts take a much more tangible form in startups. How do you ask? Unicorn startups are a rarity because they are privately held startups valued at over 1 Billion. SpaceX is an example of an unicorn. A unicorn that makes our fantasies of commercial space travel a reality! SpaceX is currently valued at USD 74 Billion!

USP, unique selling proposition

Does your product or service have a feature that makes it better from all the competitors? For example a material that makes it last longer than other similar products? If your customers are willing to buy your product instead of competitors (and pay even a bit more), you have a USP!

UVP, unique value proposition

How to make your product or service stand out from all other alternatives, and become the best possible option for the customers! By coming up with a unique value proposition that no one else has! UVP points out the unique personality, identity and strenghs of your business.

UX – User Experience

When using a certain product, system or service, ask yourself how easy and efficient it is to use it, and how well does it solve your problem and respond to your needs. If you have an answer, you have an user experience!

Validation

It is basically proving that your s**t works. It is not enough to create a product that works and believe in it. It is very important to create the approval of the product on the market. You could grow the most delicious apples and know to be good but it should also sell in the market. Find out how is the competition like? Are your apples the best? Why would anyone buy your apples? This is the step you take before you proceed with the idea or PIVOT! (We are sure throwing that word a lot out here!! LOL) Truth is most startups pivot. Iteration is necessary in this business….oh sorry thats another word. Maybe you want to check that out too.

Valley of Death

 

Valley of death is a period during your startup life cycle. It is the time between friends, family and fools and till the point you are successful (your product is selling for money). The period is an exciting one but it also means uncertainty. It is like that period after you graduate university and hope to make it in your field of study. You have the knowledge and hopefully the passion and now you hope your products catches attention and starts generating revenue.

Value Capture

Value capture is a model in which a business is able to create profit from its transactions. Think of it as growing an apple tree yielding delicious apples, you have your value there but you need to sell those apples to capture value. One easy way to test your ability to capture value is to see if you can raise prices without losing customers?

Value Proposition

 

Value proposition is to indicate why a customer would buy or subscribe to your product/service. The product or service you create should aim to solve your consumer’s troubles or offer new solutions that the competition doesn’t. If you cannot do those things, maybe time to evaluate your product/service and PIVOT??????!

Venture Capital

Venture capital is a BIG load of money that boosts your company in exhange for equity. Sort of like when Ariel gives up her voice for legs. JUST KIDDING. This will only happen when the investor can see long term growth potential. If your company has caught the attention of a venture capitalist, you might be doing well.

XaaS

It’s 2021, anything can be tailored to be sold as a service. Think about it for a minute and compare all the service apps on your phone at the moment. Many of your applications are SaaS, software as a service. Multitasking while you are reading this post and watching Netflix? Netflix is a PaaS, platform as a service. Basically, XaaS stands for everything you can sell as a service. Be warned: keep it legal. Everything has limitations 😉 XaaS works best with the correct technology and logistics.

This Startup Dictionary for Dummies has been put together in by Tribe Tampere marketing team volunteers and interns with the Marketing Lead Mirella Mellonmaa and with the help of Mirza Sagdati (aka Startup Thief) during the spring 2021.

Special thanks to: Catherine Maloney, Ella-Juulia Ora, Farzaneh Esmaeili and Leila Ali

Download Startup Dictionary for Dummies PDF here!

BLOG POST: Introducing Nordea – Finalist of MSF 2020

Meet Nordea, one of the four finalists in this year’s Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland competition, with Vesa Riihimäki, Head of Startup & Growth and Teija Nousiainen, Deal Flow Manager, telling more about their startup activities.

Nordea is a leading Nordic universal bank. We are helping our customers realise their dreams and aspirations – and we have done that for 200 years. We want to make a real difference for our customers and the communities where we operate – by being a strong and personal financial partner. Nordea has 9,3 million household customers, 530 000 Small & medium sized companies and 2650 large corporates & institutions as customers. Nordea’s Startup & Growth has a Nordic wide presence and is focused on serving scalable high growth companies. 

Startup & Growth unit

Nordea has a long history with startups. In 2012-2014 Nordea was delivering key content for Nokia Bridge program. That gave us understanding of small pre seed tech companies and their logic and the financing dos and don’ts. In 2015-2017 we ran first a Finnish accelerator, then two times a global/Nordic one. Key target was to learn to cooperate with startups, adopt the culture – at all organisational levels – and be prepared to live with the raising fintech ecosystem, competition and bring Nordea’s business development to next level via partnership strategy.

In 2018 we moved forward after 3 years of Accelerators. We launched Nordea Ventures CVC and our Open Banking & Digital Banking organizations focused more on growth stage startups in relation to partnerships. In addition, several Intrapreneurship programs were also executed. Nordea Startup & Growth was initially structured 2013 and became nationwide unit 2017 – three other Nordic countries started similar units in 2018. Today Nordea Startup & Growth serves over 3500 startups and has excellent global venture network.

Nordea has been Slush’s main partner for several years, also this year.

Services beyond banking

In Nordea we collaborate with startups in two ways. First, we have 3500 startups/growth companies as our customers and our Startup & Growth units in all Nordic markets are focusing on helping the companies to grow. The Startup & Growth unit was first established in Finland in 2013. At that time Nordea’s business banking saw that there was a need for a specialized unit that would concentrate on the needs of startups/scaleups as their way of doing business varied from traditional companies’ needs.

The target from the beginning has been that we offer services beyond banking, provide a own contact person from day one and also finance startups, which is not typical for incumbent banks. The strategy has been a success and after these years Nordea Startup & Growth is a well-known and active player in the startup ecosystem, our market share in Finland is 80% and the customer satisfaction is in high level. After having the good experience from Finland, the Startup & Growth units were also established in other Nordic markets in 2018.

The other way Nordea is collaborating with startups is by partnering with fintechs in developing Nordea’s services and investing in startups. Nordea Ventures (Nordea’s CVC) has done several fintech investments within few years. As Nordea is highly digital bank and the demand for digital services is continuously increasing, we are also closely collaborating with numerous startups and making partnerships with them to develop our services. 

This year the Investor speed date event was held as an online version. There was one event for startups looking for seed-phase funding and another event for scaleups raising their A/B round. In those two events 100 VCs (Global, European, Nordic) and 100 startups/scaleups participated the event and 300 1-to-1 meetings were carried out between the startups/scaleups and VCs. The feedback was really positive and participants found it beneficial. Nordea continues organizing these Investor Speed dates also in the future and next ones are during spring 2021. Startups/scaleups can send their applications to the events from here

Specialized for startups

First of all, when thinking about the Startup & Growth business, we see that by serving the high growth companies and specializing to their needs we are able to grow their business, Nordea’s business and also help societies as growing companies brings growth to economies. Then when thinking about how the startups benefit by choosing us as their financial/banking partner – is that we can offer our services and expertise to them that goes beyond the traditional banking services. We have worked with thousands of companies within the last seven years – so we know the pains of quickly growing companies and for instance we offer Deal Flow Management services that no other bank does. 

Then again when we think about the development side and why Nordea collaborates with fintechs – it is quite obvious that as the speed of change is increasing all the time and more fintechs are coming up with good solutions, Nordea wants to collaborate with the most promising ones so that we can offer our customers the best services and customer experience. And of the question why a fintech should collaborate with Nordea. We are a Nordic bank with millions of household customers and over half a million corporate customers, so there is a great customer base who to offer your services to. Also, we are a trusted and financially stable bank so good partner to build your business with.

Nordea really recognizes the importance of startup ecosystem, and we want to help the ecosystem to flourish and we do our part: Nordea has leveraged the growth of startups/growth companies with over 500 million euros and made several LP and CVC investments during the years. 

You need to find a way to include the startup cooperation into daily tasks of your people – in all organisational levels. This way it becomes part of DNA of company culture and stays in the focus and takes the corporation’s business into next level. 

“We Grow Startups” – an online panel Nordea organized as part of Slush. Nordea brought together the actors of the startup ecosystem to discuss the current state and future of the Nordic startup ecosystem.

Want to be part of the future with Nordea?

In the future as already today Nordea’s target is to be the preferred banking partner for startups/growth companies and venture partners. We bring the best value for scalable businesses and venture partners. We are also actively cooperating and partnering with the ecosystem and driving our business and product development at leading position.

Our Startup & Growth team in all Nordic countries is really happy to help so please feel to contact us and we’ll help you out. 

Vesa Riihimäki, Head of Startup & Growth & Teija Nousiainen, Deal Flow Manager

Tribe Tampere is awarding annually the Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland. In 2020 the award was handed out for the third time. The award aims to recognize exceptional achievements, which especially industrial corporations have done to foster startup collaboration methods and improve innovation and competitiveness. Tribe Tampere is convinced that the award will stimulate collaboration and investments in startup companies, and boost internal startup culture development in industrial companies in Finland.

BLOG POST: Introducing Konecranes – Finalist of MSF 2020

Meet Konecranes, one of the four finalists in this year’s Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland competition, with Startup Project & Partnership Manager Katariina Palvas, telling more about their startup activities.

Konecranes is a world-leading group of Lifting Businesses™, serving a broad range of customers including manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Konecranes provides productivity enhancing lifting solutions as well as services for lifting equipment of all makes. With our knowledge, products, services and solutions we seek to maximize the positive contributions to our different stakeholders and the surrounding society. We create value for our stakeholders on multiple fronts: through circular economy, digitalization and our deeply rooted safety culture. In 2019, Group sales totaled EUR 3.33 billion. The Group has 18,000 employees in 50 countries.

Story of the startup unit

Konecranes has worked with startups since 2015. We are constantly looking for opportunities to leverage our scale to create new business. Solving a specific technical or business-related problem with digital technology often requires a very focused set of talent and skills. These capabilities are increasingly found in startup organizations, who today also have access to capital and tools previously available only to large corporations, such as cloud computing. Therefore, we believe startups can do outstandingly in solving specific business challenges by leveraging digital technologies. Startups inspire us enormously with their innovative and agile way of creating technical solutions, some of which can disrupt the whole industry. That is why we are committed to collaborating and combining the best of both worlds.

Olli-Pekka Nieminen, Manager, Data & Digital Business Transformation, Katariina Palvas, Manager, Startup Project & Partnership, and Jussi Eskelinen, Manager, DX & Business Design at Station F, Paris 2020.

Startup collaboration is organized by Konecranes’ DX & Business Design team, which facilitates the cooperation between business owners and startups using the most recent outside-in perspectives and methods. The Digital Accelerator unit, which our team is a part of, is dedicated to increasing the execution speed of digital initiatives across the company and spurring new, transformative ideas that drive business growth. We have also formed lean processes and several teams, including marketing, communications and legal are continuously engaged in supporting startup activities.

One of our strengths is our clear, structured pilot process. We are able get the buy-in of business owners right from the beginning. They are engaged already in the scouting phase and in making decisions on which startup to pilot. After the pilots, they are also heavily involved in expanding the collaboration to a more commercial phase. All this is done with our team’s support, but our business owners are also very independent in carrying out the projects with startups. They clearly acknowledge the business value and potential in the co-operation, something which we are very proud of as a company. 

Your success is our success

Konecranes’ goals for startup collaboration are simple: we work together to enhance our offering for existing customers, take new tools that enhance our own business processes into use and partner to grow new business in new customer segments. Konecranes can become a startup’s commercial partner, trusted customer, or both – all our startup activities are driven from real business needs and are based on a proper customer relationship.  All the pilot projects are commercial, which means we will always pay for them. We offer a world-class brand and reputation, a network of 17 000 experts, commercial paid partnership and collaboration, the possibility of co-creating new products and services, investor references and collaboration with a corporate partner of one of Europe’s largest startup campus, Maria 01 in Helsinki.

Olli-Pekka Nieminen and Jussi Eskelinen from Konecranes, with local colleagues from China at Slush Shanghai 2018.

Win-win collaboration

All our startup collaborations follow one core principle: they are built on transparency and trust to create a win-win relationship. This can be seen in our commercial way of working with startups (paid projects) and our willingness to support startups’ long-term success by, for example, offering investor references, coaching and advice. Working with us can help startups offer disruptive solutions to scale up faster. Our aim is to strengthen our collaboration with world-class tech startups and learn new, innovative ways to create business value for our customers.

A try and fail mentality is encouraged to get things going. We also see it as crucial to create value for the startup as well. To get things to the next level internally and to get people to commit to the processes and pilots, it is important to communicate the benefits of cooperation from the perspective of all stakeholders. 

Key achievements

There are plenty! We have done dozens of pilot projects over the years with startups globally and they are equally important in their own way. One of this year’s highlights is our Accelerator Program, which is organized with startup entrepreneurs and targets our own employees. This has created another excellent way to boost innovation and customer-centricity at Konecranes, in addition to the pilot projects with startups. 

Aleksi Miettinen, Innovation Specialist of Innovation Management team pitching at our Accelerator Program at Maria01 2019. Photo by Tapio Auvinen.

As Maria 01’s corporate partner, we created a program to bring the best practices from startup entrepreneurs to accelerate our own ways of working. In 2020, we organized a three-month-long remote Accelerator Program for our own employees, enabling them to live their startup dream in an intrapreneurial setting. Coached by startup entrepreneurs and venture capital investors, our teams innovated new business solutions and developed their projects like a startup, using lean methods. Reflecting Konecranes’ global footprint, we had nine teams formed from experts in 10 countries who pitched their solution to an audience of over 100 business owners and the top management of Konecranes in a virtual event.

Want to be part of the future with Konecranes?

We believe we are one of the most reachable Finnish corporation among startups. We give startup collaboration a high priority and have created a dedicated website for it, Konecranes for startups. It is visibly linked from our main website, something very rare among Finnish stock listed companies. On the page startups can find what we offer, what we look for, how we work with them, and whom from our side to contact. All this is based on the research we carried out among startups regarding what they look for in corporate relationships and what they find challenging. One topic was that startups struggle to create the first contact to a corporation. We solved this problem!

Katariina Palvas, Startup Project & Partnership Manager

Tribe Tampere is awarding annually the Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland. In 2020 the award was handed out for the third time. The award aims to recognize exceptional achievements, which especially industrial corporations have done to foster startup collaboration methods and improve innovation and competitiveness. Tribe Tampere is convinced that the award will stimulate collaboration and investments in startup companies, and boost internal startup culture development in industrial companies in Finland.

BLOG POST: Introducing Fortum – honorable mention in MSF 2020

Meet Fortum, who received the honorable mention in this year’s Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland competition, with Manager, Investments & Partnerships Valkea Growth Club, Tony-Frank Holmström sharing his insights about their startup activities.

Fortum is a leading clean-energy company developing and offering solutions for our customers in electricity, heating, cooling, as well as solutions to improve resource efficiency. We also provide services for the power generation industry and solutions for consumers so that they can be smarter in their energy choices. Fortum is driving the change for a cleaner world.

Fortum’s Innovation and Venturing unit

The mission of Fortum’s Innovation and Venturing unit is to build new significant high-growth businesses in close collaboration with business divisions, ensure renewal and growth opportunities through high-performance internal and external venturing, as well as learn and pilot new business models and technologies together with world-class partners and ecosystems.

The Innovation and Venturing unit at Fortum is responsible for ideating, incubating and accelerating new business at Fortum. We build and drive forward a funnel of activities, starting from great ideas all the way to successful growth businesses. Together with Fortum’s business units, we learn from the outside world and co-develop initiatives, making us competitive in the decades to come. Fortum Innovation unit supports all Fortum divisions to identify and validate ideas and accelerate the implementation of new solutions. Touchpoints for startup collaboration are:

Startup pilots – Introducing and facilitating startup pilots across Fortum to meaningfully impact operations and drive strategic transformation.

Fund Investments – Collaboration with selected VC Funds to find relevant startups and to translate research into actionable strategic analysis.

Startup Investments – Selective equity investments in growth companies building on Fortum’s strategy.

Valkea Growth Club – Supporting digital clean energy ventures on their growth journey – Offering support in the forms of expertise, development opportunities, funding and premises.

Valkea Growth Club team members

Benefits for both parties

Benefits for our company of having this unit are diverse. We learn from the outside world and co-develop initiatives making us competitive in the decades to come, piloting with startups allow purposeful access to valuable innovation and drives forward organizational development. Our goal is to build a cleaner future through transforming the energy industry. We’re finding startups with ideas about how this can be done and giving them what they need to do it.

Collaboration with us is very beneficial for the startup as well. The startup will get world class brand and reputation to support their goals, a network of our 8 000+ experts to guide their way, an access to our customer base, VC network and new markets and support from sparring to funding and investor referrals to concrete business advice.

Innovation is the key

It is hard to pinpoint one specific achievement but in general the work that we do at Valkea to support the growth of the startups and the advice we can give to them is something that we are proud of. Hopefully through this hard work we can achieve a valuable and healthy startup. The work of the innovation team at large is truly world class and the team is just amazing!

Innovation is part of the strategic priorities at Fortum and it is part of our DNA. We believe innovation is crucial for any company to survive and to be successful. That is the reason why we are putting so much resources behind our innovation activities and why we want to be even better next year. We have achieved a lot but you can always improve, and 2021 will be exciting for us. There are a lot of ideas we have in store for next year, and building a larger partnership network and wider ecosystem are just a few points on the agenda.

Want to be part of the future with Fortum?

Want to have a chat with us about innovation or startups, and discuss potential collaboration opportunities? We are looking forward to hearing from you! Please reach out to frank@valkea.club.

Think about what it is that your corporation wants to achieve with it all. Do you want to learn or just make financial investments. We want to learn and be actively involved in most startups we invest in to bring the wealth of knowledge back with us. Make sure you share information every day and with everyone. Involve colleagues and management. Have an open culture so any ideas are welcomed. That way you have a great chance to succeed with your corporate innovation and venture activities.

Tony-Frank Holmström, Manager, Investments & Partnerships Valkea Growth Club, Fortum

Tribe Tampere is awarding annually the Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland. In 2020 the award was handed out for the third time. The award aims to recognize exceptional achievements, which especially industrial corporations have done to foster startup collaboration methods and improve innovation and competitiveness. Tribe Tampere is convinced that the award will stimulate collaboration and investments in startup companies, and boost internal startup culture development in industrial companies in Finland.

BLOG POST: Introducing Stora Enso – Most Startup Friendly company 2020

Tribe Tampere is awarding annually the Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland. In 2020 the award was handed out for the third time. The award aims to recognize exceptional achievements, which especially industrial corporations have done to foster startup collaboration methods and improve innovation and competitiveness. Tribe Tampere is convinced that the award will stimulate collaboration and investments in startup companies, and boost internal startup culture development in industrial companies in Finland.

Meet the winner of 2020 Stora Enso, with VP, Digital, Antti Vuolli telling more about their startup activities!

Part of the bioeconomy, Stora Enso is a leading global provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden construction and paper. We employ some 25 000 people in more than 30 countries and our shares are listed on the Helsinki and Stockholm stock exchanges. Our fiber-based materials are renewable, recyclable and fossil free. Our solutions offer low-carbon alternatives to products based on finite resources. We believe that everything that is made from fossil-based materials today can be made from a tree tomorrow.

Story of the startup unit

Stora Enso’s aim is to provide customers with renewable alternatives to traditional fossil-based products. We also have a long-term target to have 15% of the annual revenue coming from new products and services which didn’t exist in our portfolio three years ago. Consequently, we need to accelerate our innovation agenda. One key enabler is to innovate and implement new solutions together with fast moving and agile start-ups.

Stora Enso team selecting startups

Now we have integrated the startup collaboration to our innovation agenda. We have systematic approach in dealing with startups through our two programs, Stora Enso Accelerator and Combient Foundry Venture Client Program. The Accelerator program is a leadership program where Stora Enso employees work alongside startups over a few months period on specific themes – for example how to create a plastic free supply chain or how to leverage digitalisation. Not only do our employees and the startups learn from each other, but the program has also resulted in several continued partnerships. The Combient Foundry, Venture client alliance, is a joint program between several large Nordic companies aiming to find startups as business partners in a systematic way. 

The venture client model builds on open innovation, which requires the corporates to be quite open about their business challenges and opportunities publicly towards the startup ecosystems. The startups bringing the most suitable solutions to the table are then contracted to co-create and partner with us. The setup of Combient Foundry is quite unique as it involves several large corporates, which also means that the start-ups get exposed to many potential large clients at the same time. In addition to our startup engagement programs we build new corporate ventures through our breakthrough innovation process model, which allows the new ventures act more independently in their go to market. One example case is Box Inc – a B2B marketplace for renewable packaging.

Benefits of startup activities

First, we want to keep on innovating new products and services, thus helping us renew our portfolio. Secondly, working with startups has been tremendously rewarding and at the same time challenging the ways we work. Start-ups live by the day, so to become faster and more agile we have organized our ways of working to better support the collaboration. Moreover, we have created a set of internal instructions to outline how we engage with startups when comes to sourcing and legal matters, as well as a process with clear roles and responsibilities for how to facilitate the start-up programs internally.

For startups working with Stora Enso is a great opportunity to co-create and scale their business globally. Reference value of corporates like us help in getting to next level in business and potentially funding. If they get through one of our programs, it is one proof point of being one of the global top companies in the area of business. We typically get applications for each cycle from average 20-30 countries, thus going through the selection process is a major achievement. In addition, if startup is part of Combient Foundry program, exposure to other Combient companies, which can lead to new business opportunities. This has happened multiple times. For example, Overstory.ai first run project with Stora Enso, then soon after with other Combient companies, Husqvarna and Södra.

Antti Vuolli on stage presenting Combient Foundry

Highlight moments

One highlight is the overwhelming feedback we have received from both start-ups and our own business. For example, the one of the recent Combient Foundry program we received a rating of 9,4 out of 10 from the start-up participants, and at the same time the start-ups testified that their sales cycle had been shortened with an average of 91 days. Moreover, the time from first meeting to value is very short. A showcase of this this quick value generation is the collaboration with the start-up company Snap Support and a couple of Stora Enso paper printing customers. In that case we were able to convert an early idea about how to improve remote technical customer support into a working solution for our customers just 6 months later.

Want to be a part of the future with Stora Enso?

Working with startups is increasingly bringing us business results. We work with startups long term and it helps us to reach our goals together with the startups. We want to do it systematically as an integral part of our innovation agenda. Innovation never happens in isolation.

If a startup wants to collaborate with us, our recommendation is to apply through Combient Foundry cycles or Stora Enso annual Accelerator program. This is the most efficient way to deal with us. We have pre-defined the areas of interest and thus it is a mutually easy to focus on value creation.

Top management support is paramount to success. Be systematic in your approach and have clear business objectives for the collaboration. Be prepared to co-create and change your processes to support the collaboration. 

Antti Vuolli, VP, Digital, Stora Enso