Heat is on.
And so it begins, the journey that will put us on the map of the World!
#invaasio #startupsauna
…What journey? Will put who on the map?
Ok, perhaps it is time to rewind a little.
Who we are?
We are 2 guys, known each other for years and years.
Mikko (the tech guy) has an intimate relationship with geeky stuff (programming and drinking coke) and me, Ari with little of exposure from pizzas via car mechanics and telecommunication to taxi driving (only short list here), got bored with current situation and decided to go on a startup route.
Not so long ago i gave Mikko a list of 10 ideas with the best potential/ease-to-develop ratio.
And with his engineer-like accuracy Mikko sorted the list out with a point system he developed in seconds according to pain-of-development, time, potential and feel variables. From this carefully analyzed list we then picked one, quite big pain point and started hacking and slashing. (Mikko hacking and me mostly slashing)
The hacking was done in a 200€/month common room, pics below
The hackershack
The Hackershack toilet
A casual encounter
After couple of months of hacking and Mikko’s awesome achievements, I went to a SocFri event and there I met these 2 guys, Mikko Alasaarela (Dealmachine) and Ville-Kalle Arponen (Tribe studios), we discussed about tech, their and our services, silicon valley and startup life in general, me bitching how anti-startup country Finland is, and they telling me about this weird thing called Startup Sauna.
Startup Sauna
Startup Sauna they said… I have to look it up.
http://google.com/ -> startup sauna
“Startup Sauna believes seed acceleration should be every great startups’ right. We push the selected startups develop to a stage where they’re ready to take over the international markets.”
(To best of my knowledge, one of the biggest problems of potential startups is probably gaining traction via customer acquisition, basically how to get users to their service.
And that is something where I think startup accelerators shine. In combining startups with potential, so that the media has an easy access to the new companies that have the slight-but-existent possibility to be the next facebooks, googles and dropboxes.
After that it’s the seedtobethenextbigthing’s turn to deliver.)
Perfect, how do we get in?
2 ways, via warmups or referral. We don’t know anybody so it has to be the warmups…
Next ones are going to be after the summer for the next falls batch! %&/#%… it seems like we just missed them all!
We really, really have to find someone to give us a referral!
Luckily few moments and calls later we found a connection. Thanks to Joonas Nurminen and Patrik Louko, we had the chance to apply.
Fill the form, click to send, done.
Egg nyte, got an email from Ville Simola the Captain of Startup Sauna, asking can we come tomorrow to be interviewed. Reply: name the place and time and we will be there.
Tuesday, the interview. We met Ville and Antti Ylimutka and told them about us and our service, they asked some questions and we tried to answer them. I had a feeling this could be something fruitful. These guys really are on to something.
Thursday, received the email:
“What a great day!
Our coaches have gone though your material and they (as well as our team) want you to attend Startup Sauna Final program!”
YeeHaaw, were in!
Let the Journey begin
Program starts 23.4.2012, and that, in case do not know is tomorrow, hence “the journey begins”!
Tomorrow we’ll meet the awesome hackers from around the World!
- Run like Forrest Gump and deliver the package! -
