about startups. We help them get born, find ideas, co- founders, employees and funding; take them abroad to build networks; change the culture not to push them down but to support them; invite them on stage to turn entrepreneurs into role models, heroes and rockstars; aspire to become like them and show them our appreciation, for they are the ones that take enormous risks and make sacrifices, so that the rest of us can live in a world with jobs and prosperity, a world that’s always going forward. This is what we do In practice, our activities fall in the following categories; Aaltoes Talks -- to educate students, researchers and anyone who is curious Aaltoes Trips -- we take students abroad to learn, be challenged and discover the world Programs -- Startup Life internship fellowship and Startup Sauna & Summer of Startups seed accelerator programs Various pro-startups projects -- including stuff like Slush, Seriesseed, Fail Day and Steve Blank Week Overall badges, August ’11
existence for Aaltoes (Aalto Entrepreneurship Society in official jargon, Aaltoes in practice). We profile the events, projects, visitors and most of all startups that have created the community in 2011. In compiling this booklet, I’ve looked back at not only the past year but the previous ones as well and as a general conclusion, it seems we’ve finally established our presence both nationally and increasingly overseas as well. Heck, like any mature organization, we even have formal processes, and discuss issues like knowledge transfer or brand identity with a straight face. Having had the opportunity to witness this growth up close and personal, I’m immensly proud of the way we have and will develop, changing and iterating our activities, and most of all, I’m proud of my fellow team members whose work ethics and ability to pull off magic never ceases to amaze me! Charlotta, editor of the 2011 Yearbook Comments, questions, or feedback about this publication can be sent to charlotta.liukas(a)aaltoes.com Aaltoes 365: Experiential and Experimental Living Picture: Lauri
Aaltoes events in 2011. That’s a lot of chairs that needed to be carried around. Maybe that’s what we should tell our prospective team members instead of telling them stories of our successes. Join Aaltoes, move a chair. Aaltoes has, at its core, always been about a tight-knight bunch of very dedicated individuals putting a lot of time and effort into making an impact together. It’s not always a glorious job. All thrilling outcomes boil down to dull, repetitive tasks that need to be taken care of diligently for there to be a meaningful outcome. Chairs. Press releases. Websites. Facebook updates. Emails. Phone calls. Meetings. More emails. What I mean to say is that almost everything that has been achieved is the result of countless invisible hours of, often, tedious work. No guts, no glory? No grit, no glory. It’s been quite a ride. In this book, you will find some of the most memorable moments from year 2011. But as always, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Those chairs don’t carry themselves. This book is a tribute to all of you out there, who helped make this year possible, for you are many. Thank you everyone. It’s been a lot of fun. --Miki Chair-man of Aaltoes 2011 Join Aaltoes, move some chairs.
Other KPIs of the year 5 500 200 cups of coffee Angry Birds plush toys handed out Academic excellence 327 ECTS not completed during 2011 * * Facilitating world-changing startups can be time- consuming, and some of us saw a drop in academic productivity during the year ;-) However, during 2011 we also had 2 MSc graduations (go Ville & Varun!) and 1 PhD defense (yay, Tapani!) 4261 Jan 2011 6663 Dec 2011 982 Jan 2011 2577 Dec 2011 Social media fan development 7 399 visitors in startuplife.in 3 569 visitors in aaltocampus.com 20 176 visitors in steveblank.fi 22 051 visitors in slush.fi 24 305 visitors in hyvinvoinninjalkeen.fi 40 224 visitors in epaonnistumisenpaiva.fi 74 749 visitors in aaltoes.com Online Traffic Jam in 2011
February 9.2.2011 - Aaltoes Fair, investors, startups and students gettogether 16.2.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Markus Nuotto, co-founder of Aaltoes, ex-Widsen 23.2.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Mohamed El-Fatatry, founder and CEO of Muxlim 25.2.2011- Aaltoes Evening: Students! Get Involved With Aaltoes March 2.3.2011 Aaltoes Talk with Jalo Helsinki, design house alarms startup 21.3.2011 - Suomi hyvinvoinnin jälkeen / Finland Post Welfare 25.3.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Donna Novitsky, Stanford Technology Ventures Program April 1.4.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus, ex-MySQL 12.4.2011 - Startup Sauna Warmup Helsinki 12.4.2011 - Aaltoes Insights into NFC 19.4.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Ville Miettinen, CEO of Microtask, ex-Hybrid Graphics 21.4.2011 - Aaltoes Insights: Work at a startup - Startup Life Info Evening 29.4.2011 - Aaltoes Pitching Event: Constructed Growth May 4.5.2011 - Aaltoes Insights: Let’s Get Physical! Product Startups Evening 9.5.2011 - Aaltoes Insights: Petri Kokko & digital trends Events calender 2011 In addition to all the programs, coaching sessions and networking, we organized a good bunch of events. Here’s the showdown of 2011.
Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle at Rovio 8.6.2011 - StartupBBQ: All American BBQ 15.6.2011 - StartupBBQ: Enternchefs 17.6.2011 - Startup Sauna Demo Day 22.6.2011 - StartupBBQ: Indian evening July 6.7.2011 - StartupBBQ: Plain Ol’ BBQ 13.7.2011 - StartupBBQ - Russian edition 20.7.2011 - StartupBBQ with Playmysong 27.7.2011 - StartupBBQ - Sort-of Japanese edition 29.7.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Sami Inkinen, CEO of Trulia August 2.8.2011 - Aaltoes Workshop with Robert Burgelman, innovation scholar, Stanford 3.8.2011 - StartupBBQ: Mukava Musical Evening 10.8.2011 - Summer of Startups Demo Day w/ Kristian Segerstråle, founder of Playfish 5.8.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Alex Ostewalder, From Business Plan to Business Model September 5.9.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Steve Blank 5.9.2011 - Aalto takes over Tavastia, Steve Blank Afterparty 9.9.2011 - Steve Blank Talk & BBQ at Garage 12.9.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Micki Honkavaara, ex-Hybrid Graphics 14.9.2011 - StartupLife.in: Work at a Startup Info Evening 15.9.2011- Aaltoes Talk with Timo Ahopelto, Lifeline Ventures & Valkee 21.9.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Duncan Lamb, ex-Skype October 4.10.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Wili Miettinen & Petteri Koponen: What I wish I knew as a freshman 13.10.2011 - Kansallinen epäonnistumisen päivä / National Day of Failure November 2.-3.11.2011 - Slush Helsinki Startup Expo and Conference 2nd week of Nov: Aaltoes Trip to Silicon Valley 28.11.2011 - Aaltoes Talk with Tarik Ansari, Startup visa expert December 16.12.2011 - Startup Sauna Demo Day with Om Malik & Rom De Jeremy
and pieces throughout the year are presented. Garage48 Helsinki: Ready, steady, hack! Taking place January 14-16 in Aalto Venture Garage, the first out-of-Estonia Garage48 gathered a cross-Baltic crowd of visionaries, designers and programmers to prototype products and businesses over the weekend. With Ville & Miki running the show, Garage48 was supported by Nokia, Windows Azure, Edicy and Briim. More: http://www.garage48.org Aaltoes Fair: Meet and Mingle In February, both Design Factory and the Garage were packed with startup energy and enthusiasts for the 3rd edition of Aaltoes Fair, the concept of which was dead-proof simple: startups set up booths, we bring in people and serve snacks and refreshments and then get out of the way, and let people interact, mingle and meet the startups. The 700-attendee exclusive event was attended by Mr Risto Siilasmaa who gave an opening speech and later invested in one of the evening’s startups, Mendor. Aaltoes Fair was organized in cooperation with Aalto MBA Alumni -association. In a true MBA-fashion, the event was planned thoroughly and the preparations were started early on in the Nov 2011, as expectations were high after two successfull predecents. The team, including Lauri H, Oskari, Maria, Severi, Juho H and Nils did a superb job in delivering on those set standards.
most out of the event, prior to the actual Fair we held several so called Venture Support Sessions. For the sessions, coaches were invited to go through basics of pitching in a Fair-like setting. These efforts paid off as all the attending startups were well prepared and starring at the event. Picture: Lari
Linda, Kristo, Karri, Miki & Lotta together with Kallio Law, Lifeline Ventures and ArcticStartup, launched the Seriesseed legal contract database under Creative Commons that hosts standardized documents including Termsheet, Shareholders’ Agreement and Investment Agreement. related to startup incorporation. More: http://www.seriesseed.fi Drill Sergent Ruohonen Leaves the Building 2011 was the second and last year of the Era of the Head Coach / Entrepreneur-in-Residence Juha Ruohonen. During the two years, Juha’s hard core coaching, profound knowledge of startup ecosystem and sports analogies have not only benefited the startups at the Garage, but also helped us develop and grow. Thank you Juha and best of luck to your future endevours! What I Wish I Knew As A Freshman series for new students In the beggining of the fall semester we made sure to be present at all freshmen activities and did a series of events for the first year students, entitled What I Wish I Knew As A Freshman. In the lectures, Aalto’s entrepreneurial alumni came back to school to talk about their career development and share advice and tips. One is never too young to start their entrepreneurial education and we were happy with the active participation of students!
our biggest event yet when a full Finlandia House of 1,600 guests came to take part in Finland Post Welfare. Q1 of 2011 was pre-elections time and we were frustrated; political parties talked about issues that seemed alien to us, and the whole country appeared paralyzed post-Nokia announcements. With Finland Post Welfare event, we wanted to draw attention to one major economic imbalance that is to affect today’s students greatly in the not-so-distant future; According to McKinsey estimates, we need 300,000 new jobs in the private sector… soon, for the welfare society to sustain itself. Furthermore, 75% of new jobs are created in SMEs. In lay man’s terms, that means that out of our graduating class in Aalto University, approximately 1 in 4 will end up working for the prominent powerhouses of today. The rest of us would find yourselves employed by the likes of Tuxera, Beneq, Eniram or ZenRobotics– or create our own dream jobs. Finland Post Welfare sparked a debate on the role of startups and growth companies in economic development and prosperity. Distinguished panelists included Finland’s opinion leaders Jorma Ollila, Björn Walhroos, Risto Siilasmaa, and younger generation entrepreneurs Tina Aspiala, Petteri Koponen and Wili Miettinen, and Twitter and the national media were a-buzzing. This event was organized in the span of a few weeks and took a lot of hard work from a big team, including the idea spearhead Miki, Lotta, Krista, Heini, Lari, etc. We are grateful for the tremendous help received from many individuals, partners and sponsors, including PwC, Teknologiateollisuus, Sini, Netprofile and Tekniska föreningen i Finland TfiF. For more & video of the evening: http://hyvinvoinninjalkeen.fi
with the broader Aalto University community - and take our chances participating in the university dialogue. In late spring, Aalto University was amidst making policy guidelines on future campus development, and, having worked together cross-Aalto for several years already, experiencing the ups and downs of the first chapters of Aalto University, we wanted to have a say as well. A short-lived blog projects, entitled AaltoCampus.com ensued - we invited people from our community and elsewhere to share their experiences on campus life as well as visions of Aalto. Your Campus is a City In the 2011 core Aaltoes community, we all believed, and still do, that a single campus would be the only way to build a shared, world class university out of Aalto. For us, the truly remarkable projects Aalto has thus far seen have been those unexpected cross-disciplinary crusades, like Design Factory, ME310, Aalto on Tracks, Blaast, or Powerkiss. A shared university campus that brings together people from diverse backgrounds to live and work together remains our long- term dream. More: http://www.aaltocampus.com
offline 2011 saw some changes to our visual identities, concepts and well as physical spaces. Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes The Garage went through a major renovation (props to Harri, Juho and every else who worked hard on the Alteration Project). Our seed acceleration program was re-branded Startup Sauna, Summer of Startups got a face-lift, Enternship logo was created and later abandoned in favor of Startup Life Helsinki and we finally admitted that short is indeed sweeter; Aalto Entrepreneurship Society became just Aaltoes. During the summer months, Mika, Lari, Lotta and the two Lauris as well as engineers at Pixel Crayons in New Delhi, India worked hard on creating a new website for Aaltoes, while Karri and the Sauna team created a webspace for Startup Sauna. The Garage was also in a desperate need of a renovation. While we had been super happy to witness how the once empty warehouse gradually started to fill op with events, startups and communities like Aaltoes, Sauna, Android Aalto, Windows Phone Community and the numerous other entities that worked and hung out from our dear center-of-the-universe, some changes were bound to happen. With the help of Harri, Toby and the renovation team, Garage 2.0 was completed in the Fall and users are better able to utilize the spaces, the containers ensure a better functioning (& quieter!) workspace and all in all, the place looks swell.
long-term serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, took Finland by a storm in the first week of September. The 5-day program consisted of dozens of meetings, workshops and lectures. The 12 lectures and 9 panels held during the week has a whopping 2840 registered attendees and streams were followed from almost 20 different countries. Linda, Kristo, Henrietta, Jp and dozens of volunteers worked around the clock to make the week memorable. The Steve Blank Extravaganza was supported, among others, Aalto University, Tekes, STVP, Teknologiateollisuus, Elinkeinoelämän keskusliitto, Sitra, FVCA, Fiban, TEM, AmCham, Finnvera, Reaktor, Boardman and Hopeinen Noursu. For the detailed program, videos, blogposts and everything else related to Steve Week, go to: http://www.steveblank.fi Monday: University Tuesday: Startups and Angels Wednesday: Venture Capital Thursday: Public Funding Friday: Media The Five Days of Steve
Failure is the foundation to success. Only failing and relentlessly trying again can one accomplish anything of true value. Therefore we believe that risk-taking, non-conformists and yes, failures should, in our society, be celebrated, not frowned upon. Together with the Boardman younger generation and other entrepreneurial minded youth organizations, Aaltoes celebrated the second annual Fail Day in Finland on October 13th. What started out as an understated gala in 2010, snowballed into a nation-wide phenomenon in Fall 2011. Leading up to the actual Fail Day, Petri, Riku, Nippe and the rest of the fail crew, set up an online community for the initiative. The site gathered an active community of over 8000 followers in the span of a few weeks and the accompanying self-reflective videos of seemingly successful people analyzing their failures gathered thousands of views making Fail Day the biggest topic of discussion in Finland on that date. The Fêtê de Failure was celebrated in seven cities across Finland. In Garage, we had a busy busy day; we held a workshop on how to encourage failure in the academia, a symposium on bankruptcy legislation in Finland and two inspiring keynotes from Pekka Viljakainen and Peter Vesterbacka on the rocky road to success. Sincerest thanks to Boardman Tulenkantajat community, student organizations across Finland and “big guys” like EVA, EK, Sitra, Teknologiateollisuus, Bolder and many others who co-created the Go Fail movement with us. More: http://www.epaonnistumisenpaiva.fi https://www.facebook.com/epaonnistumisenpaiva
to open up technology and make it more approachable for girls and women. With Rails Girls workshops we want to empower girls to acquire the tools to conquer the last online frontier. More Sofie Coppola than Barbie, Rails Girls promotes a totally new software craftsmanship culture. In 2011 events were organized in Helsinki in September as well as in Singapore in October. The Asian chapter was well received with over a 120 applicants for the thirty seats available in the workshop and got extensive coverage in local blogs. All in all, Rails Girls has taught over a 100 girls the basics of coding. In 2011, Rails Girls also won the annual Women in Technology Award of Finland. For 2012 we look forward to hosting events in Berlin, Tallinn & Shanghai as well as brainstorming totally new ways to teach tech. For more, check out http://railsgirls.com Text: Linda / Pictures: Karri
combines thoughts, ideas and feedback from Steve Blank’s visit, as well as other lessons learned. Steve Blank coined the term Helsinki Spring whilst witnessing the Finnish startup attitude, an ongoing revolution of sorts, that had started from a grassroots level. The Helsinki Spring website, facilitated by Henrietta, Kristo, Linda, Karri, Miki, Lauri, Lotta and others, is built upon the thoughts and perceptions of Blank and others who took part in discussions during the week. Helsinki Spring is done to showcase the thoughts of the startup community on Finnish mentality, attitudes, know-how, challenges and internationalization. A common goal is to see substantial business originating from Finland in the decades to come. This is a necessity for new job creation and for sustaining the living standard of the Finnish society. For more: http://www.helsinkispring.fi Finland needs a pay-it-forward culture Nanny culture destroys the killer instinct We need to celebrate and be proud of successes Russian know-how should be welcomed with open arms Students out of the schools to learn, experienced entrepreneurs in to teach Investors; no pain, no gain Aim is to build a functioning investment environment Companies sold abroad help to build the startup ecosystem Innovation policy is not a job act for Finns
Quite a few old friends and new acquitances made their way to Aaltoes this year. Here are a few of them - not to forget Mr Blank whose visit was such that we had to devote a whole spread of this book to chew it over. Donna Novitsky, former CEO of Big Tent Design and a staff member of Stanford Technology Ventures Program visited us in March. The visit was a joint effort of ACE and Aaltoes. During an intensive week, Donna held a number of lectures for both students and Aalto Faculty, and served as a judge at the Startup Sauna Warmup in Tampere. Robert Burgelman, a business and innovation scholar, is a Professor of Management and the Executive Director of the Stanford Executive Program (SEP) of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. In July, Aaltoes organized an open afternoon seminar for students and faculty hosted by Prof. Burgelman. The event mainly targeted faculty and we were happy to succeed in bringing university community together to share ideas with one of the leading innovation gurus in the world. Alexander Osterwalder was the first of the series of star speakers of Fall’11 visiting Summer of Startups in early August. Alex is best known for being the author of the best seller Business Model Generation and an in demand lecturer around world. In Design Factory, Alex had a full day of two keynotes, the other being for a 400+ audience; as well as private coaching sessions for Summer of Startups teams. Thanks Alex & family for coming and spending the sunny summer’s day with us!
(STVP) Tom Byers visited Aalto on October 14th- 16th. The visit was part of a partnership between Aalto Center of Entrepreneurship and STVP and focused on venturing curriculum development. Tom explained thoroughly the idea behind STVP’s curriculum after which he also described the structure of their faculty. He emphasized the importance of a balanced faculty. Both academics and practitioners are needed to achieve optimal results in teaching and research. Om Malik, the Indian born investor, journalist and founder of technology media Gigaom paid a visit to Finland in mid-December. The official reason to Om’s visit was to check out his latest investment, the Helsinki startup Tinkercad, a design software for 3D printing. However, rumour has it that having followed the startup arena up North, Om was eager to meet more startups! And meet he did. Om was the keynote speaker of Startup Sauna’s Demo Day and held a lively press conference at Garage on December 15th. Forrest Glick, the Associate Director at Stanford Technology Ventures Program experienced a week of Finnish peak summer in June as he flew in to put our storytelling processes in order. The creator of the STVP’s iconic Enterpreneurial Thought Leaders series, Forrest had a lot to share about vidoe production and how to capture those talks in the most exciting way possible. Inspired by him, we strived to improve our video production skills. In the summer, we began the migration from Vimeo to Youtube, and you can check the results of hard work from Lari & co at youtube.com/aaltoes
most at startups, goes the mantra. During 2011 Startup Life program employed some 30 students & post-gradutes in Helsinki & Silicon Valley startups. Started in Summer 2011, Startup Life sent six Aalto Master’s Degree and Post-Graduate students to intern in Silicon Valley startups. At the same time, back in Helsinki some 20 Aalto students were matched with Helsinki-based startup companies for their summer internship positions. The local Helsinki program was initially called Enternship, but we later changed the name to a more harmonized Startup Life Helsinki - new name, same concept! We are proud and pleased to tell that the majority of those students continued their journey with the startups. Apart from organizing the summer ‘11 trainee program, Linda and Lauri L. backed up by Tatu, Mikko H, Mikko I, Lauri H, Tuomas, Mika, Lotta and others continued to dream bigger and envision Startup Life spreading across several continents during 2012. Startup Life operations are supported by Aalto University & Tekes. For more: http://www.startuplife.in more: http:// www.startuplife.in “I’ve learned that in a startup, words don’t count. Actions speak louder than words.” - Anni, Flowdock “The summer prepared me to work and solve problems inside and outside my experience” - Goncalo, Valoya “Working with the team has been both fun and fruitful. They connected us with two exceptional engineers, and then deftly navigated all the visa and relocation issues.” - Zendesk
kicking ass, year 2011 saw the former Bootcamp seed accelaration program reincarnate into Startup Sauna. 1) Gather the best startups of the Baltic Sea region to work and live together 2) Instill coaching from serial entrepreneurs, investors and other professionals 3) Establish an unrivaled ambition level and the will to develop further Startup Sauna is a two phase program where in the first part, a series of Startup Sauna Warmups are held in different cities around the Baltic Rim reaching all the way to Siberia. In the second part, a 1+6 week intensive coaching program is offered at Aalto Venture Garage. The Warmups are organized in cooperation with local partners and offer a day of coaching and mentoring for startups of the locality. The most promising teams are then selected to the development program at Garage. During the second phase, the selected teams work intensively to develop their business model, technology & its applications, and early market entry. The teams graduating will be prepared to seek for initial investments and first customers. But even that is not enough; post-Sauna, startups will need to go through blood, sweat and tears to become the next success story.
successful pilot in 2010, Summer of Startups summer “fellowship” program for idea-stage startups returned this summer, with Antti & Mikko H. in the pilot’s seat. Summer of Startups is a 10-week intensive program targeted to students and researchers from Finland, Northern Europe and the rest of the world - and we mean it when we say it; We’ve had participants from Estonia, Russia, China, India, Ethiopia and Uganda, among others! During the summer the selected teams worked in Design Factory (while Garage was under renovation. Thanks DF guys for being good sports!), received coaching, feedback and access to the best serial entrepreneurs and mentors from all around the region, as well as took part in the legendary Wednesday BBQs. Summer of Startups is all about investing in people and showing the aspiring entrepreneurs a glimpse of the startup world. The summer’s journey has been beautifully documented in the online video series Game Changers by the Creative Agency Klok. The episodes can be viewed at www.muutoksentekijat.fi Amongst other parties, Summer of Startups was supported by ACE, Borenius & co, Nokia, Microsoft DreamSpark, VTT, Tekes and PwC. Cheers guys! For more: http://aaltoes.com/summer-of-startups/
Helsinki. A full house on 2-3 November at the Old Cable Factory. Slush Helsinki as an event has a long history dating back to 2008. This year Aaltoes took the major share of the organizational duties and had a spectacular time doing it. The 2011 edition of Slush featured world-class keynotes, cutting-edge panels, thrilling product launches from up-and-coming startups, and perhaps the most memorable, Slush 100 Pitching Competition that gathered literally hundred startups from across Northern Europe to pitch for the 10k prize. With 1,500 visitors during the two-day shindig and a heartwarming close-knit atmosphere, we dare to even say that Slush is shaping up to be one of Northern Europe’s leading startup conferences. Gaming, Crowdsourcing, Life Sciences and IT Security were the four themes around which snapshot presentations and panels were arranged and in addition, a speaker list of some 20 founders and investors offered insights into the contemporary startup world. The hundred pitching startups hailed from six different countries and proved that startups from these Northern latitudes pitch like no one! The grand winner of the expo was Ovelin’s WildChords, and the runner-ups were Sumo Paint, Asema Electronics, Leaddesk, Tanga Reef, Transfluent and Zeighted. Slush was kindly supported by e.g. EIT ICT Labs, Sitra, Nokia, Helsinki City, Accel Partners, Tekes, PwC, Elisa, Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship ACE, Holvi, Microsoft and Sun Effects. Thank you also to the numerous super-volunteers, as well as Timo & Peter! For more: http://www.slush.fi
Krakow London Milan Moscow New York Novosibirsk Oulu Paris Riga San Francisco Shanghai Singapore St Petersburg Tallinn Tampere Tartu Tel Aviv Turku Vilnius Warsaw... Places visited in 2011
Russia In 2011, Aaltoes further expanded its reach to our dear neighbors in Russia. We organized the first ever Startup Sauna events in St.Petersburg and Moscow resulting in two teams attending to Sauna final program in spring 2011. In the fall, Sauna put on even more heat by exploring promising startups also from cities such as Kazan, Jekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. In the end there were four teams from Russia attending Startup Sauna fall batch. On top of the Startup Sauna Warmups, Andy and Ville had the privilege to held a prezo about seed acceleration in Techcrunch Moscow in December, and Jevgeni and Mikko I. were busy making contacts for Sauna and Startup Life purposes. Boston Lauri and Antti took over Boston in late Feb/early March. The primary reason was to take part in Lean Startup Machine (LSM) but the trip turned out be quite a ride. First we got in contact with Andy Heiniluoma who intro’d us to Anne-Mari Paster which led Anne-Mari attending Slush as a panelist later that year. Also a connection was established with Bengt Holmström, Aalto & Nokia board member and a tenured professor at MIT. He helped the “Boston Boys” get an audience with MIT E-center - Aalto is now actually co-operating with MIT in REAP. Another great experience was meeting the organizers of MIT 100k competition. BB also met a couple for professors from Harvard and managed to set up a meeting between ACE and Harvard E-center in REE Washington. As the Boston Boys’ team won the “most-revenue-generated- over-a-weekend” -prize, the trip can be labeled a major success!
hit the road, destination Riga & first ever Baltic Take-Off collaboration weekend! Altogether 40-ish startup people from the Baltics and the Nordics took part in event and for our guys it was a good chance to network. A great number of people we met in the Baltic Take Off took part in Slush and have also helped us organize the Startup Sauna Warmups. Israel Israel, dubbed the ultimate startup nation, is a fascinating benchmarking study for Finland - a small country that has produced more NASDAQ listed startups than any other foreign nation in the world. In June, Charlotta, Miki, Nils, Jevgeni, Tomasz and Dmitry from Startup Sauna drove up and down Israel, getting to know universities and entrepreneurship cells, co-working spaces as well as local startups. Poland The EIT Youth and Entrepreneurship Conference in Krakow in October was a chance for Nils and Kristo to see what the EU is doing to bolster entrepreneurship. Interesting discussions and Kristo’s keynote received much acclaim. Earlier in September, Startup Sauna made its firts stop in Poland and the Warmup landed Warsaw. India India links started to establish in 2011. The Summer of Startups team Labormandi hailed from IIT Kanpur and we received visitors from iAccelarator in Ahmenabad and the upcoming Design Village project in Chandigar. Charlotta visited IIT Kanpur as well as frequented the booming Bangalore startup scene. Bangalore is an IT center and many of the startups focus on B2B technological solutions. Despite the huge home market, Indian startups can also think global from the get-go, and we hope to see cooperation continue in 2012! Shanghai In November 2011 Jevgeni and Antti went to explore Shanghai and as a result we got lots of great connections to the local startup community. Moreover, in February 2012 we will have Startup Sauna Warmup in Shanghai and establish physical presence as part of Aalto Tongji Design Factory. China as a market has a huge potential that is still to be discovered by startups and we are the pioneer to offer the access to Chinese market.
flowers in your hair, and business cards in your pocket. California dreaming, cont’d The Silicon Valley area continued to be the choice destination for Aaltoes community in 2011. Startup Sauna sent the most promising partcipants on a field trip both spring and fall semester, where the teams met with investors, potential partners and media. Among others, Robert Scoble interviewed Sauna teams and Ovelin’s WildChords made it to TechCrunch, featuring our Natalie, the video star. Speaking of TechCrunch, in September, we sent our own SWAT team, Juho K, Juhana, Riku and Nils, to cover TechCrunch Disrupt. Startup Life Silicon Valley kept Linda, Kristo and Lauri, as well as the six inaugural interns delivered to Bay Area startups, busy this year. Similarly, Linda, Kristo and Juhana were working on the Stanford - Aalto Ventures Program partnership cooperation and arranged an Aalto faculty trip to Stanford in November. For more California sunshine: http://aaltoes.com/tag/silicon- valley/ Fanboy moment: Jack Dorsey & Juho H. Nov 2011
Aaltoes organized a November trip to the US to get contaminated with the air and crazy optimisim across the pond. The Tour was guided by Juho K, and joined some dozens of students and prospective enterpreneurs from Aalto, Hanken and Turku. √ Morning jog at the Dish √ Better Place √ Hacker Dojo √ Dinner with the Aalto faculty √ Jeff Clavier talk at AOL √ i/o ventures √ Opinno √ Eventbrite √ Zerply √ Biking in Stanford √ CDR + d.school (lecture + tour) √ Scancor √ ETL - lecture: Adam Lowry √ Richard Horning √ Trulia √ 8tracks √ BootstrapLabs + RocketSpace √ MindSnacks √ Visit to Mårten Mickos √ Surfing Surfing Bay Area Picture: Atte November check list
community members are welcome to access and use the space at all hours. Anyone is welcome to work or start a business from the Garage, and additionally, we provide offices for the more established residents. Startups naturally come and go, some move on to bigger and better facilities, others, hmmm, pivot their operations, but we hope none stay a stranger having moved out of Garage. For more: http://www.aaltovg.com Garage resident startups in 2011 inlcuded Asema Electronics AudioDraft Blues Brothers Futureful Hakema Jalo Helsinki Novcom Medical Powerkiss Tangareef Tribe Studios Veturi Venture Accelerator Ympyra In 2011, Garage continued a warehous.. a busy co-working space
that go through our programs, there are numerous startup homeboys and girls that make up the Aalto startup community. Here are some happy news gathered from some of them in ’11. 2011 was a lucky year for the collaboration-for- techies’ Flowdock as Otto and the gang raised seed funding from prominent startup celebrities like Mårten Mickos and Michael Arrington, established partnerships out and about, gained fame and glory in media and were busy in the Aaltoes universe by participarting in e.g. Slush and Startup Life. http://www.flowdock.com In 2011, Blaast finally shed the light on what it is they actually do; a cloud-based mobile platform for the so-called dumbphone developers and users. We also learned that some of the people fueling the growth are Ambient Sound Investments, Veturi Ventures Accelerator and Steve Blank. Here’s to 2012 being a Blaast of a year! http://www.blaast.com Experq, the feedback system that goes under the customers’ skin, is an Aaltoes story of iteration, lean moves, first exit and bold decisions. Originated in Summer of Startups 2010, the firm was subsequently given forth to a new bunch of Aaltoes people, headed by Santeri & Olli-Kristian and in 2011, we are proud to see that Experq made an extensive cooperation agreement with a big travel industry player. Looking forward to seeing what the new year brings, guys! http://www.experq.com Tuubio got started in spring 2011 when Jens, an ex-Aaltoeser and then-CEO at Experq attended and won a Startup Weekend with an idea about personalized radio combining both talk and music. Convincing his Experq/Aaltoes team to join, the boys passed the previous company forward and right after Vappy signed the termsheets for Tuubio, gathered financing from Veturi and moved into a penthouse office in KY-Building. Things continue to go well as even Startup Sauna has a radio show now. http://www.tuubio.com
to add tags to any objects on a video. Yatayat. A call a ride service for the developing market. Storytally. Videos tailored for you. Laser Wigs. An NFC -based gaming platform to enrich the experience of traditional games.
money with their talent. Anstlab. Tracking heart-rate, glucose level and blood-pressure from your body onto your mobile phone. Bus Faster finds the best way to use public transport to get where you want. Cosmic Music Tools. Facebook for musicians with tools. SolvingMaze. A SaaS-based technology to online retailers to reduce shipping costs and maximize sales. Uploud Audio makes world’s most interior friendly hi-fi speakers.
analytics software. Double Defense. High tech sticker, knows what your package has gone through. FundFriends. Apps and services that give our users control and overview over mutual funds. Futureful is building a predictive discovery engine.
times enhanced resolution. SunyRide. Rideshare to Events with Friends service. Ovelin is developing a computer game called WildChords that motivates people to practice instrument. Solu application brings lists and tables to mobile messaging. Hakema booking button enables instant appointments on online classifieds. Mighty Fingers. Environment where you can create real time multiplayer games.
groundbreaking toy and game concepts. Tohina. A personal collaboration tool that will solve all your todo and task management problems. Walkbase. Verifying your check-ins on location- based services.
to evaluate food products. AppScale is an API Translator. Teams of Startup Sauna Fall 2011 Oskand. Web service, which allows business partners to establish electronic data exchange with each other. Linked Views connects friends around TV.
needs are collected. Lokus Digital. Our games combine global and local gameplay in a unique way. Maxygen. Mobile DNA testing device that allows detecting any infectious disease on the very early stage. Qminder. A queue management system – SaaS.
tracking and quality assurance. Wavesum. Specializing in signal processing and music content analysis technology. Zonear. A system that builds, optimizes and deploys HTML5 apps with ease.
to doing everything that we do, are the people who, well, just do it. We are fortunate enough to have a ton of amazing people working at Aaltoes, and here are a few of those core team members presented.
of Aaltoes in 2011, moving from project to another and trying to keep track of where the train was headed (forward)! Miki moves to 2012 having learned that making impossible things happen begins with not understanding that they’re impossible in the first place. Antti Ylimutka, board ‘11 Antti’s main task for 2011 was to organize Summer of Startups. Having no clue what he was supposed to do, he travelled halfway through the world to learn about startups, organized various events, took care of Summer BBQs etc. And boy, did he deliver! In the end, he became the Wingman for Startup Sauna. Lari Haataja, board ‘11 Lari worked on several projects, like Suomi hyvinvoinnin jälkeen, aaltoes.com 2.0, Aaltoes ”eCorner” videos, Slush and lost of small stuff. Amongst it all he also paid our bills and took care of all the financial stuff. Lari is the dream CFO and CTO combined.
a communications girl, learned immensely on the go and heads to 2012 fully qualified in serial event & conference management, fundraising, websites, Startup Digest Helsinki, community championing and many a new friend richer. Oona Hilkamo, board ‘11 As a board member, Oona started the year 2011 planning a calendar for Aaltoes events. The year ended up looking quite different though as we executed some of our biggest projects yet, such as Slush 2011 where Oona made sure everyone had something to eat. Lauri Lehtovuori, board ‘11 After a successful tryout with Startup Life Helsinki and Silicon Valley, Lauri has embarked on world domination with the concept. He is working on establising it in New York, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai & London. Consultant at heart, in 2011 Lauri finally accepted his real destiny into startup life.
Garage48 Helsinki event, the first ever Garage48 hosted outside Estonia. Currently Ville is running Aalto Venture Garage and is the Captain of Startup Sauna. Tatu Virtanen Steve Blank Week inspired Tatu to join the ranks and he has subsequently been working on Freshmen Talks and Slush, as well as visiting Silicon Valley. Now Tatu is eager to get 2012 started! Kristo Ovaska In 2011, Kristo worked on Stanford collaboration, Startup Life, Startup Sauna Valley Operations, Steve Blank visit, Aalto Ventures Program and Faculty trip to Valley as well as Strategic Development issues - whoah!
event and was responsible for organizing Let`s Get Physical, panel discussion on product startups. In autumn, Riku co- organized the National Day of Failure and frequented Silicon Valley to spread the word about Finnish startups. Heini Vesander Heini’s been Aaltoes in front of crowds moderating the Finland After Welfare panel and the open mic at Slush. Helping in various projects, from carrying chairs to booking PR-girls, Heini tweeted #aaltoes onto Silicon Valley’s map! Linda Liukas Linda is an Aaltoes hangaround involved in all things Silicon Valley, cooking for crowds and making girls love tech. This year she was involved in Startup Life Silicon Valley, Rails Girls, Steve Blank shenanigans and Aalto Ventures Programme.
Aaltoes Fair, and helped out in Hyvinvoinnin jälkeen and Summer of Startups. Nils co-organised National Fail Day - Great success & tons of learning and fun. Currently Nils is working on an awesome startup co-working space in downtown Helsinki. Anni Rautio Anni participated in the first ever Startup Life in Helsinki during the summer, and got swooped into the Aaltoes activity. Inspired by the action during Steve Blank week, she joined the core organizing team for Slush Helsinki 2011. Lauri Hynynen When not being busy with his startup (Tuubio), Lauri was there when help was needed, be it either cleaning up after an event, advising the board on new initiatives or updating stuff to various websites.
for Steve Blank’s visit. And before long, she was up to her ears involved with Aaltoes. She delayed her return to Vienna & studies to get the Helsinki Spring petition out and about.. or simply didn’t want to leave us ;) Mikko Hagelberg Mikko was involved with Suomi Hyvinvoinnin Jälkeen. In the summer he joined Summer of Startups to help with accounting, organizing events and ended up learning a lot in the process. Mikko spent the rest of 2011 on exchange in Canada. Tuomas Sahramaa Tuomas got introduced to Aaltoes during Steve Blank Week, and later pitched in on media and graphics matters for Slush 2011. His current aspirations include getting better acquainted with tech, though he is prepared for a decidedly love/hate relationship.
activities during the freshmen week. Then Juhana got involved with Aalto Ventures Program which aims to be the leading academic program of future entrepreneurs. Juho Hyytiäinen Mr. Garage Fix-It, Juho took care of our home, renovated the space and made sure coffee and other essentials were abundant. Juho also hosted delegations, organized events, and became famous in China for breaking into a bank safe in Berlin. Natalie Gaudet Natalie, a part of the Sauna dream team, helps Sauna teams become the next big thing and is also in charge of the program’s PR and communications. In 2011 Natalie became a prominent voice actor whose articles can be read around the web.
spring term events and Garage renovation during the summer, as well as taking part in organizing Slush. In the summer he also took part in the Summer of Startups program as a one man army and was one of the organiers/chefs at weekly BBQs. Harri Toivonen Harri was the man in charge of Venture Garage spatial development. During the year he did user research in the community, finalized the spatial plans and with a crew did most of the renovation in the main hall during the summer.. In the autumn he finally got some time to plan the next stage of Garage 2.0., coming up soon! Jevgeni Peltola Jevgeni spent his summer in Silicon Valley learning from the best, self funded. He is responsible for Startup Sauna Russia Operations and helped with organizing Slush and Steve Blank Week in Finland and Russia. Currently Jevgeni keeps busy setting up Startup Sauna in Shanghai.
business cards, Summer of Startups posters and stickers and Aalto Campus header, as well as co-planned and -executed Aaltoes freshmen activities. As the biggest project Juho organized the Silicon Valley trip in November. Mika Matikainen Mika lead the design in revamping of Aaltoes.com and worked on other websites, updated and clarified the Aaltoes identity and did other related misc. work on e.g. Slush and Steve Blank Week. By day, he works as a Senior Designer at the creative digital agency Activeark.
fights, tons of lessons learned, 2011 was an immensely valuable, educating year for everyone involved. Everything we do boils down to many many supporters who have graciously given us countless opportunities and made the whole year possible. We sincerely thank all of you and hope for a long lived relationship! In addition to the many event- specific sponsors & partners, Aaltoes’ activities are supported by
a bunch of great individuals, also known as Coaches to our startup community. The things our Coaches have in common are being an internationally experienced serial entrepreneur, a passion for startups and pro bono commitment to supporting the entrepreneurship ecosystem around here.
Forsgård Ilkka Kivimäki Ilkka Paananen Juha Ruohonen Jussi Harvela Mårten Mickos Micki Honkavaara Mike Bradshaw Moaffak Ahmed Osma Ahvenlampi Pasi Ilola Peter Vesterbacka Petteri Koponen Ramine Darabiha Taneli Tikka Tiina Zilliacus Ville Miettinen Will Cardwell ...and many others!
to carry, bottles and cans to clean, and Facebook marketing to undertake. Needless to say, events, project and programs take a lot of work. 2011 was built by:
Rautio, Antti Toropainen, Antti Ylimutka, Atte Hujanen, Charlotta Liukas, Claes-Mikko Nieminen, Claudio Camacho, Daniel Taipale, Dmitry Klimov, Eeva Erkko, Emma Sallinen, Erika Noponen, Fabricio Puerto, Goncalo Neves, Harri Kauppinen, Harri Toivonen, Heidi Hujanen, Heini Vesander, Henrietta Kekäläinen, Ilona Pitkänen, Jens Sorensen, Jerome Saarinen, Jevgeni Peltola, Joose Väinölä, Jose Pablo Hernandez, Juhana Nurmio, Juho Hyytiäinen, Juho Kokkola, Jukka Jokelainen, Jyri Brunou, Kalle Tiihonen, Karolis Jasinskas, Karri Saarinen, Kiki Ylimutka, Krista Kauppinen, Kristo Ovaska, Lari Haataja, Lauri Hynynen, Lauri Lehtovuori, Lauri Peltonen, Liisa Hakala, Linda Liukas, Lotta Martikainen, Maksim Golivkin, Marc Salas, Maria Hämeen-Anttila, Maria Lätti, Markus Nuotio, Markus Nuotto, Miikka Ahonen, Miikka Rosendahl, Mika Matikainen, Mikael Hautala, Mike Bradshaw, Mikko Ikola, Mikko Kuusi, Muneeba Raja, Natalie Gaudet, Nils Paajanen, Nina Saarikoski, Nur Sah Ketene, Olga, Olli Gunst, Olli Pölönen, Oona Hilkamo, Oskari Petas, Oskari Vinko, Otto Hilska, Otto Laulajainen, Paula Poukka, Pauli Kopu, Pauliina Mattila, Petri Vilén, Perttu Ojansuu, Reeti Saarinen, Riku Lindholm, Rudi Skogman, Santeri Everi, Severi Saraste, Karuppusamy Sivakumar, Stefanie Hofemann, Tapani Alasaarela, Tatu Virtanen, Teemu Tapanila, Timo Kauppila, Timo Salo, Tomi Pajunen, Toby Humphrey, Tuomas Sahramaa, Tuomo Kuikka, Tuomo Lampinen, Tushar Malhotra, Tuuti Piippo, Valeria Gasik, Varun Singh, Victoria Martinez, Ville Simola, Vittorio Dal Bianco, Zaira Mammadova.
Garage aaltovg.com Startup Sauna startupsauna.com Slush Helsinki slush.fi Startup Life startuplife.in Steve Blank in Finland steveblank.fi Rails Girls railsgirls.com Picture: Oskari
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