Blog Archive / October 2008

What's up with Fruugo?

One of the hot (and very secretive) new Finnish "super-startups" is Fruugo, at www.fruugo.com, an "online shopping" company with Nokia's former CEO (and current Chairman of Shell) Jorma Ollila, and F-Secure Founder/Chairman Risto Siilasmaa in the board of directors.

Fruugo has been quite secretive, signing NDA's with everyone they...

Muxlim rocked the Global Peace and Unity Event in London

Just when I said that event marketing doesn't really work for startups I end up getting a close proximity reminder from www.Muxlim.com that sometimes it does work, if you are being clever about it. This can be taken as a showcase of "how its done right" as a startup...

Getting Tekes money and other government financing

Tekes is Finnish government organization that can be a significant source of public funding for finnish startups. Their official english language description is "Finnish funding agency for technology and innovation". They shell out about half a billion EUR of money yearly for all sorts of R&D funding, market research...

HSE does well in FT's global EMBA rankings

The Financial Times does a complex ranking list of business schools every year. They do some research, send plenty of questionnaires to graduated students, and talk to faculty members. They also check up on the details randomly, etc.

The school I got my Executive MBA degree from; Helsinki School of...

Startup marketing: what to avoid and what to do?

As a startup you don't have the money to be fooling around with all sorts of expensive marketing stuff, especially the kinds that produce dubious results, right?

There are entire blogs that devote themselves to go through various topics of startup marketing. Here are a few:

http://www.startup-marketing.com/
http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198

Over the years I have learned...

Agile management of startups

Startups need to develop at a quick pace. They often exists in semi-chaotic environments where things can change overnight and multiple separate areas need to be quickly considered and decided upon daily. What's the best way to manage your startup in a way that it is most likely to produce...

"Good Morning Finland" clip through Muxlim TV

Added the "Good Morning Finland" talk clip to MuxlimTV, with somewhat of a permission from the show itself. This is related to previous posts:

http://tane.li/2008/good-morning-finland-wednesday-morning
http://tane.li/2008/innovation-services-and-business-ideas-or-just-tech

Embedded here (in finnish, (sorry)):

On Muxlim: Muxlim has received coverage from about 25 different international media in recent...

Brief updates on "my projects"

Here are some brief updates on the recent stuff from "my projects".

Muxlim got into Wired today:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/10/muxlim-plans-mu.html

The story is a "reprint" of an earlier TechCrunchUK story

Naturally ArcticStartup covered the same story as well.

Besides those online media the Muxlim story has also been published on: Brandrepublic, Lenta.ru,...

Reflections on my World of Warcraft addiction

As many of you might know I have played World of Warcraft very actively for the past couple of years. WoW is one of the most popular and most successful online games ever, and is estimated to bring in over half a billion USD of pure profit every year....

Podcast episode about disruptive innovation

I did a podcast episode yesterday evening with Tuija Aalto and Sonja Kangas about disruptive innovation, and how organization could make it happen.

Tuija has a full blog entry about that up here.

You can download the podcast as an mp3 (english language spoken) from this link here.

We...

Shared Culture

Back in February of 2007 I was invited by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to be the only outside keynote speaker in their yearly main event, "the communications forum 2007". The topics of discussion where about communications policy, new action plans and initiatives etc. Speakers where the...

Economic downturn for startups: survival or opportunity hunt?

Lately there has been plenty of discussions and advice on what startups should do now that the economy is probably going to play in the minor key for some time to come. Sequoia Capital handed out their powerpoint of doom, as reported by TechCrunch and ArticStartup...

Constructing Online Communities & Social Media

Over the years of being involved in the building of multiple Online Communities, Social Media sites and occasionally even online games, I have developed some understanding on how the motivational mechanics behind everything work. Here are 3 things I have found to be well-proven, meaningful and important in building long-lasting...

When are you ready for Venture Capital?

CC Attribution: DavidDMuir@Flickr

A lot of startups think they are ready to receive venture capital, risk capital, or some sort of "real" financing. I recently had to count; how many rounds of financing have I "done?" (not solo, they are always teamwork) It took some plain old organic memory search,...

Innovation: services and business ideas, or just tech?

This morning I had a "live on TV" chat in Good Morning Finland with Dr. Risto Penttilä about innovation, innovation policy, the economic downturn, Russia, etc. Its unfortunately all in finnish, but you can check it out from: http://www.mtv3.fi/huomentasuomi/

After the chat I continued talking about the topics for a...

On "Good Morning Finland" Wednesday morning

I will be live on "Good Morning Finland" (Huomenta Suomi) at the MTV3 channel and simultaneously on Radio Nova and their intarwebz pages. It's going to be on around 07:05 in the early morning. I suggest taping it or watching it through the handy TVKaista.fi who...

Startup Teams, part II: Success Teams

In part I of the series I wrote about Disaster Teams, how to recognize them and a bunch of implied stuff on what to avoid and fix etc.

Now it's time to examine Success Teams.

In many ways startups are very different from large corporations and have a lot more demanding...

Traditional "behind closed doors" communication vs openness

There's one thing that's been bugging me since I opened my blog and have been following the kind of mentions and writings it has received in other blogs and the media. I have also received some interesting feedback about this issue already.

My rant about this matter is directed towards people...

Martin Varsavsky: "time of scared bankers"

Martin Varsavsky is a famous serial entrepreneur who's founded 7 companies and is currently founder/CEO of FON the largest wifi network in the world. (Google + Skype are behind FON as its investors, btw).

Martin is also an investor in Dopplr where I have had the privilege to...

Startup Teams, part I: Disaster Teams

Teams are extremely vital to any startup. Nothing happens without the people, and nothing much happens without the right people working at a good performance level towards a clear common goal.

For years investors have had a simple formula that includes teams as a central component, many throw around the old...

Google in a position to flip over Nokia + Telcos?

This more of a microblog entry than a proper blog entry. Something that was a topic of discussion at MindTrek around a dinner table:

Would Google soon be in the position to seriously hurt Nokia and the Telcos?

Imagine this: Google creates a very nice Android phone, with its own app...

Tabu: The Freerider Problem

Many startups will encounter the Freerider problem during their evolution at one point or the other. I have encountered it myself in several companies; it is more common than people realize. It is also very rare to hear anybody talk extensively about these kinds of problems and people seem...

Invitation to ENCA.fi for all of you

Here's a mass-invite to you all of you (the readers) into ENCA.fi

http://www.enca.fi/sign/tane-li

ENCA.fi is a "vertical community" for coin collectors (euro coins now, special coins later on). It's a place where you can manage your collection, swap coins, and sell them online. The service is in invite-only-beta at this point, so...

War Story: funding of Taika Technologies, part II

This is part II of the "funding of Taika" war story, part I here:

http://tane.li/2008/war-story-funding-taika-technologies-part-i

Brief summary: months after the dot-com nuclear meltdown of 2000 my first startup Taika Technologies managed to secure a financing round for more than 19M EUR valuation, with no product and no revenue. How? What's the story?

Taika...

Other startup blogs and sites you should check out

If you want to keep taps on what's going on in the startup scene with a bit more international focus, here are couple of blogs and websties to check out:

http://www.texasstartupblog.com/

Good stuff about Texas -area (and wider) startups. They often write about going head to head with Silicon Valley and from...

War Story: funding of Taika Technologies, part I

This is the first "old war story" on a series of stories I plan to write about past startups I have "done".

Taika Technologies was the first startup I co-founded in 1999 with couple of other people: Atte Lahtiranta (now at Nokia), Sami Sunila (private investor), Jouni Mannonen (Mahtava Development, Anyfun...

Sources to find VCs from

Are you having trouble and running out of ideas on where to find investors to pitch your company to?

In more than one ways the VCs have adapted a policy where they are "hiding" a bit; it is not easy to find out about the deals they have done, and there's...

My tips for VC Due Diligence and closing the VC deal

Over the years people have often approached me with questions like "what we need to do in order to be ready for VC investment?" "what's there to prepare?" etc. Often it seems that companies and their founders know more about raising capital than closing the actual deal in the end.

I...

Almost famous

After a series of events and unforeseen connections I found myself in talks with Nelonen TV channel and the production company behind the local version of the TV-series The Bachelor.

They have done 13 seasons of the show in the US, and 1 here locally. The first/only season...

Trying to keep taps on what's going on

Is sharing the list of blogs you follow a good idea? I think so. Might result in a few odd discoveries and shared insights on what to use as good sources for relevant events, news and insights.

I follow this entire list through www.newsgator.com and their iPhone app, NetNewsWire. Excellent stuff....

Taneli "covered" in Welcome to Finland

As an act of shameless self-promotion (forgive me) I'm letting you know about a cool interview I did for Welcome to Finland magazine.

The current issue of the magazine is so new that they don't seem to...

IRC-Galleria's acquisition to Sulake

Recently Kauppalehti and ArticStartup have been amongst the media that have reported on the acquisition of IRC-Galleria.net by the Sulake Corporation.

Kauppalehti had dug through the latest financial documents by Sulake Corporation that in compliance of the IFRS accounting (that public companies in Finland use) discloses...

Blarg open!

Welcome to tane.li! Glad to see you here.

This is meant to be as my place to preach what I practice and have experienced during my years of entrepreneurship and occasional big corporate adventures. The ideas is to share and participate in a meaningful dialogue about topics dear and important to...