Einari has a lot of experience working with startups. He advises on domestic and international tax matters in corporate and personal income taxation. Prior to joining Attorneys at Law Borenius in 2008, Einari worked as a Senior Officer at the Tax Department of the Ministry of Finance. Einari also has a Master’s degree in Economics from the Helsinki School of Economics.

The post Borenius’ Pop-up Lawyer back this Wednesday appeared first on Startup Sauna.

This time around we ended up doing 9 Warmup events during March in Northern Europe and Russia (ok, Zagreb was a bit of an exception but it’s close enough and a rather nice place!) We ended up selecting 15 startups into the batch from 7 different countries and there’s definitely some very interesting founders in the bunch. We’ve added the startups to the site now so you can go check them out.

So what will happen over the next weeks?

Mighty Eagle at Innovation Center (@USEmbassyIC)

Sessions on different topics that we’ve found out to be useful for the startups. Some are about funding, some are about legals, some are more techy, some are just food for thought. Sitting here in the first session I can say there’s a lot of laughter yet we’re still at the stage where the founders’ voices are shaky and there’s so much work ahead of us. But we’ve been here before and we know it’s going to get better.

Yesterday we had a great start for batch at the newly constructed Innovation Center at the U.S Embassy Helsinki premises (thanks for hosting us!). We had the privilege of having Peter Vesterbacka, CMO at Rovio, come give a few words on attitude and ambition. In a nutshell, there’s very few things (if any) in the world that can’t be done. In case you didn’t remember, it’s not too many years ago when we thought Tetris was still the most downloaded game by a margin

Anyways, we’ll keep you posted about what’s happening in the Sauna this Spring. The demo day will be on the 11th of June at Startup Sauna. It’ll be a huge celebration of entrepreneurship and You’re invited!

The Drill Sergeant talking about money

Sauna Spring ’13 startups working

The post Startup Sauna Spring ’13 has started! appeared first on Startup Sauna.

Welcome back to Helsinki, here we are, the last warm up of this season and last opportunity for prospecting startups to get into the Startup Sauna accelerator program.  We’ve started the day from a pitch-song by MusicLogg, a startup set out to develop a service to help musician to learn and improve faster.

Over 20 teams have pitched their ideas, overall level of pitches was quiet average:  from classic bullet points to demos from more advanced participants.  Some of the teams were still very early stage of finding their strategy, others have already tried their prototypes and earned first clients, such as Almondella, an internet portal helping new mums get excellent baby products they didn’t even know they needed.  The majority of startups is building internet-based services and only few are actually building something tangible:  Krei – lighting for well-being and Helmee – alertness and automated quality control system.

A big journey full of adventures together with Startup Sauna has been waiting for the winners of the day and the last spots have gone to LocalBitcoins, MusicLogg and Rival Games!

MusicLogg – Helping Musicians Improve Faster

LocalBitcoins – Global marketplace for buying and selling bitcoins

Rival Games – Experience the Crime Story

For those who didn’t manage to get in there was still a chance to grab a coach during the lunch and ask for a feedback and professional advice. A couple of teams were noticed following this strategy, good job guys! Keep calm, don’t give up and use every opportunity to get feedback, no matter how harsh it could be!

A series of Startup Sauna Warm-ups is over, teams are selected, coaches are ready, let the journey begin!

Best,

Maria
Maria is our new Russian Relations coordinator, and very enthusiastic towards startups, new ideas and inspiring people

The post And Finally the Warmup in Helsinki! appeared first on Startup Sauna.

Antti Hemmilä

Some of you might have heard it already, but we are more than thrilled to announce a new form of cooperation with our friends at Borenius. They will be bringing their lawyer to Startup Sauna every other Wednesday starting from tomorrow. Antti Hemmillä will be here from 12.30 p.m. onwards ready for your questions free of charge!

Antti advises on venture capital, M&A, capital markets, crowdfinancing and general corporate law related questions. He has wide-ranging experience in advising small and medium-sized companies on numerous Venture Capital and M&A arrangements, representing both companies and investors.

So all you startups struggling with some legal matters, make sure to visit Startup Sauna and ask for some help. Antti will take teams on first-come, first-served basis.

“Established in 1911, Attorneys at law Borenius Ltd is one of the largest and most experienced law firms in Finland. Our head office is located in Helsinki, in addition to which we have offices in Tampere, Espoo, New York and St. Petersburg as well as associated firms in all Baltic Countries.”

The post Introducing Borenius’ Pop-up Lawyer appeared first on Startup Sauna.

Sunny day to start at Chalmers.

After being in Southern Europe, it was actually quite a surprise to find the nicest weather of the Warmup tour from our neighbour in the West, Sweden. Curious as we are, with the help of Chalmers Innovation, we made yet another new place familiar with us in Gothenburg.

A warm welcome to the event!

It’s been a while – over two years – since we last visited Sweden, so it was definitely time to get back there. Especially considering all the great stuff that has been coming out from there. Therefore, on April 4th, Startup Sauna decided to travel to Gothenburg and give our own share of helping the Swedish startup community.

We quickly saw that the quality of teams and presentation skills was easily above average. All that combined with some hefty ideas, the coaches had some hard time choosing the teams continuing to the second round of coaching. However, when it was time to call it a day and start the enjoy some after work refreshments, a few teams rose above others. These were Juntoo, Touch&Tell and Date for Date. Amazing event behind, and a big thanks to Chalmers Innovation for co-organizing!

Clever Reporter – Clever reporter is for janitors.
ContentMap – We make content in computers easier to find.
Date For Date – Dating with Personality.
DiggiCard – Local discovery for design consumers.
Elinnovation AB – Hardwired fire alarm built for your home!
Juntoo – Making the web a shareable experience in real time.
Kickadss – The easiest, prettiest and most effective way to buy advertising online.
Moliday – Your media – your platform.
Objective Profile Assessment – Objective Assessment of ADHD symptoms.
Oups! UF – Protection cases for cameras.
Possunt – A visual story-telling social media, web and app, for people who can because they think they can.
Scry – Automatic dropbox for pictures of yourself.
Touch&Tell – Quick and easy customer feedback.

Pitching. Note the 3x6m screen, whoa!

The post Getting familiar with Gothenburg appeared first on Startup Sauna.

One could think that flying 1700 km south from Finland would get us away from the cold and snowy Finland. How wrong we! As Ivo Spiegl, the startup man of Zagreb put it: “We brought the weather with us to make it feel like home”. Weather aside, we were still very excited to see what was happening in the southern parts of East Europe as we had heard some very good stuff coming out from there.

The event was organised together with ZIP (Zagreb Entrepreneurship Incubator), a local startup incubator in the premises of the Univeresity of Zagreb. After the morning pitches, the teams sat together with both the local coaches and with the ones we brought from Finland. The overall feedback was very and the startups went home some good advice after the day.

Zagreb was a great first experience for Startup Sauna and the guys running ZIP were truly amazing to work with. Big congrats also to the teams Madbarz, Sizem and iLandGuide for winning the Warmup!

Cordidate – Cordidate simply provides the key to the best dating experience that you ever had
Fridgecheck – The shortest path to your greatest meal
iLandGuide – The offline smartphone version of google for holiday islands
Madbarz – Main global street wokout website
MiniBrake – A remote bike brake for kids
Placedock – A modern online souvenir.
SizemApp – The app that loves your boobs
StartupsBiome – Visualized global startup ecosystem

The post Heading South to Zagreb appeared first on Startup Sauna.

The jolly participants from Oulu!

It was great to see, how even during the slight depression with bigger companies, the teams were full of great ideas and hard expertise. In addition to the apps and games pitched, ideas ranged from health and fitness devices to design loudspeakers.

As for the winners of the warmup, we decided to choose the teams behind Kinoni, Laturi and Sonolux. These teams had some exceptional ideas together with a great team. It was a nice event all in all, with special thanks to Matti Rusila and Business Kitchen, who did a tremendous job in helping us organise the event.

BonWell Intelligence – Interactive exercise
Detemex – Self-diagnostics solutions for consumers
Goodwiller – Reliable alcohol tester for people wanting to make responsible decisions
Kinoni – Play PC games on your mobile device
Laturi – Tool to boost your energy
LitUp Ltd – Smart Personal Caddie for Golfers
No More Pie – Nintendo for Browsers
Oikian – Oikian makes smartphone users to come to your local store and buy more
Simplofon – Simplofon for active seniors
Sonolux Oy – Hi-fi loudspeakers hidden inside wall lamps and deco elements
Trust-or-not – Marketplace independent online trust provider.

The post Startup Sauna goes North to Oulu appeared first on Startup Sauna.

In June 2012 I found myself on a plane to Helsinki shortly after graduating from New York University to begin an internship at a Finnish startup. While flying to Helsinki I felt a mix of fear and apprehension. What if this wasn’t the right decision? All my friends went on to become bankers and consultants. Was this internship too risky? Would it detour me and ruin a chance at a good career. It turns out my fears were based in my ignorance in the strength and dynamic nature of Finland’s rich and inviting startup culture.

My experience was nothing short of fantastic. I worked for a great company called Tribe Studios, a video game developer, where I handled marketing. You don’t know stress until you walk into an office of developers in a foreign country and realize that you are directly responsible for helping to drive sales and web traffic to a company that’s still pre-revenue. Immediately facing this task was like being thrown into a den of wolves.

“I had to learn different technologies, going far beyond what school taught me and directly into the real world. Textbooks don’t matter nearly as much as experience and skills do, and I had to get smart fast.”

While the task seemed difficult, everyone I met was amazingly supportive and helpful. I made great friends at work as well as on campus at Aalto University. I spent plenty of time at the Venture Garage meeting new people, chatting about ideas, learning about new cultures and expanding my own mindset about the world. There was no better way for me to grow and mature as a person. People were working in amazingly exciting spaces like video games, music technology, advertising technology and so much more. People were willing to take big risks on their passion and belief that they could change the world. The community was so tightly knit, I found myself having lunch next to the co-founder of Trulia purely by accident!

When I came back to the US, I felt recharged and a renewed sense of vigor. Startups are passion. I couldn’t have taken a regular day job working for a giant corporation. I needed to feel a connection to my work. I needed to feel like I was contributing value.

I studied finance and accounting in school, but after my internship in Helsinki I decided to learn to code through the Flatiron School in New York. I’m currently employed as a Ruby on Rails engineer learning how to build great software for when I’m ready to put my dent in the universe. I don’t think I would have had the realization that I wanted to build, nor would I have the courage to go off the beaten path if it were not for that internship in Helsinki. It changed my career path for good, and I believe for the better.

Nikhil Thomas

The post One year after a summer that changed my life appeared first on Startup Sauna.

We’re introducing candidates as I write, so be quick!

Here are some exciting experiences from previous Startup Sauna interns, Nikhil and Riku.

The post Two more weeks for applying to the Internship! appeared first on Startup Sauna.

It was about time to get hands dirty! This spring, I got a great chance to work for Mendor, a second generation diabetes technology company from Finland. Mendor’s vision is to make the every day lives of people touched by diabetes significantly easier and more enjoyable by providing discreet, easy to use and all-in-one blood glucose meters and smart analysis software for blood glucose monitoring. Read the rest of the story here!

The post Make a difference, work for a startup! – Riku’s thoughts at Mendor appeared first on Startup Sauna.