Inter:views | Cracking The Entrepreneur Bottleneck

Special Start-up Episode, in collaboration with the Nordic Start-Up School. Part 4: Finance & Fundraising.  Aki Luukkainen and Ilkka Kaikuvuo joined me to discuss everything related to financial management and fundraising.  What's financial management? How is it linked to fundraising? Why is it critical that start-up founders understand financial management? What are the financial management tools that any start-up founders should learn? What are the different ways a start-up can fund itself?  What does it take to successfully raise funds? What are the fundraising red flags? What’s the #1 practical tip you’d give to any start-up?

Meet Celyn Jones, award-winning Actor, Writer, Producer, and entrepreneur.  Celyn's Filmography includes The Almond and The Sea Horse, A Gift From Bob, 6 Minutes To Midnight, The Vanishing, and Set Fires To The Stars. Celyn open-heartedly shares his journey from his 1st audition (spoiler alert: he lied!), his experience teaching drama to kids, to writing movies, and becoming the co-Founder of Mad As Birds.  One thing is clear: Celyn is driven by the entrepreneurial spirit.   So when you interview someone like Celyn, you ask the questions and you let your guest do the talking.  Inspiring, really. 

Special Start-up Episode, in collaboration with the Nordic Start-Up School. Part 3: Team Building. 3 NSS mentors joined the conversation: Mia Wähälä, Merituuli Vainio, and Aleksander Gansen, to discuss everything start-ups need to know about team building.  How to recruit your co-founder(s)? How to build the co-founders' team? How to recruit your first staff? What are the most common mistakes start-up can do when it comes to team building? What is the #1 practical tip you'll give any start-up?

Ana is an aerospace engineer and worked for 16 years for Airbus. 6 years ago, she caught the entrepreneurship virus and founded her first start-up Canard Drones. That company doing very well, she decided it was time to launch her 2nd start-up ForestChain.  Energy is the word that comes to mind when listening to Ana. We dig down into the importance of having the right mindset as entrepreneurs.  She also shares her recipe for her success: Creating a team, using data, and being very customer-centric.  A great dose of positive vibes!

Robin had a clear career path in the UK. That was before he decided to change life and move to Finland in 2003. Because he couldn't find a job, he started free-lancing for UK companies and gradually took the entrepreunarial road. He created Itu Design in 2007 in a way that would allow him to enjoy the lifestyle he was aspiring to have. Robin doesn't crave for growth. His ambition is to keep his business small enough to build strong client relationships while being able to enjoy life as much as possible.' At a time of unicorns and growth for the sake of growing, this conversation provides a fresh alternative to being an entrepreneur.  PS: We also talk about the future of office space post-pandemic

Being an entrepreneur is a tough job, with a lot of ups and downs. Combined with all the challenges the pandemic has created, the journey can quickly become draining and one can reach the bottom and lose motivation. Hence the questions : How do entrepreneurs keep their motivation levels high? Where do they find the strength to continue? I've invited 4 successful entrepreneurs (and former guests) located in 4 completely different business environments: Laxmi Gandhi, the founder of a boutique consulting company OPERAScale in the USA,  that specializes in go to market strategies utilizing first principles thinking. She helps leaders get unstuck and go back to the fundamentals of why they started their business and communicate with clarity on what they are actually doing. Richard Burrage is the Managing Director of Cimigo, a boutique market research agency that he founded in 2002 in Vietnam. He’s been living in Asia since 1992, and has seen firsthand the transformation of the region with all the challenges that came with it. Maria Frangieh is the Founder and Managing Director of SocialPrise, a digital marketing agency based in Lebanon. She founded her company 15 years ago and decided from the start to make it a 100% remote company. She knows what challenge means operating in a country that has been economically suffering over the past years. Paul Baker is the founder of St Pierre Groupe based in the UK, a bakery business with a love of European Bakery. He bankrupted his first business at the age of 17 and took 10 years before he got back to entrepreneurship. He acquired St Pierre Groupe in 2002 and one day decided that he’d conquer the American market, which he did. That didn’t come without its challenges though.

After taking a massage class in Thailand, Rachel studied massage therapy in the US and founded Press Modern Massage.  She started in May 2008 by trading free massages against space. In August 2008, she had 110 clients. 13 years later, her business sales reached 10m US$ annually.  Rachel is a bit of a perfectionist, to the point it got in her way until she did something about it. She shares her tips to focus on progress rather than perfection. We also talk about the importance of delegating tasks and decisions, how processes can help businesses scale up, and what to do about your imposter syndrome.   She says: "We are the product of our decisions." You should decide to listen to this episode then. 

Special Start-up Episode, in collaboration with the Nordic Start-Up School. Part 2: Business Planning. A conversation with 3 NSS Mentors: Hanne Nuutinen,  Hanna Nylhom and Pasi Pohjola,  to discuss everything start-ups need to know about Business Planning (also called Strategy).   What is business planning / strategy? Why do start-ups need to focus on strategy/business planning? Where to start? What elements should they focus on?  What are the reasons not to launch a start-up?  What are the biggest strategy mistakes start-ups can make? What is the #1 practical tip you'll give any start-up?

Rob has always been passionate about social media. He was studying in the USA at the time Facebook was still a start-up and ended up being one of the first Brits with an account. He got his 1st client the same day he created Social Republic.  Rob has learned a main lesson throughout his entrepreneurship journey: Enjoying the ride, having fun, taking the time to reflect and celebrate. The importance of leaving a positive impact through ethical social media is another recurring topic. We also address marketing, how to scale through a network of experts, as well as why you should develop processes.  35mn of valuable insights.

Alexandra is a mechanical engineer by education but definitely an entrepreneur at heart. She founded Eyrus in 2015. “The idea of taking an idea and then just building it, it never gets old to me." This is a great summary of our discussion. Alexandra loves building things from scratch. She tells us how she was able to find a black hole in a fragmented industry and quickly grew into a 100-employee company. Her keys to success so far: being very customer-centric, being structured, learning from the team, and making sure that the founders' roles evolve as the company is scaling up.  Lots of food for thoughts.