Summer of Startups: Silicon Valley Pep Talk

Pekka Pärnänen from FinNode visited the Garage on Friday morning and offered his insights on doing expat business in Silicon Valley. FinNode, community of Finnish public and non-profit organizations, is a match maker between entrepreneurs in Finland and North America and aims to boost R&D cooperation and business between the continents.

Even in the time of the digital, Pekka stresses the importance of being physically present in the ecosystem, not just passing “innoturism”. The only way to know what’s happening in a culture is to be present there. It might be a brutal deal -you sleep a little, work a lot and live in a constant non-time zone. But judging from the spark in his eye, Pekka seems to think it worth it.

Silicon Valley is a paradise of networking and you never know who you can run into, be it at a PTA meeting or the grocery store. One needs to therefore be prepared for the unexpected meetings and perfect their elevator pitch.

Pekka points out to the SoS teams that the only thing you want out of a 2 min pitch is the next meeting -you are not selling anything, just raising interest. Furthermore, initial meetings don’t automatically lead to better things, one needs to find out who else in the organization is important to talk to, to identify the decision makers, the business developers etc.

Besides networking in the States, Pekka has a few comments about Finland as well; We should not pine after new Nokias, we need to build new Skypes! Furthermore, we need more smart money -people who can help, advice, network, open doors.

A final message Pekka wants to send to the SoS teams is that the world is fast-paced. Business can change in a day; case in point, Facebook opening up its API or the introduction of iPhone or Android changed the game overnight. Be prepared and adapt to the unforeseen.

Take a look at FinNode USA’s recent publication, Silicon Valley Journey -Experiences of Finnish IT Startups from the Dot-Com Boom to 2010 Excellent account of Finnish superstars as well as untold stories from the California coastline.

On behalf of the SoS community, we want to thank Pekka for taking time off from his holiday to talk to us. To the Aaltoes community, we remind you that the SoS program is open for everyone, the daily agenda can be found from the Garage -we hope you drop by during the rest of the summer. Garage is open every day from 8 to 4 during the week and has an excellent AC system in place

Watch the Pekka Pärnänen talk in full from here: (Will be uploaded as soon as our trusty Vimeo account works