We are in the process of seriously using the delete button on some of our pages of the Website.  Yes, ladies and gentleman, Aaltoes declares that Spring time is here and it’s time to clean our website.  Don’t be alarm if you can’t find a page- we are just making things clearer and simpler.

What’s new, you may ask?

Well, we are working hard to launch the BootCamp which is the main focus of the VentureTrack. Make sure you keep you eye open for the BootCamp posters that will be popping up around campus.  Spread the word and sign yourself up.

Another new item : the team

If you still don’t know who Kristo Ovaska is, then I would suggest you to get out from under your rock and come and meet him at the Aalto Venture Garage.
And while you are at the Garage, meet Tuomo Kuikka who is busily working hard to ensure that the Garage is in top shape.
And meet the newest addition, Natalie Gaudet who is in charge of all communications at Aaltoes and the Garage.

It’s spring, which means that people are friendlier and more social so don’t be shy and stop by the Garage.  Come tell us your thoughts and ideas on what should be done. Even better, if you have special skills come and help. Let us know what should be changed, improve or just come and say hi.

What a night! Great speakers, great atmosphere, great venue (after the lightman worked his magic) and great people!

Aaltoes spent a great night with startups on 6.3. on the 6th floor of the KY-building. Teemu Seppälä presented the Tuli-fund, start-ups gave a look into their companies and lives and offered advice and the audience listened, discussed and consumed food and beverages eagerly. The premises was great, we really need to organize more events in places with an awesome view! (next Late Night at Restaurant Torni?)
The event continued until… late, when we had to pack up our awesome light and audio systems, much to the dismay of the crowd still hanging out. Huge thanks to everyone who joined in on the packing&wrapping up effort!

The speakers/guests at the event were:
Teemu Seppälä – Tuli program www.tuli.info
Otto Hilska – Nodeta www.nodeta.fi
Teddie Wardi – Nervogrid www.nervogrid.eu
Ramine Darabiha – MySites www.mysites.com
Kristoffer Lawson – Scred www.scred.com
Lauri Hynynen – Promises www.bit.ly/bsNidD

Some of the issues that our guests discussed:
-Importance of having someone in the core team that understands the product inside and out
-Careful consideration should be put into thinking which market to enter first
-Obtaining private funding from outside of Finland may be much more profitable
-When obtaining funding, one should look at not only ownership percentages, but also the investors commitment to developing the company
-It is crucial to attend conferences, seminars and all-in-all take every opportunity to promote your product
-Lawyers can be a pain, but using them will save you a lot of pain later
-A product should be published when the basic functionality works
-Usability should be a prime concern
-Raising funding is a neverending process

And many more!

Personally, I enjoyed greatly the chance to spend time and share ideas with likeminded people in a relaxed setting and will definitely aim to bring Aaltoes people more chances to do so in the future.

Cheers,

Santeri

After sharing his story and his experiences on thursday Tuli Talk, Tuomo von Lerber offers 3 advices for the entrepreneur. 

1. Be humble - Be open to the suggestions and ideas of others, they bring different experiences and may help you in the process.

2. Hire a great team – Have people on your team that are better than you are in certain fields ( you can’t be the expect in every subject!)

3. Have a strong business plan - However keep in mind that life is unpredictable and you will derail from your plan.

Tuomo von Lerber states that if you truly believe in your idea; hard work and a good team will make it happen. Tuomo von Lerber believes that Finland is a good place to be for start-up companies. However, he does admit that Finland lacks VC money but states that the Government realizes this problem and is making an effort to close the gap.  

Thank you Tuomo for your inspiring story!

If you want to get your team on the highway of success and ensure that your start-up gets on the right foot make sure you apply now.

The team that is the most successful will get coaching from Vigos, up to €55K funding from Tuli program and a physical space to work in for six months in the prominent Aalto Garage.

Arctic Startup gave BootCamp its stamp of approval, by agreeing that Finland needs more programs that accelerate the entrepreneur.   This five week program will make you learn what it takes to create great businesses from veterans. You will develop your ideas together with the coaches and the other start-ups.

Aalto Entrepreneurship Society will have an elevator pitch competition in New Wave 2010 event

March 18th will be a very entrepreneurial day, since New Wave 2010 event is taking place in Aalto Ventures Garage, Otaniemi. Among other things – such as MADVENTURES, Petri Kähkönen, Golla, SEOS, Futurice, Zipipop etc. – Aalto Entrepreneurship Society will host an elevator pitch competition with Venture Cup.
Do you have a business idea? Need a team or want to join in one? Maybe need some funding? Need feedback and contacts? Need help to get started? If you answered yes, the elevator pitch competition is just for you!
This is the opportunity to get free feedback from professionals on your idea and gain valuable pitching experience.  You never know, you might find an interesting job opportunity in a start-up company. Maybe yours could be the next big thing, so be brave, come and tell us what you’ve been thinking up.

To sign-up to pitch, please fill out the form by the latest on Monday 15th of March http://bit.ly/btvbBZ
Aaltoes will choose 6 pitches, so act fast – places are limited!

Presentation form in pitching is easy:
You will have 3 minutes and a maximum of  4 slides
For example slides:
1st – PROBLEM
2nd – SOLUTION
3rd – PROFITABILITY
4th – YOUR NEED? (Funding, team, mentor, help etc.)

The jury evaluating the pitches will consist of prominent names such as:
Jaakko Aspara, Aalto School of Economics
Jaan Apajalahti, Sopima Oy
Kai Lemmetty, VP Product and Engineering (co-founder) at GigsWiz, Product Manager, Moogo at Ideakone Oy)

Check out the elevator pitch event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=336805224755
New Wave 2010 in Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=415003530190

It’s been a busy start to the year for us here at Aaltoes. We’ve run through the first two stages of the Venture Track and are now closing in on the Aaltoes Startup Talkoot, the weekend-long event where ideas get down and dirty and are developed further. Before this we still have a series of events, so it’s not going to be the calmest beginning of the spring season.

We’ve been busy on other fronts too, and have ensured that we won’t be bored for the latter part of March, either. The Aaltoes Team (Jens, Ville, Lauri, and Santeri) won the AB?C Case Competition organised by BEST Helsinki, and we’re heading for Copenhagen in a month for the next round in the competition. We’re hoping to visit Startup Bootcamp Copenhagen and learn from their experiences, and also try to get as good of a picture of the startup scene and innovation ecosystem over there. We’ve got Lauri and his start-up along with us, so there should be some proper beef to be had for him – that’s why we’re getting out there.

But Copenhagen isn’t really enough for us, is it? That’s why another team of Aaltoes will be heading for the MIT Global Startup Workshop in Reykjavik, which is organised just before our trip to Denmark (a few of the guys will fly straight to Copenhagen!). The MIT workshop is one of the biggest and most renowned such events, and we’re hoping to expand our network and sell the Aaltoes International Week (stay tuned), which we’re organising in October in conjunction with the Slush Talkoot. A couple of our start-ups and ideas are on the trip, so we really hope they get some great contacts.

This seems like a lot, but honestly we’re just getting started. As I write, most of our team is here at Nolla working on all different kinds of things, such as website renovation, event planning, trip planning, big and important discussion panels…
Keep coming to our events and get involved, send any of us an email or find us on Facebook through our group!

- Jens

If you managed to miss the event last year, Mobile Dev Camp is a free, volunteer run, event about mobile development and design. Last year they gathered nearly 150 hackers, designers and mobile enthusiasts to Vanha and this year we are building something bigger and better.  The event site is http://www.mobiledevcamp.fi and the Facebook event page is http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200478488997

Mobile Dev Camp 2010 is organized at Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Arabia on Saturday 27.2. They gather to learn and share what is happening in the mobile space right now. A lot is happening in Finland nowadays. Nokia is coming up with new developer environments, startups are building things on the iPhone and Android and student projects are developing amazing things.

Themes of the event are cross-platform development and mobile web vs native apps. They are going to have keynotes and panels running in the auditorium. In parallel with them they will have workshop rooms and coding competitions and people can attend what interests them the most. They are hoping to have a laid-back event with hacker mentality where people can take part in different activities and learn from each other.

The workshop rooms and coding competitions will be especially cool. They bring together experts from big companies, schools and local startups to talk about the projects they are working on. For example, Nokia is holding workshops on latest Maemo stuff, the guys behind Minigore are talking about iPhone game development and other companies are sharing thoughts on mobile user experience design. You are invited to come and host a small workshop on things you are working on or just to listen and chill out.The coding competitions will have amazing prices for those of you who like to get your hands dirty in fast paced hackathons. They will run different competitions in several categories including Nokia, Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile and as a bonus the application with best business potential will receive a special prize from Nexit Venture’s Artturi Tarjanne.

So if you have the elite hacking skills needed to win or just have an interest in mobile development, be sure to catch a tram or bus to Arabia and join in on the fun!

Oh, and Microsoft is bringing along XBoxes so you should find something to do for the whole day.

Design Factory was busy on 2.2: three halls full of start-ups and an interested crowd tends to have that effect!

The Fair crowd consisted of students, VC’s, media, the academic community and of course dozens of start-ups. Visitors had the chance to meet the entrepreneurs in the companies, discuss the companies’ future direction, plan joint ventures and share contacts. Aalto University principal Tuula Teeri delivered a speech about the crucial nature of growth entrepreneurship to Finland and Mr. Bruce J. Oreck, the American Ambassador to Finland, stressed in his speech the importance of young entrepreneurship, giving lively examples of successful entrepreneurs who started their businesses while still in university.

The Fair was a great demonstration of the fact that even today, when communication between people or companies can happen instantly around the world, meeting people and discussing their work and ideas is still the best way to get a feel of their business and possibilities. Thus events that bring together people from different areas of expertise are almost crucial to the development of startups wanting to make a big name for themselves in a world where visibility in any media is so easy that competitors have likely obtained it earlier and more.

As an organizer I’d like to thank all the participants and give my wishes that Aaltoes Fair is something that you can look back on as either the tipping point of your start-ups’ success or the day you helped someone realize their business potential.

-Santeri

Pier Abetti’s course Creation of Innovative SME’s has accelerated some very familiar companies for Aaltoes people. Powerkiss, A21 Cocktail Lounge, SEOS and Selki Fabrik all originate from the course. This spring, a new set of students will have the possibility to kick-start their ideas.

- The main objective of the course is to teach participants the critical process of new venture idea creation & evaluation. After the course participants are equipped to evaluate the potential of their idea and the challenges of implementation, says Matti Santala, the teaching assistant of the course.

Since its beginning Creation of Innovative SMEs has been all about the importance of interdisciplinary cooperation and bridging of different fields of expertise in order to achieve a common goal. This is supported by practice oriented lectures and cases.

No more small scale

Creation of Innovative SMEs is not for lifestyle entrepreneurs – It’s about making ideas happen and making them grow.

- This course is great for two main reasons: Pier Abettis unmatched, incredible depth of experience, energy and charisma , as well as the approach of the course, which engages participants in open sharing of ideas and learning to develop the ideas during the 4 intensive weeks of the course.

There have been a lot of memorable events during the 8 years Matti has assisting Pier Abotti with the course. Every year is unique as the participants, their ideas, ambition and drive shape the learning journey for everyone.

- One memorable case in 2005 was presented by designer Solange Ruz, who questioned the idea of coffins and pushed forward an idea about design coffins. I think it played out well and succeeded in questioning the prevailing system, even thought the idea didn´t materialize, Matti recalls.

- I would recommend the course for anyone interested in working in/with a new venture, small company or business development unit. And especially I would recommend the course for anyone playing with potential business ideas.

Creation of Innovative SMEs offered to all university students in the Greater Helsinki area. Please register for the course before 20.4. by e-mail at: matti.santala@hse.fi For registering send your name, the name of your university, your e-mail address and phone number. The maximum number of participants is 30 students. Download the course brochure or check the website at https://cie.hkkk.fi/25D031/

This post is a part of a series that will seek to find the most entrepreneurial courses in Aalto University. Have a course in mind? Drop us a line.

This is not a recruitment ad. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime! Join Hipui in creating the next generation of MOBILE USER EXPERIENCE!

• Do you want to build technology that will be used by millions?
• Work with a young and fun team?
• How about being a co-founder in a fast and high-potential start-up?
• Did you get your programming skills from your mother’s milk?
• Want to work with world’s most admired brands?
• Looking to develop you skills?

Hipui is putting the final touches on technology that will power the next generation of mobile user interaction. We want to unleash the potential of multi-modal interaction between devices and users. To get our technology to the masses, we are looking for a CODE VIRTUOSO – THE MASTER OF MOBILE to perfect our interaction engine and gesture library.

Your most important qualification is your enormous passion for developing brilliant code and your can-do attitude. Most of our stuff is done in C or Java for the various embedded devices (smartphones, music players, cars), but this isn’t really important as you see languages merely as tools for different uses.

Working directly with our clients will enable you to maintain our roadmap and plan for new features. You will join us as a full team member and co-founder leading the work of our embedded and mobile development.

Hopefully you got already exited. Drop us a call right now.

Joonas Hjelt
+358 40 561 0201
joonas.hjelt (at) hipui.com