We’re all here big fans of Steve Blank and Eric Ries. The Startup Lessons Learned Conference held last Friday was inspirational for us in several ways. It highlighted many of the points we at Aaltoes believe to be crucial in educating future entrepreneurs in Bootcamp or through Aaltoes events.

One of Steve Blanks main ideas is that at startups, you search and pivot. At companies, on the other hand, you execute the proven business model. Big businesses revolve around a relatively consistent set of best practices, but every start-up is unique and you need customer development, operational scaling and, instead of traditional accounting, an understanding of the appropriate performance metrics. In short, we need e-schools – not b-school. We need to teach entrepreneurial skills not business manager skills.

We’re going to pay a small homage to the SLLConf by organising a shadow event next Wednesday. If you’re interested in watching some of the SLLConf videos with likeminded people, sign up here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121057001241519&index=1

For the rest, here’s a list of the speakers & their presentations. Enjoy!

Opening Discussion & Welcome / Video
Eric Ries (@ericries)

Build Keynote: “To Agility, and Beyond” / Video
Kent Beck (@kentbeck)

Continuous Deployment Case Study/ Video
Ash Maurya, WiredReach (@ashmaurya)

Agile Development Case Study/ Video
Farb Nivi, Grockit (@farbood)

Case Study: “But Does it Scale?” / Video
IMVU (@imvuinc) / Tim Fitz (@timothyfitz), James Birchler (@jamesbirchler), Brett Durrett

But What About Design? / Video
Panel (Moderator: Dave McClure (@davemcclure), Andrew Chen (@andrew_chen), Siqi Chen (@blader), Zynga, Laura Klein (@lauraklein). Rashmi Sinha (@rashmi), SlideShare)

Minimum Viable Product Case Study / Video
Damon Horowitz, Max Ventilla, Aardvark

Pivot Case Study / Video
Ethan Bloch, Dan Martell / Flowtown

Pivot Case Study / Video
Hiten Shah / KISSMetrics

Customer Development 2.0 / Video
Steve Blank (@sgblank)

Is Customer Development Marketing? Food on the Table Case Study / Video
Manuel Rosso(@manuelrosso)

Customer Development Case Study: Dropbox / Video
Drew Houston(@drewhouston)

Customer Development Case Study: PBWorks / Video
David Weekly(@dweekly)

Customer Development Panel: “But Who Should Actually Get Out of the Building?” / Video
Panel (Moderator: Sean Ellis (@seanellis), 12in6, Cindy Alvarez (@cindyalvarez), KISSMetrics David Binetti (@dbinetti), Votizen, Brant Cooper (@brantcooper), Market By Numbers, Matt Johnson, (@matjohnson Grockit)

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.

The new board will be elected on December 15th. If you have friends who would be interested in joining, please invite them to Nolla this Thursday to hear out more.

Here are some of the frequently asked questions for those who didn’t make it:

What is Aaltoes?
Student run organization promoting entrepreneurship and helping students to set up companies within up coming Aalto University in Finland. More? See the slidedeck or contact anyone from the board 2009. P.S AES is now Aaltoes, same thing, different abbreviation.

What does board membership require? What does it include? How many board members are selected?
Aaltoes is a registered association, so that brings some requirements for the work, but otherwise the board is free to choose the way they organise themselves. The rules state that the board should have 4-10 members and that all boardmembers need to student of Aalto University.

The board 2009 had some basic roles laid out (IT, accounting, school-relations etc.) and met almost every week. In 2009 99% of the effort was put on executing, and 1% on administrative stuff, but the board 2010 might face different challenges.

We are looking for an enthusiastic team that understands that Aaltoes is essentially a startup. We need people with different skillsets and a drive to redefine the role of entrepreneurship in universities. The plus side? A rollercoaster year full of new connections, mentoring,  trips and possibilities that would be out of the reach otherwise. Ask for more info from the board or team 2009, we’d be happy to share.

What is the difference between a team member and board member?
Only slight differencies – the board meetings are open to everyone and traditionally the team members have been very independent in organising events and taking initiative. Board members of course have a little more responsibilities in coordinating things and they f.ex represent Aaltoes to the media.

What happens to the 2009 board and team?
We’ll all be around, no drastic changes. This means personal mentoring for the new board, but also participating in the everyday activities just as this year.

Who can vote for the board 2010?
Registered members. If you haven’t yet, go register at http://aaltoes.com/aes/members/

What other ways are there to participate?
Form a company. See our existing startups in http://aaltoes.com/aalto-startups/ and join the crowd.

How do you help startups?
Change the culture and introduce the resources: in practice organising events, providing a community of likeminded people and, in the future, guiding the ideas to Aalto Ventures Park to become real businesses.

What plans have you for the year 2010?
Tons! Our notebooks are filled with ideas, but we want the new board to also have room to make their own decisions. Some gossip: gaming-industry event, social entrepreneurship event, entrepreneur in residence for Aalto VP, 24h camps, student guide for startups… And what do we wish for year 2010? Growth (and exits) for our startups. Forming new startups and helping them grow is our only reason of  existing. Next year we’d love to see the Aaltoes accelerated startups hit it big time.

More questions? Shoot!