But since Slush 2011 was such a BIG effort with so many talented pairs of hands involved, we felt compelled to share some of the fantastic thanks we received to ensure that all of our team members get the message.

So, yet again, we’ll turn to the Twitterverse via our #slush11 hashtag:

First, from a pair of our insightful panelists, both @cbarchak and @rich_wong were featured in our Thursday panel on Venture Capital:

Indeed @timosaloranta, after Slush it wasn’t quite the weekend, but we’re very glad that it (hopefully) made for a super productive Friday. And we loved that @jvalanen felt so pumped too:

As for our startup friends who are involved in Startup Sauna, the phrase “there’s no rest for the weary” certainly applies. But we know we’ll hear big things from @mikkotikkanen and Zonear, and the rest of the Sauna crew:

Quote of the day, @piahannelore? We agree:

More thanks from @aape and @meedium, and we were also proud to see Ovelin take care of business on Slush’s big stage:

Thanks @solariii, and great point about highlighting more social benefits:

Thanks for your tweet @mutru, and thanks to Flowdock for being an essential tool in helping us to coordinate Slush! Suffice to say — we’re now addicted:

Fantastic to hear you had a great time, @raesmaa. And @HilmAliisa, we’ll see you next year as well:

Thank you again, Twitterverse, for all of your tweets and your thanks — we are truly humbled. But remember, Slush would not have been a success without you all! So thanks right back atcha.

-Tuomas
@tsahramaa

PS. Here’s some feelings from Slush on video:

Startup Life continues to generate traction not only in the conference, but also during the Startup Crawl event we attended today. Startup Crawl showcased startups from AngelPad, with btw some pretty swanky offices, who are looking to hire. Two TCDisrupt attendees, Quixey and Apptivo, have opened positions to Startup Life candidates. Talent here is very scarce and it seems our region is in high demand. The application period for the program is now open, we really recommend applying!

Highlights of the day include three pretty cool startups (Evertale, Tonara and Goinstant), Vinod Khosla’s business card (kudos Riku!), a story of Startup Life to be published in New York’s UNYstartups.com, an interview with Hermione from The Next Web tomorrow and meeting some of the brightest minds of the Valley at Blackbox Mansion.

2 down, 4 to go,

J, R, N & J

After just a few hours sleep, ignoring the jet lag, we spent most of the day at the conference pitching Startup Life to about 80 startups and Startup Sauna to 10ish VC`s. Generally, the feedback was great and it seems our region is able to generate some traction at the moment. Startup Life was particularly well received generating lots of interest from e.g. Eventbrite and Posterous. Having said that, the conference was an excellent source of perspective and some humbling realisations.

Are you good or are you “valley” good?

Firstly, the pitches at TechCrunch Battlefield were stellar. The confidence and professionalism with which startups pitching here present themselves is at a whole other level from what any of us have seen before, with the superstars setting a whole new standard in our minds. However, while the median level of startups here is easily above what we see back home, a vast majority of our rising stars can and do compete with the best of them, which brings me to the second realisation of today:

The range of startup-quality that get funding here is very wide

Some of the startups we saw in the Startup Alley showcase today were, in our opinion, less than stellar. However, stalls in the alley were very expensive (premiums at $ 30 000) meaning most of these startups were, none-the-less, well funded.  This is a striking observation and shows the necessity for improving conditions for private risk capital in Finland, as many of our really good startups that receive little or no funding would likely be well funded if they were founded and operating here.

All in all a very productive and interesting day.

Signing off,

J, R, N & J

P.S. Shout out to Kristo et al. for your awesome work evangelising. Lots of people recognised you and Aaltoes.

We were lucky to have Ramine coach us “a bit“ yesterday. The four hour session included so much new information to remember, advice, tips and hints that I don’t actually remember the last time I’ve felt that overwhelmed. Still, I had the feeling that now I actually understand some of the realities of this conference. With the help of Ramine, we created a hit list of 15 speakers to (attempt to) have a chat with, including e.g. Vinod Khosla, Tom Conrad, Richard Wong (coming to Slush!), Chris Sacca and Roelof Botha.

The schedule for the week will be really tight. At Disrupt we will promote Startup Sauna and Startup Life and hopefully generate interest and maybe even leads. In addition to promoting these two products and gathering contacts, a valuable lesson will likely be learned in seeing what it actually takes to be a startup here. The bar is set at a level none of us has personally witnessed before.

In addition to TC Disrupt there will be a huge amount of events in the Bay Area during the week (Plancast actually seems quite handy, thanks Ramine!) so we’ll have plenty of events and hopefully follow-up meetings to attend as well. During Thursday and Friday we’ll head to Stanford to meet BASES people and faculty at STVP.

Our journey started today at 8a.m., at Aalto Design Factory preparing cheat sheets on speakers, bloggers, organizers and startups, printing quite of a pile of paper to read on the flight, gathering Startup Sauna gear and training the pitch that goes straight to the point without being arrogant.

Here we are, 25 hours later, sitting in Nelli‘s living room (Nelli is a StartupLife intern extending her stay at Eucalyptus Systems, thanks for hosting us!) exhausted, going out for pizza and grateful to be here. The week ahead of us seems daunting. As none of us have really been here before, the feelings now can be likened to being thrown into cold water and told to learn how to swim. And swim we shall!

Stay tuned!

J, N, R and J

Futuuns got chosen to the top 12 from a total number of 227 participants. Five ideas will be rewarded on 16.12. after the teams have had a chance to pitch their ideas to the referees. The judges concentrate on innovativeness, growth potential and realistic implementation.

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