Helsinki Spring (Finnish only) summarizes diverse opinions, thoughts and wishes gathered during that week, as well as prior to and earlier. Helsinki Spring, the Spring of Entrepreneurial Finland, refers to, in Steve’s words, the unprecedented drive and interest of Finnish youth towards new ventures and entrepreneurialism. On the other hand, observations of all kinds need to be spoken out loud, and we’ve tried to gather all opinions on the topic of high growth entrepreneurship in Finland.

For more Steve Blank, check out the visit’s home page, and video series shot during the week.

He offers hands-on advice on issues that almost all startups, whether in tech or not, will eventually face. These themes are for example rapid experimentation, making actionable metrics and finding the true causes of failures with the Five Whys -method. Agile development and the lean thinking/manufacturing are well known concepts in technology companies, but Eric does wonders in introducing them in the practical context of a startup.

The Lean Startup community includes all sorts of useful resources for starting entrepreneurs: you can for instance visit Lean Startup wiki with e-mail lists, case studies and tools, follow the hashtag leanstartup in Twitter and buy (or borrow) Steve Blank’s book 4 steps to epiphany to find out more.

Our friends at Arctic Startup, CityVice, Floobs and Everyplay published just the lecture Eric Ries held in Helsinki last Tuesday. It’s a must watch for everyone.

Aaltoes recommends:
Eric Ries What are lean startups?
Eric Ries What is customer development?
Steve Blanks must read books Books/blogs for Startups
A podcast version of a similar kind of speech can be found from the  STVP Entrepeneurial Thought Leaders -seminar.