Chatting with Juha Ruohonen - the main coach at the Aalto Venture Garage

Interview with Juha Ruohonen - the main coach at Aalto Venture Garage and Ville Simola - head of Startup Sauna Intensive.

1. In what areas to create projects?
2. The main problem of the hitters.
3. Reflections on which areas will be popular in the future.
4. What personal qualities should an it-entrepreneur have?

Problems

Mikhail: Juha, what problems do startups have to deal with?
Juha: There are two problems. The first is that they do not solve the problems of real life. This is the most common mistake. Usually a startup starts with something that they can do. Whatever it is. And their development is based on the skills of the solution developer. And they put it on the market. No market, no need, no problem. And they can't get any money for it. And if you do it very, very slowly, then you will get a lot of blows, because what you are promoting to the market is not needed by anyone. This is the first. The second is that the startup does not understand the market. They do not know what competition is, they do not know which is better or worse for competition and they do not know what potential consumers and partners are in the market. Because in the market, especially if you look globally, it is very difficult to determine - this is a competitor, this is a customer, this is a partner. In real life, they are all mixed up. These are two things that you usually need to know to enter the market. And we exist to help them.
Michael: Are you trying to solve these problems?
Juha: Yes.

The most promising areas

Mikhail: In what areas does it make sense to create projects now, which areas are most actively growing?
Juha: Social media, of course. So many startups related to social media. Active area It is very difficult to do this from places like Finland or Russia. In fact, easier from Russia, because all social media needs users. And if you start from a small market in Finland or any other small country, you simply do not have users. And despite the idea. Because, usually this is an idea created in Silicon Valley two years ago. So, what you see - you see a lot of clones of Groupon, clones of Facebook, clones of Twitter. Local clones in this particular market are normal, but they have no potential outside the market. Look at the website Vkontakte. He has no potential outside of Russia. No, nowhere. Because he is exactly like Facebook. And so on and so forth.
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Personal qualities of a startup

Mikhail: And what personal qualities, in your opinion, should have a person who creates projects in the IT field?
Juha: Passion is one of the most important qualities. Passion and ability to take failures and learn. This is not a game of abilities. If you are a more talented programmer, or someone else. Only your passion for business is important, you accept failures and heed advice. Because many entrepreneurs are very stubborn. They think they know what to do. I'm trying to give them advice. No no. I know how to do it. And that's bad. You must be simultaneously, how to say, confidently arrogant. The American word “bully” if you know what it means. This means that you should be open, like Americans, but on the other hand you should be simple, listen to advice, learn from the mistakes of others. I think this is the most important feature.

Team

Mikhail: What are the usual criteria for investment funds when choosing a project?
Juha: It's very simple. They say that venture capitalists invest in three things - the team, the team and the team.
Mikhail: Team?
Juha: These are people.
Michael: And technical knowledge?
Juha: No, these are people with their experience, I mean, US VCs. What are they doing? They always have a matrix of spheres in which they invest, and an understanding of the maturity of these markets. In some cases, even if they take a group of good guys and tell them: “Here is a million dollars for you. Create a new solution in 6 months. ” The guys will not know how to apply this money to start execution. This shows that people are the most important part. Therefore, I would say that these are people. Of course, the market idea should be the starting criterion, but in the end it all depends on people.

Future

Mikhail: In your opinion, which areas will be popular in the future, for example, in 3-4 years? What will grow, develop?
Juha: Well, these are very dangerous answers, but I think in the IT field everything will go to the mobile area, which means it will all be stored in the clouds. Therefore, I think everything related to clouds and mobile services. This space is very, very interesting. And, of course, information security is important today, because if you start storing information in the cloud, it can be hacked, and you understand. Outside the IT sector, we need more solutions in the areas of waste reuse. A lot more to do. For example, battery technology. The main part of electric cars uses batteries, on which they can drive, say, 100 kilometers. Who needs a car that can drive 100 km? And then, you just leave it on the street. So, what is next?

In general, nothing new: passion, team, social media. Unusual batteries only;)

Here is the squeeze, here is the full version and video
After iCamp on November 11, we hope there will be records with bison IT-business: Lyskovsky (Alawar), Klimenko (Liveinternet), Galitsky (RunaCapital), Anton Nosik and Mihial Tsigankov and others (with whom it will work).
Video about iCamp here .