Inside Startup sauna

Many of you have heard of the Finnish business accelerator StartupSauna startupsauna.com/ru . Our team Taxi Jett jettaxi.mobi has been selected from 200 teams in Russia and is now in Helsinki. I want to share my personal impressions of the program.





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The teams work in the most famous coking space in Helsinki - Aalto Venture Garage, with an area of ​​700 sq.m. Two conference rooms (open and closed), a large kitchen and a cafeteria, numerous open and closed sections and even a meeting room in the form of a sauna were freely located in this space. By the way, this sauna is also available. Garage decorated with taste (for sure students of the Faculty of Design located next door have tried).











But the most interesting and attractive here, nevertheless, is that you never know who you will meet in the Garage today. This may be the Minister of Economic Development of Finland or, for example, “Mighty Eagle” (Peter Westerbaka) - Marketing Director at Rovio (Angry Birds).



Startup weekdays.



In the first week, we made sure that it was very difficult to develop in the daytime. Therefore, all tasks associated with it, it is better to leave for the evening or even night. This is due to the fact that meetings with coaches (mentors) and other events take up most of the daytime.







The main focus in the first week was on the quality of the presentation of the startup (pitch). Three coaches worked with us in a lecture form, each with its own special methodology.



In addition to general coaching, individual meetings with experts are also scheduled. Like the pitches, everything is also obsessed with time: exactly 15 minutes is given for communication, after which the following command “kindly” throws you out. Experts give concrete tips on how to promote a startup, answer questions, many of them are investors, have direct relevance to Finnish venture funds, have great connections to implement the project in Scandinavia.



At the end of each week, the head coach of the sauna arranges the so-called KTSO (Kick the shit out session). Which summarizes the week, and all the bad ones are put on peas. Reporting is forced in a completely unpredictable form, bringing commands to clean water.



In addition, in the premises of Aalto Venture Garage, where the teams are located, various start-up conferences for more than 300 people, not always related to StartSauna, occur all the time. The garage at this time resembles a hive, teeming with men in expensive jackets.







Every week a garage is visited by VIPs. The first week came the CEO of Zerply Christopher Karltop angel.co/ckarltorp . He told the story of how his team, at first, being under the scrutiny of a number of Silicon Valley funds, did not receive a penny in a year. With his story, he dispelled the hopes of the teams to quickly obtain seed funding at the end of the Startup Sauna and advised him to concentrate on domestic resources.









“It’s pointless to run after funds, investors will send a car for a good startup.”



Christopher recommended angel.co as the main tool for interacting with them.



In the second week, ex-CEO of MySQL Marten Mikos visited us www.crunchbase.com/person/marten-mickos . He spoke about his difficult struggle against Oracle and gave a number of tips to start-up companies. Unfortunately, from overwork after work for 14 hours two days in a row, I fell asleep right at his lecture, so I can't tell you more about Martin.



This week, we were invited by Bill Payne, who is called the legend of US angel financing. www.fiban.org/billpayne



This is a man of the old school, he pays a lot of attention to business plans for the next five years. He told about the conduct of the pitch with the angels and gave useful templates. The meeting was held in the Finnvera business center of the Union of Angels of Finland. At the end of the general presentation, the live pitch was demonstrated by two teams from the sauna, one of which got a chance to meet again. On Thursday, all the angels will fly to BBQ “Angel Wings” in the garage. There will be an opportunity, in a relaxed atmosphere, to get a lot of useful information.



Life outside the Sauna.



The first problem is very expensive food. The good news is that once a week you can eat in the garage itself on the so-called Start-Up Barbecue.



Transportation also leaves a chew better. To get from the hotel to the place of work, you need to pay 4.5 euros one way, so we purchased bicycles on the analogue of the local ibei (huuto.net), for only fifty dollars. Another feature is the fact that beer is available throughout the day in the garage, so they drink it all over and over. But you do not get drunk with it.











More details about our “life” in the sauna can be found in our blog blog.jettaxi.mobi



Write in the comments, so you want to hear about the insiders of the sauna startup.