We Never Give Up (we were accepted to Seedcamp!)
As some already know, the Scred team is currently busy working on a very unique and ambitious new product. We’re using all the experience gained from running Scred.com and putting out something truly outstanding.
Back in 2008 we had the huge privilege to take part as finalists in Seedcamp Week. This was a week long mentoring session in London with hundreds of investors, media representatives and fellow entrepreneurs. It was probably the one thing that pushed us furthest in our ideas and ambitions and taught us a lot about what we are doing. Several hundred ideas applied, and were narrowed down to 40, and then 20 finalists selected for that week. We were one of the 20. We weren’t one of the final 7 winners, although we deeply desired to be, but it was still an experience I would recommend to anyone.
As proof of that we applied again with this new product. We weren’t even sure this was possible, and had to email Reshma Sohoni, CEO of Seedcamp, to see if we could take part again as previously successful finalists. With the permission given to go ahead we prepared our application once more, digging out some of our old answers from 2008. Some time later, we got the news: we have been accepted!
The system has changed a bit. Now teams are expected to apply via Mini Seedcamps, which are organised in many locations around the world. From there some are, we believe, selected for Seedcamp Week, or even as winners directly (ie. investment). For what it’s worth, I think this is a better system.
The odds are, of course, against us. Only a handful will receive investment through Seedcamp. Some of those will become huge successes (and obviously some non-winners will become huge successes too). We will do whatever we can to become one of the Seedcamp winners this time. We want it, and are hungry for it, but that means doing an excellent job presenting our case against teams from many countries. Explaining it in a clear and coherent way, and demonstrating the business case to be sound. We’ve been there. It’s an uphill struggle and I won’t say we weren’t hugely disappointed not to make it all the way to the end last time. But we are here, as entrepreneurs, to take every chance we can get.
Everyone who has supported us: keep your fingers crossed and, if you’re in Sweden, be sure to come and meet with us. And if you haven’t applied to Seedcamp: shame on you. I know many Finns did not. That will be your loss.
Social Entrepreneurship with Onnistamo 2011
It’s been a while since we’ve been posting on this blog. Reasons have been many, including my own megalomanic side project, The Travelling Salesman, where I travelled to every single Nordic university city to talk to startups and write about them. It resulted in over 13000 kilometres of driving a Land Rover Defender, for 50 days, through 5 countries, over a week at sea, and in the winter, with temperatures lower than -20C. Many thanks to our main sponsors, Microsoft and Nokia Qt for making this a reality, as well as the many other companies, people and organisations that helped! And yes, the finances were tracked with Scred.
Many things have been taking place with Scred. We are working on a complete rehaul of the service, based on prior experience, and that is just simply taking a lot of time, but the result will be pretty damn amazing.
Naturally Scred, and our sister product, the Finnish ticketing service Fläbät, are still running while we do this work. Last year we grew past 3000 groups, started the process of our first government grant (from TEKES) and with Fläbät had tens of thousands of euros move through in ticket sales.
So it’s great to mention we are kicking off the year with another cool event using Fläbät, Onnistamo 2011. It’s a combined conference and unconference on social entrepreneurship. It’s put together by HUB Helsinki and Syy. On Friday guests include Anni Sinnemäki, from the Ministry of Employment & Economy, and representatives from the main parties taking part in a panel discussion. The unconference is held at the lovely Hanasaari location.
If you’re in Finland and social entrepreneurship is your thing, definitely check it out. And don’t forget to get your tickets 
The new kid on the block
Daring, impuslive and a little bit crazy Punajuuri block party is bound to be a hit. It’s always refreshing to see active people in Finland who have vision and ambition to do something different. This time an independent group of enthusiasts put together a line-up of well-known Finnish bands to play for free this Saturday 21st August 17-21 in Punavuori, Helsinki. And all that was arranged in a space of a week!
The concept behind the party is to offer free music to the public, reinvigorate the community and deliver a powerful message that seems to be at the core of the project – not all good things have to cost money. Though the party is free for the participants, the organizers welcome donations to reward some of the helpers and fund future events. Sum of donations varies from 1 to 100 euros and when you send the money you can attach a message that will be put on group’s twitter page @Five_Corners. The payment system is powered by fläbät, the new ticketing service developed by Scred.
The party should be a great addition to other activities of the Helsinki juhlaviikot. So if you happen to walk past Viiskulma or the corner of Kankuri and Pursimiehenkatu on Saturday evening, you’d be treated with a free performance by K-X-P, MANNA, 22-PISTEPIRKKO and UUSI FANTASIA. The event will also be livestreamed on Punajuuri’s webpage.
What’s most intriguing, however, is what will come out of the initiative – the party this weekend is just the beginning of a larger project that aims to promote mutual help as an alternative to money. How far that would go remains to be seen.
Who else wants a ticket to the AltParty?
AltParty is the biggest digital art festival in Finland, if not in the whole of Europe. Founded a decade ago by Scred‘s founder Kristoffer Lawson (a.k.a. Setok), it hardly numbered a hundred people at the start. Ten years down the line the festival is massive: it runs for three days and occupies all of the humongous hall of the Cable Factory.
Every year demosceners, coders, computer enthusiasts, digital art appreciators and curious public flock Ruoholahti to indulge yet again in what the festival has to offer. Exhibitions, presentations, competitions with excellent prizes and even fun activities for families with young kids revolve around digital culture but are themed differently every year.
From dreamy-eyed star-gazers to astronomers to top-notch scientists space exploration and space technology continues to capture people’s minds and emotions. Unfortunately, though, the topic has been unduly neglected by the media and society in general for almost 20 years. This year’s AltParty aims to bring attention back to the open space with a ‘Space, The Forgotten Frontier’ theme. If you’re interested in space or digital art or simply want to visit one of Finland’s coolest events this autumn you should definitely drop by!
The event will take place between 22nd-24th October and you can follow the example of many and buy your tickets now. Ticketing service for the event is powered by Fläbät.fi – Scred’s up-and-coming new product that offers a dead-simple solution for ticket sales. Mobile Africa is using Fläbät too but it’s not just big events like these two that can benefit from the service’s simplicity and affordability. Small and medium-sized events would definitely find it handy. If you’re arranging an event and are looking into ticketing services - get in touch and we could arrange a special deal for you 
Otherwise, stay tuned for Fläbät’s official launching party!
0.7 design
Entrepreneurship takes many shapes and forms. Start-up ecosystem in Finland today is growing richer with stories of tech entrepreneurs hacking their way towards big exits and international success. Social entrepreneurs, however, receive much less glamour and coverage even though their numbers are growing and their stories are just as fascinating. Here’s one such story of a for-profit one-person company that is as much about business as it is about maximizing social impact.
Ten years ago Jenni Moberg spent a year in Japan. Coming from Finland, she recognized similarities in people’s aesthetic values: simplicity of design, preference for straight lines, natural materials and colours are as popular in Japanese design as they are in Finnish. That’s when the seed for the business idea was planted.
It was not until 2007 that Jenni founded her own company 0.7 design that helps Finnish artists, artisans and designers sell their produce abroad, particularly in Japan. She mostly exports small gift and kitchen items, children’s clothing from ecologically grown cotton and things made out of recycled material. The biggest hits in Japanese markets are products made out of birch bark.
When she started she hasn’t even heard of the term ‘social entrepreneurship’ yet she was one from the start. Her goal with the company was to promote hand-made Finnish design, help talented artists who often live in remote areas of Finland and lack any business or computer skills to sell their produce beyond the town’s gift shop. Apart from having a social impact in Finland by supporting local producers, her business gives 0.7% of profits for development projects abroad. Right now 0.7 design sponsors a project in Sierra Leone that re-educates local teachers and motivates them to return to work in rural schools.
The most important and most difficult thing for a start-up is to find customers. Jenni started off selling produce of her Finnish designer-friends to friends of her friends in Japan. Little by little that network grew and now her company supplies 20 shops in Japan.
Many artists think that when their items are sold internationally they’d immediately get large sums in income. What they don’t realize is that the retail world works slowly and sometimes you’d need to wait for a couple of months to receive money for the item you sold. The biggest challenge initially was to convince the designers to trust her so Jenni took a wholesale approach to the business: buying the items first and reselling at her own risk. When the business took off and her company gained more trust, that model was changed to give her more flexibility.
The business goes in cycles but Jenni enjoys being her own boss and when you see the spark in her eye whenever she talks about her company, you understand why. ‘Helping people from different backgrounds mix and realize immense possibilities their cooperation can bring keeps me going’, says Jenni. ‘In the future, I would like to have close business partners to help me find new markets in other countries. But more importantly, I want to be an example for entrepreneurs in any field. I’ve gained some valuable knowledge since launching my own company and I’m happy to share it. ‘
Check out Aalto Social Impact – one of the few groups in Helsinki that actively supports and encourages social entrepreneurship.
Sci-fi evening at Scred office
In honour of our upcoming release of Scred v2 (dubbed ‘Babylon Squared’), we’re planning to watch some sci-fi at the office. So if you like sci-fi, and anyone smart does, drop by at the Cable Factory (door E, 5th floor, room 565).
Some beer and beverages will be available.
Episodes planned (approx): Babylon Squared (B5), Amok Time (Star Trek), Time’s Arrow (Star Trek TNG), Army of Ghosts (Dr Who) or The Awakening (Dr Who) if found in non-VHS format.
Can an entrepreneur be an anti-capitalist?
The short and obvious answer to that is no. But read on.
We were sitting at the office as usual, working away at Scred’s upcoming version 2 (yes, it’s still on its way) and I found I was playing Snog’s ‘Third Mall from the Sun’. This is an album which is almost completely dedicated to criticising corporate gods, greed and consumerism. It is not, however, built with your usual run of the mill anarchist rage and angst, but is actually a wonderfully constructed album with clever lyrics and imagery, beautiful ballads and a vocalist with a voice not unlike the throaty dryness of Leonard Cohen. Mixed with samples and electronics, the result is magnificent.
Obviously I should be less than convinced by the theme, but I’m not. In fact, I find myself nodding my head now and then. I have a severe dislike of corporate bullshit. The stuff fed to the world by overly large slugs, with policies, hollow brands and smiles, committees, committees for committees, offensively bad documentation systems and heavy project management. All coupled with a lack of respect for the intellect and humanity of their employees. The lack of innovation is ever more depressing when one considers how often they themselves misuse that word. As if repeating it will make a difference. The thing is, I’m not convinced a large corporation has to be run like that (and I’m sure there are many good exceptions). They need not become behemoths, but they do so for fear and for limited vision, often to their eventual peril.
Even more distasteful is mass consumerism. People content queuing up for their chance to purchase another low quality disposable garment from H&M, or people who stick to green because, well, that’s what the magazine says is in fashion. Or even people who set up their flavour-of-the-week social network as they think that will make them rich, quick (boy are they in for a surprise). Anyone, indeed, who does nothing but follow the lead of others.
What people forget is that this is not capitalism. It’s just a lack of imagination. One of the great things about the net is that it is very decisively eradicating the total stranglehold of mass culture. It is allowing ever more opportunities for the individual to question the norm and to form their own reality. We now have the power and the means to take consumerism into our own hands.
And what of the entrepreneurs who changed things in the past? Created something wonderful or useful, against all odds? Who stuck to a dream and eventually made it into a success? Robert Stephenson, Alexander Bell and let’s not forget Otto Rohwedder and his proverbial sliced bread. To be an entrepreneur is a chance to build something new and to make a difference. It is a chance to topple those giants and change the world.
In fact every interesting startup will want to be a rebel of some kind. Their dream is to take on the Big Boys at their own game, and beat them. Like that annoying young upstart who just refuses to believe age brings wisdom. The David and Goliath. But being a rebel isn’t something to be afraid of. After all, rebels are more interesting than your average corporate manager. The key here is to be the right kind of rebel.
Many years ago we visited an anti-capitalist “discussion day” out of curiosity and for our love of a good debate. The idea was apparently to form some kind of dialogue, but mostly it was just people from the inside there. We asked the one key question which nobody seemed bothered to ask:
“So say you get rid of our current government? What then? What will you build in its place?”
We thought that was a very important question, especially considering how the event was a mix of anarchists and communists — two groups which in reality couldn’t be further apart. The response was mind-numbing. We were told that, well, they hadn’t really agreed on anything, but they were all of the opinion that the current system sucks, and that’s what united them.
That’s a stupid reply for two reasons: one, how can anyone be sure something sucks if they haven’t created anything they know to be better, and two, bringing down a system and having no plans for the aftermath is a strategy with a long history of total failure. With these groups being so ideologically far apart, it would most definitely lead to disaster.
So the point is, you can’t just go out there and blow things up. You have to have something to replace it. To be a constructive rebel. This is what the very best startups will be.
Not that this stops me from singing merrily along to the juicily catchy lyrics of “Old Atlantis”, from the album that started this rambling. What a brilliant way to end another long day at the office.
Last chance to see Scred team coding live!
We’ve been coding all night at our Cable Factory office, in preparation for our trip to London to pitch for Seedcamp and some other instances. We’ve been broadcasting a live stream of our sweat, tears, frustration, debates, jokes, music and laughter. Made possible by Floobs!
You can see the stream and short comment on ArcticStartup
This is your last chance. Teemu has already left to get at least a couple of winks and Tuoppi and me will soon have to call it a night as well. Hey, I haven’t even packed yet! This is real reality TV and a real Night of Code. No BS.
Some thoughts on running Scred and startups in times of turmoil
Taneli Tikka, a regular of the Finnish startup scene, posted some of his own thoughts to counter the doom and gloom of these times here
In the comments you can find some of my own thoughts from the perspective of Scred. I firmly believe that this offers both a window of opportunity and a huge challenge for us. Scred is basically about money. Managing it and accounting it. Something you will see fleshed out more and more as time goes by, and something that will be especially relevant to people right now. However, it does pose serious challenges for a startup with low revenues and one currently building up a seed round. My main solace for that is that the founders are some of the smartest and most ambitious people I know. We are all working hard to reach our potential.
Three articles on the future of banking
For those who may not have already read them, Neil Robinson posts a three part article on the problems with banking today and how it should look like in the future. Of particular interest are the points on social banking. Scred too gets mentioned:
leave a comment