You can get a ticket here

What is Build it?
Build it is a hackathon where designers, developers, and business guys work together to make their ideas reality within only 48 hours. What could you possibly make for only 2 days? A lot. Admittedly we were flabbergasted by the prototypes delivered by teams of the previous build it during demo sessions.

What happens there?
First those who have ideas-”executable” within 48 hours-will pitch in 90 seconds or so and recruit teammates. And you are welcome to join any team you want, but you would have to sell yourself with skills you’ve got to work on the more attractive ideas. Eventually the teams, which ideally consist of people from every type of background, will work around the clock to build a prototype before Demo session- of course with a handful of Redbulls right next to you.

You don’t have any experience?
Don’t worry. I remember at least half the participants were first-timers in the last build it and they did a wonderful job. Mistakes are expected and you will get better.

Are you still hesitating?
Alright there are three reasons why you should come to Build it. First, you can learn how the early-stage start-up works and how you can communicate with people from different backgrounds. Second, you can get connected with SUPER interesting people. Last but not least, it is going to be incredibly FUN! So do not miss out on this golden chance to awaken your entrepreneurial giant inside you. Along with other Founders’ week events, Build it will not disappoint you. Also we are pleased to share some of the feedback we received after the event.

“Build it is a catalyst which helps us to realize our dreams”
-Kun Cao, Aalto University Student

“In addition to learning to work with a new team, you can get friends and have fun!”
-Kimmo Koivisto, CEO of Tellyo

“I learned that a good team spirit is more imporant than the idea. and Music, food, drinks were PERFECT! And very nice atmosphere!”
-Kalle Tiihonen, from IBM

Also join the week on Facebook event and follow us on twitter @aaltoes  #buildit. If you have any questions, feel free to contact dh (a) aaltoes.com

For the full program visit http://foundersweek.fi/program, but here are some highlights:

Monday, June 4th “Welcome to Founders’ Week”, 10 am @ Aalto Venture Garage.

We’ll be kicking the week off at the Garage, with a welcoming speech from Mr. Alexander Stubb, Finland’s Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade. The morning continues with a Q&A with our four stars of the week – Russel Simmons, Sami Inkinen, Paul Bragiel and Aaron Patzer. Themes of the day focus on the importance of entrepreneurship, startup culture and appreciating entrepreneurs as the drivers of innovation, growth and welfare.

Sign up here!

Wednesday, June 6th “Founder Stories – visions and ventures”, 4pm @ Aalto School of Economics.

On Wednesday we will be privy to “stories of the start” via a keynote from Mint.com founder Aaron Patzer, followed by a panel and Q&A with our entire cast of allstars. The evening will be focused on early stage stories of starting up – the difficulties, the sweat – and on nurturing a culture that supports entrepreneurship.

Sign up here!

Thursday, June 7th, “Startup Sauna Demo Day”, 6pm @ Tapahtumakeskus Telakka.

Startup Sauna Demo Day will showcase the leanest (pun intended) and meanest startups from the program’s Spring Batch 2012. The rockstar teams pitching will be joined on stage by Russel, Aaron and Paul, who will relay their own experiences in all things startup. Join us for an evening of celebrating entrepreneurship and startups!

Sign up here!

More events and information at http://foundersweek.fi

In addition to these, the guys will be sparring local startups and taking in the summer in Helsinki.

Also join the week at http://www.facebook.com/events/292137444213121/ and follow us on twitter @aaltoes & #foundersweek.

If you’re interested in helping out, contact nippe (a) aaltoes.com. We can always use an extra hand ; )

We are really excited about the next Aaltoes Pitch it., on April 26, at the Aalto Venture Garage. Again, we have a great line-up of teams and noteworthy jury aboard. The night will be a great  great opportunity to get feedback, find funding for your startup and get it on the map. Check out our jury:

Elina Lepomäki, Libera

Elina Lepomäki works as an angel investor and a startup advisor. She is Chairman of the Board at Transfluent, a startup that has excelled in several international startup competitions in the autumn of 2011. Previously, Lepomäki has worked in investment banking for eight years. Her latest position was as Director of Global Banking&Markets at RBS.

Jussi Heinilä, Accelerando

Jussi is a co-founder and a partner at Accelerando, an advisor for startup companies. Specialized in internationalization and foreign market entries, Jussi has run Finpro’s export promoting activities in the Silicon Valley. He has experience from several corporate executive chairs, but also a track record of serial entrepreneur.

Mike Bradshaw, Hammerkit

Mike is community shepherd at HammerKit and a Startup Sauna coach. Also dis-organiser of BarCamp Helsinki and other un-conferences, helps startups with presentation skills, host at Hub Helsinki, co-driver with the Travelling Salesman and organiser of MobileDevCamp.fi for the last three years.

Taneli Tikka, CEO at Soprano Brain Alliance

A serial entrepreneur and a startup activist of sorts, know from several consumer Internet service projects such as IRC-Galleria, Dopplr, Muxlim, StarDoll, RunToShop, Vakuutuskone.com,and others.

Risto Rautakorpi, Gorilla Ventures

Risto is a co-founder of the seed investor Gorilla Ventures one of the Vigo accelerators. He has IT business experience of over twenty years. He has alternated between hands-on entrepreneurship and senior roles in global companies.

The teams will pitch according to the following schedule:

18:10 Design&Fund
18:20 Earth House Oy
18:30 RecThing
18:40 Eco Arecca Oy
18:50 Conatix
19:00 Kimmpis
19:10 weAll
19:20 LivLiv Solutions
19:30 Uniquer
19:40 RF SensIT

Come and check out some real pitching action. Same Pitch time, same pitch venue.

Aalto Ventures Program is all about inspiration, insights and experience. See what they mean for us in the AVP blog.

with a kiva founder, Matt Flannery

1. Dualistic approach: be smart and optimistic

Vinod khosla was after all a master Yoda. Whatever he utters might not make sense  on the surface, but if you think through, you can grasp what it truly means. He gave out some good punchlines you would be tempted to tweet out. Out of those, I’d say the following line was the best.

“You must explore all the possibilities that can put you to failure, but at the same time you have to have a religious belief that you will succeed.”

What he calls the nuanced approach(above) is essential. As Lauri said in the previous blog posting, there are countless ways that your startups will fail and nevertheless one still must have an unshakable belief for success. Yes this is a tricky balancing act. If you do not understand the subtlety, you probably won’t be able to survive over a long haul. If you have only the blind belief, however strong your commitment is, you won’t last too long. In the flip-side of the coin, if you obsess with the risks of failure, you won’t last too long either.

2. Be picky about whom you’re getting fundings from

When it comes to getting a VC funding, it is easy to believe that the point of funding is a money injection that will keep startups alive and push them forward for success. Well it’s not quite right. What numerous VCs and angel investors at the event kept telling us was that start-ups have to be super cautious about whom they are getting fundings from. If they can choose, it’s awesomely better.

What VCs can offer to start-ups is not only money to invest, but also their expertise and networks. The latter part would not count merely as a support or some marginal factor. It can determine whether your start-up will be able to hit the mark or not. Just like dating, study their portfolios and ask smart questions to people who had a investment from them. Just like marriage, if the relationship will turn sour sooner or later, it’s better off not starting the relationship from the beginning.

3. Sell

Someone said, any business can be categorized into two things essentially: Make and Sell. While those two pillars of business cannot be too important, I think selling part is often ignored or at least less attentively taken cared of. Vinod Khosla said- Yes I had a crush on him- “sell, sell, and sell”.

Startup people should pitch their ideas anywhere anytime. Except for some rare cases, it is not a good idea not to pitch your idea or ask for sign-up for NDA, being afraid of getting copied. And for startups at more developed stages, one should still sell like crazy. Whether it’s a mid-aged guy living next door or a incredibly successful figure, like Bill Gates, one should never stop selling.

To be frank with you guys, I had many moments where I was hesitating to strike up a chat with people, worried about why he or she would want to talk with me. And that was the most stupidiest idea of all. Until I saw this guy from Greece, I couldn’t really bring myself to approach big guys. Yes I was squandering golden opportunities to pitch Aaltoes and my stories to them. The guy always asked and pitched his idea, whether it was Vinod Khosla, or Greg Papadopolous, former CTO of Sunmicrosystems. He didn’t just seem to care about his relative positions compared to them.

His just-ask-and-ask spirit pushed me forward and at some point, I surprised myself, pitching to people in a calm and confident manner, not the best but still okay. Anyway, yeah let us sell.

A window of opportunity is open for you

Lastly for those who wish to know how the event was put to an end. I’d like to share with you 5 start-ups that were picked by judges in the pitching competition. And you can see a very familiar name on the list

They went so far as to even get a chance to showcase their wonderful ideas on Demo Conference. You can get a glimpse of what it would have been like through youtube video clips. Well then, Nähdään!

-DH-

Hard work is the unmistakable part of entrepreneurship!

1. Speaker rounds

At least I really enjoyed the four speaker rounds we had during the weekend. Basically the concept was, that the participants were divided into groups of ten and then had smaller sessions with seasoned entrepreneurs and VCs. This way the discussion was very informal, fun and I hope everyone got more out of these.

2. Why and how startups die?

As part of the Speaker rounds, Ricky Yean, founder of Crowdbooster (YC Summer 2010) had an interesting point on why and how startups die, based on his batch of YC startups. For none of the companies not operating anymore, it was not a question of running out of money, but more about the chemistry between the founding team and their passion for the idea. If you just can’t stand the face of your co-founders or don’t care about the product anymore, it’s really hard to keep going with the ups and downs of the startup-rollercoaster.

None of the “failed” companies actually had to go bankrupt or just shut down the company, but due to high demand for engineering talent in the Valley, all of them got acqu-hired and the team re-positioned into the acquiring company. Of course there might be a lot YC-bias in this one, but still: not bad, right?

The importance of team and passion for the vision was also heavily emphasised by the other speakers throughout the whole weekend. I guess in addition to increasing chances for success, it’s also good to know that having a killer team will make the failure more profitable.

3. Biz Dev -workshop

On a practical side, perhaps one of the most interesting items was the business development -workshop on Day 1. The topic was “Business Plans gone wrong” – something you might not expect to be covered in an inspirational conference. During the session, the instructor walked us through a couple of cases, where companies were facing serious financial problems and how those were handled.

In such situation, one should ask three questions: what can I do without, what I don’t need at all and how could I increase margins. Another advice was to cut costs only once and after that, forget the dead and focus on the living. Cutting personel many times can be really stressful and start a vicious cycle, so it’s better to get it right for the first time. Also, after letting people go, instead of worrying about them, you should make sure the remaining ones are happy and motivated.

4. Max Levchin

The last but definitely not the least keynote was by Max Levchin, one of the co-founders of PayPal. The speech was great, but I found two points particularly interesting. First, you should remember that most all valuable things are also hard to make, but not everything hard is valuable. Thus, when you come up with an idea that seems valuable, first check that it’s also hard, but after that, triple check that it’s also actually valuable. Second was a simple question for evaluating potential investors: what will it be like with them, when I at some point need more money?

5. Networking

This one is a classic, but I’ll still repeat it here. Even though there was also a lot of substance in the keynotes and workshops, the most valuable part of the bootcamp was meeting and getting to know all the other participants.

Cheers,
Lauri