Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki, we have a problem.

In the last 3-6 months we have seen a sudden explosion accelerators, “accelerators”, co-working spaces, support programs, “innovation awareness initiatives” etc in our region.

Going from North to South, we have serious attempts by Startup Sauna, Garage, Tehnopol, Startup Estonia, Techhub, Startup Highway, Startup Monthly, Gamma, probably I forgot somebody. On top of that, lots of also-runs and governments wasting their money.

Everybody is trying to do something in his corner but there is no critical mass (except maybe in Startup Sauna). What the Baltics needs is ONE strong pan-regional accelerator with strong financing and strong TEAM – 2-3 full-time people and 20-30 mentors who really have achieved something (having at least $100m worth of exits or $50m in annual revenues in their track record).

Only Startup Sauna (barely) fills those criteria at the moment.

The only point of having accelerators is to produce early-stage startups. Simple criteria of success here is number of startups who have exited the accelerator and raised funding (minimum 100k EUR per startup in 12 months). An accelerator shall be able to produce at least 10 such successes a year (let’s say in 2 batches). If the success rate is 30% then you need to pass 30 startups thru the accelerator per year and have pool of 300-500 good quality projects per year.

This is impossible to achieve in one country only. We need a pan-Baltic thing.

The problem is that if the accelerator will not gain this critical mass it will lose its credit of trust in about a year. Mentors will not come because it’s waste of time, investors will not come because there are no decent companies etc.

We need somebody to put together a Baltic accelerator, perhaps a Baltic-Finnish one.

It is definitely not a problem plaguing just The Baltic/Nordic region. Om Malik covered the exact same thing just a month ago in “What history teaches us about startup incubators” outlines the same basic problems across the pond in the US.

There’s now a separate thread of discussion continuing in Arctic Startup blog (they also published the same original text, the more exposure this topic gets the better).

There are probably few things you’d want to avoid. Things like:

• Deadline from announcement – 4 weeks. This includes getting commitment from a list of world class mentors and investors who put in the first seed money for startups that get accepted.
• Bid documents only in obscure language spoken by… let’s say 1 million people.
• Not announcing it on any public website plus making noise in news sites that focus on all things startup.
• Require minimum 3-person team where 2 of them have to have intimate knowledge of that obscure little language.
• Require the winner of the bid to have annual revenue of €500k for three years running

Unfortunately this is exactly how Enterprise Estonia is tackling this challenge. The way they announce it (or non-announce it) together with the language requirements pretty much ensures that no world class guy/gal/team will bother to take part.

Some local guys will “win” it and run it and that’s a hell of a long shot to hope they nail an amazing list of mentors willing to fly over long or often enough to inject world class quality into the whole accelerator. I seriously hope that EAS has been lobbying and networking this for months by now so all the right people are already in the know and prepared…

I’d link to the documents but the site hosting them is undergoing maintenance and down. Ironic.

For context: Startup Chile seems to be the closest to this model. Could anyone who’s participated in it (I’m looking at you Jens) offer a point of view on the factors that make it successful (or not) there?

Inspiration for this blog post came from something Toivo Annus (one of the original Skype engineers, now a partner at ASI and occasional angel investor) posted on Facebook.

Ma tean küll, et see on aasta vana, aga kuidagi on minust ringiga mööda läinud.

In October I flew with British Airways from London to Amsterdam. They served us something unmemorable (tea?) but with this something came an intriguing packet that contained:

a) a napkin
b) a plastic stick thing for stirring sugar and milk
c) a bag
d) another bag within the first bag

I just had to take it home with me.

Rule #12 / The correct number of bikes to own is n+1

While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner.

Got to follow the rules and moving to a new country helps. For about an hour now I’ve been an over excited owner of a new lover bike. I had a suspicion back in November when I found out that Condor shop is just around the corner from my office, that one day I might end up giving them chunck of my money. That gut feeling, as always, ended up being being correct.

Condor Baracchi Cross 2008 55cm

Frame: Condor Baracchi Alloy with carbon rear stays, 55cm
Fork: Carbon Cross
Groupset: Campagnolo Veloce Silver
Brakes: TRP Euro-X Silver
Chainset: Veloce Compat 34/50
Wheelset: Campagnolo Khamsin
Tyres: Continental UltraGator 28
Bars: Deda Zero 100, black, 44cm
Stem: Deda Zero 1, black
Tape: Condor Cork
Saddle: Fizik Pave
Seatpost: Condor Carbon Uno

This being a 2008 model has probably a lot to do with the fact that it had been marked down £400 from its original price but I’ve always bought “old” models and saved a ton. That pic is just a placeholder until I take a better one.

It’s a cyclo cross bike so I might have to take up a new version of my favorite sports…

Week 1 of 2012 and I’m keeping to my plan of attending at least one event each week. Thanks to fine gentlemen by the names of Philipp Moehring (did his usual Seedcamp dog-and-pony show), Salim Virani (Leancamp), Rob Fitzpatrick (The Startup Toolkit) I had an enjoyable evening playing with business model canvas and brainstorming ideas for Flattr blog.

One of the first things I jotted down was a big question mark about how to get our co-founder Linus to start blogging on regular basis. Gut feeling that this will be much harder challenge than turning all those 30+ other ideas I put down into proper blog posts…

I especially liked Rob’s bit as I’ve been in a blogging funk for a while and it was just the right kick in the brain to give me a new angle into producing topics. And it was as simple as asking questions like “What questions have partners/clients asked recently?”, “Biggest mistakes you’ve done?”, “What I should have known?” Simple questions are powerful.

Rob’s “Blogging for your business is worth it even if you get no traffic” is a glimpse into what he shared with us. Add lots of pacing back and forth and waving of arms :)

Start blogging in English

This is something I’ve mulling over for a while now. I haven’t blogged in Estonian much for years (the occasional travel post doesn’t count) and I feel that the stuff I might want to say could benefit from being in a language understood by more than medium size city in the US. It’s write better and more or die trying type of thing.

Attend at least one event every week

This is what started the list. With moving my life to London there really isn’t lack of events to go to every single day. However, it’s equally easy to bury yourself in the day-to-day work and dedicate the rest of myself to my family. Reading “Why In-Person Socializing Is A Mandatory To-Do Item” reminded me that inspiration comes when people collide. So I’ll make an effort to go to at least one event (it could be a startup meetup, local hobby group get-together, stand-up comedy) each week to bump into people I don’t know.

Be a good dad

That’s a no brainer yet sometimes being a dad can be testing. Patience, sacrificing time that was “me time” before Otto came to our lives, remembering to be an active dad, put away the modern gadgetry that steals your soul away from family…

Stay healthy

It’s hard to find extra time for sports when you’re raising a son, want to have a healthy relationship and try to build a startup at the same time. Commuting in London eats up way more time than I expected so regular exercise hasn’t been a top priority. And I’m one of those people who function better when they can exhaust themselves a few times a week, feel the sweet pain of muscles aching.

I’ll leave the “simplify” and “start coding” things, that seem to be popular promises with the enterpreneur/startup crowd I follow, for the future. Really not that simple if your home looks like the photo above all the time :)

Eleen (3 a.), Otto (10 k.), Iti Mai (7 k.), Marta Emili (6 a.), Marin Emma (4 a.), Luisa Maari (1,5 a.)

Foto: Kdri

Kerge videotöötlus ja muusika sai tehtud Youtube’i veebipõhise videotoimetajaga, mis on väga lahe tööriist.

Tiksuvat tantsu-, jooksu-, rattaga kimamise muusikat.