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Hankenes kickoff this Friday
We are hosting our kickoff for the year this Friday. Come meet our new board, talk about entrepreneurship and get involved!
The event is hosted in Hanken’s student union’s main building, Casa Academica. The Facebook event can be found here.
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November 7th - Betterplace and Hacker Dojo
Dear Readers,
My name is Matias Lindroos, and I would love to share a story from San Fransisco. The trip has been amazing so far and I will be forever thankful to HankenEs for giving me the opportunity to spend a week in San Fransisco and Silicon Valley.
The 7th of October 2011 started in a perfect way. We woke up pretty early and noticed that the Sun was shining. I decided to get some time for myself so I headed 500 yards uphill to Buena Vista Park. The place is simply amazing; with a 360 degree panorama view, it gave me a chance to really boost my self confidence, and I felt great appreciation for all the people that helped me up to this point of life.
After the morning run we headed over to Paolo Alto to meet some people from AaltoEs. Our first stop was a company presentation: Betterplace wants to improve the world by making us less dependent on oil. Pretty average stuff I must say. I still do not believe in electric cars after the presentation.
We also got the chance to visit Hacker dojo, which is, as the name suggests, a dungeon for Hackers and über nerds. They had a very interesting evening event that day: a workshop on how to flirt with the opposite sex. Cute.
Lesson from the day: People in Silicon Valley are not superhuman in any way. If you have a great business idea, no matter where you come from or where you live, you will have a chance to make millions. Go Finland Go! The most important thing we need in Finland is an atmosphere that accepts Startups!
Over and Out,
Matias Lindroos
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Sat 5th of November
Hankenes flows down to San Francisco!
The Aaltoes/Hankenes/Boost Turku goes Silicon Valley trip got its head start today when six blown-away students woke up (slightly hungover) in the “Hankenes Mansion” on the 17th st. Last night we went out to a karaoke bar, surprisingly a very good one. This morning sunny weather introduced us to the city. We headed by car towards Golden Gate bridge and its panorama view-point. The overall feeling of crossing the bridge and seeing the city gave us goosebumps.
The actual trip program starts on Monday, so we had all the time to explore the city. Visits during the day included, along with Golden Gate, driving down the famous Lombard st., Union Square, shopping at Urban Outfitters, and buying groceries. It’s crazy driving uphill streets that are in an 45-degree angle. Taxis drive these streets without caution, i guess they rely on the suspension.
The apartment is very nice, that’s why we call it a mansion. We have already had outside visitors, and more are arriving. Most Aaltoes students live in motels on this trip, thus its obvious for them to be comfortable here.
The people in the city seem really nice and friendly, the architecture of the buildings is beautiful, and the elevation between high and low points is enormous but then again that is the charm of this city. We all agree we could see us living here for a while.
For tomorrow we had planned to go to Yosemite National Park (2h drive) but it seems it will rain, so we will probably skip it. Chinatown, Fishermans Warf, and Farmers Market are places to visit. Boredom is something we sure wont encounter.
More news coming up shortly.
Anders
Hankenes Board
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Hankenes Pitching Competition
Tonight we had our pitching competition for Hanken students. They all had a chance to win a trip to Silicon Valley! We had 7 great pitches out of which we chose one winner - Matias Lindroos from ParkkiNappi! Congratulations Matias!
Thank you to all the contestants and thank you to the whole audience!
Stay tuned to see how Matias makes it in Silicon Valley!
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Venture Stories with Svante Hampf
Today we organized the first Venture Stories this fall. It was really great to see so many people at the event! And a lot of new faces! Welcome!
Svante told us his whole story about founding his company, Kaffa Roastery, what has happened on the way and what’s going on now. We also got to learn a lot about coffee. The presentation was really interesting and there were so many questions that I think Svante didn’t even get to run the whole presentation he had planned for. But I think that’s just positive! Thank you all!
Here we have some pics from the event for you!
Please stay tuned for our coming events through our website here or through our facebook page!
Remember that the application deadline for our pitching competition is October 4th. That’s Tuesday next week! We hope to receive your application soon and get to pay your trip to San Francisco. ;)
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Above are some pictures from last weeks VenturePad. The event was held at Johto Café in Kamppi and attracted more people than last time (which was awesome since July is often the busiest holiday month in Finland). There was no specific agenda this time around which allowed people to chat up and pitch their projects and recent developments. The next VenturePad will be held in August.
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The core idea behind IncSpark was to create an internal “Facebook” for companies. We simply wanted to make internal communications more easy and efficient. If it’s possible for me to know what my friends in Korea are cooking for dinner through Facebook, how can it be so hard to know what my collagues in London are up to? We aim to solve this problem by bringing concepts from the consumer internet to the enterprise market.
What sets IncSpark apart from our competitors is 1) a simple and straightforward user interface 2) wide language support 3) open source mentality. We tried to keep user interface as clean as possible for our users. We also structured all conversations in thread, a structure most people are already familiar with from Facebook. This lowers the need to educate personel since they are already familiar with the format.
We released our beta in December 2010 and fast attracted nearly 300 users without any marketing efforts.
The team behind IncSpark consists of: Olli Gunst (strategy and finances), Rudi Skogman (product and marketing), Tuomo Riekki (development and design), Jani Kinnunen (mobile).
This post is part of our ongoing series profiling founders and businesses with a connection to Hanken Entrepreneurship Society.
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The idea behind Restaurant 1163 is to help transform a barren train yard in Pasila, a central neighborhood in northern Helsinki by building a sustainable steam engine restaurant, with a giant, slightly transparent oven in the locomotive’s nose, a kitchen in its tender, and three converted carts into dining and storage units. The wider goal of the project is to contribute to an economy which recognizes transparency, green values, respect for history and craftsmanship. The project is headed by Philip Rosengren.
The primary aim for the project is not profit; it does not promise to offer a generous return for a given level of risk. It wishes to create local participation where there is none, to reignite a lost community through its clear activity, and to favor forgotten spirits undermined by years of designed neglect.
The project has been received very warmly as an idea by people in all kinds of professions: from economists, electrical engineers, and skaters to architects, hipsters, and chefs. With my own efforts and wits and the anasthetic property of that wide enthusiasm, I’ve been able to weather the high asking price by the steam engine owner, the lack of any tangible investment, and the natural entrepreneurial problem of missed opportunities and second guessing.
While I wait for events to shape accordingly to make my moves (and I am confident they will within two years), I’ve been busy creating a brand image (the naive logo sans text), forming a passionate and active tribe of interested folks, meeting with farmers in Åland, and building an oven prototype out of a cylinder sauna oven.
It is clear that this idea is not along the lines of currently trendy concepts: internet businesses, cloud computing, learning algorithms, robotics, or alternative energy. Indeed, a restaurant is one of society’s oldest business models and, in its abstraction, this project doesn’t claim any radically new way of doing business.
It still firmly requires farmers, chefs, and diners. And yet, something is different. There has been a creation; an evolution of value. I’m gratefull that Hankenes, as a society, has the minds and, more importantly, the personalities to respect that transformation.
This post is part of our ongoing series profiling founders and businesses with a connection to Hanken Entrepreneurship Society.
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Hanken Entrepreneurship Society kicked off its summer season by its very first VenturePad event. Present at the meetup where a lot of new faces with a wide range of businesses and ideas.
The idea of the meetup was to get to know other entrepreneurs at Hanken, bounce ideas, gather feedback and share information. The event was all in all a success and we will try our best to organize a VenturePad each month. We also had a special guest with whom we could do some exciting stuff later this year.
We’ll start featuring the different businesses and the people behind them here on our blog as we move forward.
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Entrepreneurship might not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of Korea. The peninsula is more known for its automotive industry and high-end consumer electronics, not its start-ups. Hankenes met with some of the people who are trying to change this.
Richard Choi, head of operations and creator of the party guide SeoulGrid, says that the rise of the smartphone is transforming the entrepreneurial scene in Korea.
”Such wild spreading of smartphones allowed one-man companies to arise. Any developer could theoretically make apps and start a company. Also throw in Facebook as a platform for application development. All these smartphones app companies, Facebook-based app or game developers, and social commerce started taking off in Korea. The entrepreneurial scene in IT is definitely on fire.”
Besides renting out workspace (start-ups usually stay for six to twelve months) they also hold seminars and workshops. The main focus of the start-up incubator Seoul Space is on IT. Richard Min, co-founder of Seoul Space with a background in Google, tells me about their next event, a hackathon organized in cooperation with the Austrian embassy. Start-up weekends, similar to Garage48, are also popular at Seoul Space, according to Richard.
A problem that Korea shares with Finland is a lack of funding for start-ups. Richard Choi is however optimistic.
”As there are so many companies that are coming out of the horizon, funding opportunities are coming out as well. As with anything, with good reference and the right connections, there are a few companies that are offering funding opportunities. Angels aren’t as common as they are in for example Silicon Valley, but I feel that in a few years’ time Korea will see more venture capital.
There are currently seven companies renting space in Seoul Space. One of them is Token (token.co.kr), run by Mike Sim and Peter Yoon. Mike is very happy with the set up and says that he will probably stay there for as long as possible.
”Peter and I both had zero experience running any sort of business. Seoul Space has been incredibly helpful in providing us with working space, insight, and the necessary resources to get us standing on our feet.”
Mike and Peter first came to Korea from the U.S. as language teachers. When Groupon was making it big in the states they got the idea to try the concept in Korea. The fact that Groupon recently launched in Korea doesn’t seem to bother Mike. “It is very exciting to follow them as they enter a new market. We don’t worry too much about the competition as we have our own niche.”
Many of the start-up’s founders at Seoul Space have an international background. Mike suggests that it is because Korean’s are under a lot of pressure from their family to get a stable job after they finish university. “Also, I believe that having an international background makes you less risk sensitive. It also makes it easier to see opportunities.”
This guest post was written by Erik Johansson, a Hankenes board member currently on exchange in Seoul.
