Who:
Startup Journey participant 05 / 2011 - 10 / 2011
Startup Journey Co-ordinator 09/2012 - 09/2013
Boost Turku Board member, 01 / 2013 - 12 / 2013

I first got to know Boost Turku by becoming friends with the grand old man of the modern startup movement in Turku - Toni Perämäki - in Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku. Coming back from a student exchange in Mexico I kept thinking about a business idea - what essentially was what Airbnb nowadays is.

Back then Startup Journey was still a very rough and uncut diamond, which I nevertheless decided to apply to with my business idea, even though lacking team members to make the idea a reality. For some strange reason I got accepted into the program and soon realised that it is pretty damn hard to make anything a reality (even an MVP) without a working team. We still somehow managed to remain in the program and I pitched the idea in demoday after a 10 week stint. During the ten weeks I learned a lot about the startup ecosystem and grew very fond of Boost Turku and the community surrounding it.

A bit less than a year later Toni approached me asking me to take charge of the Startup Journey, which I accepted with great enthusiasm. Around the same time I also joined Boost Turku's board hoping to contribute to the organization's future success. During my time we implemented the study point system with the university of Turku helping to incentivize students in the University to take part in the program and crowned Rival Games (Still going strong) as the winner of Startup Journey.

During the last program under my charge I worked too hard and too alone, which resulted in a very dark period in my life. However looking back at my time in Boost Turku, I am very happy about what was accomplished, what I learned and who I met. I would not change a day! I feel that my time in Boost Turku was invaluable to my personal growth and it introduced me to the vibrant startup ecosystem in Finland.

Unlike many other alumni who have become so addicted with the startup ecosystem after familiarizing themselves with Boost Turku, I have for now chosen to take the corporate path. I have recently accepted a job with IBM in Finland after a 2,5 year stint in Ireland. In my upcoming role I will be working with very much hyped AI solutions and hoping to convince also the Finnish startup ecosystem why partnering with IBM in this field is the right move.

I encourage everyone with a keen interest in entrepreneurship and startups to take part in Boost Turku's activities, because one thing is for certain - You will meet a lot of interesting people and learn a lot about startups!

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