You must have heard of The hero´s journey. A narrative, a tale of a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed. That’s us! A Startup Sauna alumni, chosen among the TOP15 startups in the Nordics by ArcticStarup, finally home.
It´s almost 20 days since Arctic15. I still remember every minute, every face and the pile of business cards in my table remind me to take at least some replies. This was a really interesting time. Thanks ! But here we are. Already restless again to move forward.
There was another milestone for us in Helsinki. The final presentation of the Lean Innovation Lab. The lab is a consultancy service, a project offer by Shift Actions OY and Mirum to develop an idea into a proven concept in just 30 days. The lab was a prize of the Wärtsiläs Marine Mastermind competition that we won earlier this year. It sounds odd. Maybe. Unusual. For sure. Probably they will come up with some other model next year, but for now a good example how a big corporation is probing towards a startup collaboration. But even if there were moments during the lab that we felt the 50 000 could have been better invested, we are quite happy with the result. A 3rd party consultant saying Wärtsilä, that they should go for it is just priceless.
The mom test. This is what comes to my mind when I think back to Startup Sauna. Before Sauna we didn´t meet much criticism. Most of the audience felt that Marina Ahoy is cool. The field is cool. There was a lot of wondering why they are not already doing that, but we were the superstars. The same effect occurred in Startup Sauna. The coaches loved the idea. There was more encouragement than criticism. Until the end. They said we are not investor ready. Okey. But why? When I asked an investor for an opinion he just exploded saying that the app is worth nothing, totally useless, like made by a 8 year old. Later that day a fellow startuper from the spring batch pointed to Foursquares Swarm Check In functionality as something similar and then I understood. I understood that some of the coaches didn´t understand it at all. To be clear - there were coaches who got it right away, thanks! and for those who didn´t, once again - Marina Ahoy is much more than Swarms Check In (read, "here I am"). Marina Ahoy is an automated customer service touchpoint for harbours, complex enough to implement for commercial shipping and easy to use as Swarms Check IN feature.
There´s no holiday, or what was it called, this summer, again. But a good balance is there for sure. The sun is shining and Marina Ahoy is from Saaremaa! First we will celebrate the summer with a full day of brainstorming next weekend and then continue with the routine. Here we come again !
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