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- The Accelerator Conundrum
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vainu
Best of Bootstrapping: Vainu Co-founder Mikko Honkanen Bootstraps from Finland
Mikko has steadily built an excellent SaaS company from Finland and is now expanding into the US as well. Read on for more. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Mikko Honkanen: I was born in
Bootstrapping from Finland: Vainu CEO Mikko Honkanen (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: How many customers do you have in all? Mikko Honkanen: A little bit more than 1,200 customers. Sramana Mitra: What has been your experience with the US? Three markets are Scandinavian markets where the policy is open data. Is the Dutch market open data as well? Mikko Honkanen: There’s actually a site called
Bootstrapping from Finland: Vainu CEO Mikko Honkanen (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What about the product that had to be localized? Mikko Honkanen: Yes. We had to localize the product. All the Nordic countries are pretty good with open data. We were able to buy and open the basic data. We had to add lots of local data sources and translate the UI and make
Bootstrapping from Finland: Vainu CEO Mikko Honkanen (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: You had a bunch of paying customers before building the product. How much were they paying for the annual upfront payment? How did you find these companies? Mikko Honkanen: We used our own product. To find the first unaffiliated customer, you need to do sales and marketing. So, we focused on all the
Bootstrapping from Finland: Vainu CEO Mikko Honkanen (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: I would like to zero in on exactly that. I’ll give you some context. My second company was a lead generation and web research company, exactly solving the same problem, except that it was very early and the web didn’t have anywhere near the level of data that it has today. I’m talking
Bootstrapping from Finland: Vainu CEO Mikko Honkanen (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Mikko has steadily built an excellent SaaS company from Finland and is now expanding into the US as well. Read on for more. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in
