Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2013 | Page 12

Photo: Tourist and Convention Bureau of City of Helsinki / Kaisa Luukannel

company now as it used to,” says Blank who
got his start in Silicon Valley in the late 70’s.
Creating a start-up ecosystem requires
more than a few growth-minded companies,
however. Blank acknowledges that while the
Finnish start-up scene has given the world
quality companies – the list runs from F-Secure and MySQL to Rovio and Supercell –
it’s not clear yet whether the number of startups in Helsinki is sufficient to truly ignite.
“I feel like it’s getting there: the ecosystem is taking shape, being built from the
ground up.”

The Shadow of
the Nanny State
Still, Blank doesn’t hesitate to calls this blossoming cluster “a miracle” since what makes
Finland such a wonderful place to live and
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raise a family may, in all likelihood, work
against its efforts to become a start-up hub.
How come?
Blank explains that Finland’s culture
makes risk-taking and sharing difficult. The
built-in safety nets in nearly all parts of a
Finn’s life – health insurance, free college
tuition, unions, collective bargaining, fixed
work hours – makes entrepreneurs afraid to
take a gamble and fail; and failure is the key
to building a start-up.
Blank gives an example: employees in
an early stage start-up expect to work normal
hours, to get paid a regular salary, and they
wouldn’t dream of asking for equity. (The
same as mom and dad in their nine-to-fives.)
“Here in Silicon Valley, we encourage risk and accept failure. You know what
we call a failed entrepreneur here? Experienced,” Blank says.

Cut the Net
Another trend Blank observes in Finland is
the national tendency to rally around one
company and imitate everything it does.
In Finnish business, for the longest time,
that company was Nokia, but as the mobile
phone giant has hit hard times, the torch has
been passed on to Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds.
“Companies trying to mimic what
someone else is doing are bound to fail.
Look at Rovio, they didn’t set out to be the
‘next Nokia’,” he points out.
“The next success story will always
be something nobody’s thought of yet.”

Sami J. Anteroinen