What does it take to make a start-up run in Finland?
Have you been kicking around the idea of a startup company? Admit it, that was funny. Well, I have and for my interview, I chose to interview Anne-Maria, one of the original founders of the Kickbike startup company. I do not intend to create the next version of the Kickbike, rather I was interested in how Anne-Maria approached the process of starting her own company, how she entered the market, and how she created her brand in Finland. With this information I hope to apply some of her lessons and advice to realize my future aspirations to start up my own company, maybe even in Finland. My interview questions focused on three primary areas: where did the inspiration and motivation for the company come from, how well did the transition from startup to established company go and what were the most critical challenges that she faced?
What I found most interesting when discussing the inspiration stage of the interview was the immediate passion for outdoors and outdoor activities that served as a constant motivator for Anne-Maria. Her background as a physical therapists helped her to quickly understand the subtle but real differences between exercising on a bike versus the muscles used to propel a Kickbike. This passion for sports, intimate understanding of the body, and recognition of a market opportunity were the sources of inspiration even when many critics questioned the need for such a design when the bike was already well established in Finland. Anne-Maria explained that throughout the prototyping phase, the understanding that the final product would meet this unique demand in the market helped her to stay focused and motivated. She knew that once her target consumers interacted with the Kickbike they too would recognize its worth. For me, this underscored the value of not only taking the necessary time to do the appropriate market research, but also the necessity of prototyping. The effort that Anne-Maria took to craft, prototype, and field the Kickbike took two years – she wholeheartedly believes that this long but necessary process was the key to her success.
With sterotypes of shy and non-talkative Finns I was curious to hear how Anne-Maria was able to gather and assess the opinions of her audience given the uniqueness of the Finnish Market – of course even my own personal experience has shown that this sterotype is quickly fading away in Finland nowadays! Nevertheless, Anne-Maria agreed that initial engagements with Finns yielded hesitant responses about the Kickbike’s appeal and ability to complement the bicycle. But once they were able to try the concept out for themselves or see its versatility, Anne-Maria received helpful and honest feedback on how to improve the design. This initial interaction with her potential customers helped Anne-Maria to realize that once people were able to try out the Kickbike or see others using the Kickbike, they quickly grew to enjoy and prefer the new mode of transportation. To quickly expose people to the new design, the Kickbike company worked with the Kuorevesi Airport to provide Kickbikes as transportation for the staff. This not only launched the Kickbike exposure, but it peaked the people’s interest and they wanted to know more about Kickbikes. While Anne-Maria did not abandon traditional consumer research methods, she reacted to the uniqueness of the Finnish market and overcame the initial hurdles of reaching her customers. With regards to legal challenges, I was surprised to find that despite the normal long bureaucratic process to meet all administrative requirements, the process was fairly straightforward. It was interesting to discover that legally, Kickbikes are allowed on pedestrian sidewalks which offers more flexibility to maneuver around the city, adding to the appeal of the Kickbike. Additionally, perhaps due to the initial difficulty in winning over the Finnish market, the Kickbike saw greater success in Germany, offering another valuable consideration for a future entrepreneur: keep your eyes open for unexpected markets and opportunities.
I enjoyed the discussion with Anne-Maria about her entrepreneurship experiences because it helped to take a somewhat overwhelming concept and helped put it into a more realistic context. She confirmed that the process can be long and complex, but there are organizations willing to provide the financial backing and legal advice to get you started in Helsinki. The most important factor for me to remember as I research my future startup company is to have the dream, understand how to integrate the dream into the surrounding community, and stay patient.