Aki Pöntinen

Haha. Slush was wild! Watch my supercut below. Once again, we spent most of the time hustling and building partnerships, but I did manage to hear one talk by Benedict Evans, and it was very insightful. Bundling and unbundling SaaS is the only way to make money, and we can help with that 💪 I think what surprised me the most was the presence of so many major American VC funds—Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Pear VC, … Maybe Europe is not so uninnovative and stagnant after all? 🇪🇺🚀 We didn’t win this time, but I’m still very proud of us being in the top 20 out of 1,000 startups. More and more people are starting to see the enormous potential. Congrats to our fellow top 20 builders: Pal | Digital Palliative Care, arterioscope, ContentRadar, DevAlly, Flowcore, FULLY AI, Inzipio, Lendorse, Metabob, Crono, MinersAI, Mohana, Pyrpose, Senara GmbH, Sightwise GmbH, Signatur Biosciences, SLY , Supersight, and of course OASYS NOW🥇 Reach out if you’d like to team up. Listing your SaaS on https://gralio.ai is completely free. 💪

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Desperate for cash, we made a tough decision that went against all logic... During the early days of Growisto, we had just three clients and were looking to onboard more as soon as possible. Having just closed a previous company with high outflow and no funds, we needed new business—fast. Then came a prospect, ready to sign on for SEO. It would’ve been easy money for 6 months. But when we looked at the numbers, it was clear: SEO wasn’t going to work for them. The prospect was convinced to invest in SEO and was asking for agreement. We could’ve taken the money, knowing they’d be disappointed later. But something in our gut said no. So, we made the hard choice—turned down the deal. At that moment, it felt like the wrong move given our cash flow situation. But three months later, that same prospect referred us to someone else. This time, the deal was a perfect fit. That one “no” became the foundation of everything we’ve built since. Today, after 8 years, we have worked with 400+ clients, 90% of whom came through referrals. Core of our business philosophy is win-win. Clients should see real business impact using our services. Revenue is a by-product. Today, we’re looking for salespeople who share this mindset to join our team. If that’s you—or someone you know—let’s connect. Reach out at pritesh@growisto dot com. Let’s close some deals with win-win philosophy. #hiring #IntegrityInBusiness #SalesHiring

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"Caitlin, you really wear your heart on your sleeve. I can tell exactly how you feel just by looking at your face. You really need to learn to be more professional, and take feedback less personally." 😶 This is a precis of some feedback I was given by my boss when I was a 24 year old working as a paralegal. Needless to say, I cried. Was the feedback fair? Probably. Did it feel fair? Absolutely not. I was so much more fragile then, I didn't have the self-regulatory skills I have now, and I lacked a lot of self belief. These days, I find feedback a lot easier to receive. Tears are much less common (unless you catch me on a bad day of the month...😅). Interestingly, a recent survey from Resume Genius found "Gen Z managers dislike working with Gen Z employees." They're in agreement with all hiring managers, who also see Gen Z as the most difficult colleagues to work with. This is the full breakdown of the generation hiring managers find the most challenging to work with: ⭐ Gen Z: 45% ⭐ Millennials: 26% ⭐ Gen X: 13% ⭐ Boomers: 9% ⭐ Not sure/doesn't matter: 7% Fortune picked up the story, pointing out that Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY are all offering Gen Z employees "soft-skills" training to help them overcome the professional handicap that was the pandemic. But is it a generational thing, or does the data suggest that people simply get easier to manage with age? I know I did... What do you think? 💭 #genz #millennials #management - 📧 The referenced report is an excerpt from last week's Capacity Digest, where we summarise the relevant legal news and research so that you don't have to. Sign up to receive it here: https://lnkd.in/ekSJw92j 📷 Campaign Creators on Unsplash

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StaffAgent.AI: How We Hired the Perfect Candidate in Just 3 Days!” We recently experienced the magic of StaffAgent.AI in our own recruitment process and filled a position in record time! Here's how: Monday Morning: Screening calls sent to 30+ LinkedIn applicants using StaffAgent.AI. Monday Evening: Hiring manager reviewed answers (with AI-transcribed summaries). Tuesday: Conducted virtual interviews with 3 shortlisted candidates. Wednesday: Finalized the top candidate and rolled out the offer. In just 3 days, we identified, interviewed, and hired the best-fit candidate! This case study highlights how AI-powered recruitment can accelerate hiring, save time, and ensure no candidate is left behind. What’s your biggest hiring challenge? Share below—we’d love to help! 

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There's an infinite amount of things to focus within the first 365 days as a startup founder, but only a few of them truly matter, here’s the most important things to get right in my mind. Thank you Aino Bergius for a super exciting fireside chat at Slush! 1: Pick the Right Market: 🏂 Choosing the right market is super critical for a startup's success. I would always go for an industry with disruption and fast growth. This leads to unsolved pain points and opportunities for new startups to solve them faster and better than exciting competitors. 🏂 I would also pick a market that aligns with your expertise and passion. 2: Build a Complementary Founding Team: 🏂 A strong founding team combines diverse skill sets, personalities and shared resilience. You need product&design, technical, and business expertise. I'd go with max one biz founder. 🏂 Having three co-founders might be optimal, enough diversity of thought while maintaining agility, low cost and fast decision making. Choose co-founders you’ve worked with before in high-pressure environments, to ensure trust and alignment. 🏂 Your founding team should be able to ship the first MVP independently. 3: Prioritize Building and Launching an MVP Quickly: 🏂 A MVP (Minimum Viable Product) should address the most critical problem your customer has with a minimum feature set. 🏂 I’d start by interviewing min 50 potential customers to validate the demand and understand their specific pain points. 🏂 Based on the interviews I would do prototypes to gather concrete customer feedback before investing heavily in development. Partner with early customers who are willing to co-create and iterate the product with you. 🏂 Ship the MVP in max three months. 4: All of the above aims to help you to find Product-Market Fit: 🏂 Finding Product-market fit (PMF) is the most important goal you have as a startup and founder. 🏂 Your product should solve a critical problem for your customer so well that they can’t live without it. Users also need to love to use the product. 🏂 How do you know if you have a product market fit? If you need to ask this question I’d claim you don't have PMF. If you have, you have no time to think about it as customer demand for your product grows so fast and organically that you can't keep up with it. 🏂 Early signs of potential PMF include strong retention, repeat and growing usage, and customers reaching out to your product proactively. 🏂 You can Measure PMF through customer feedback and retention rates. Ask customers if they could live without your product—if more than 50% say they can’t, you’re likely close to PMF.

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So lately, I’ve been working on an idea that’s been on my mind for a while: developing my own Operating System. Yeah, I know—it might sound ambitious, or even a bit crazy, but I’m giving it a shot. After all, what better way to learn about OS development than by actually making one? While our friends at OpenAI tell me this could take over a year (😅), I’ve already taken my first step by diving into Assembly language. Learning assembly has been both challenging and rewarding. Initially, it felt like stepping into a completely new world where every instruction had to be meticulously crafted, and there was no room for error. But understanding how processors execute code at such a granular level has increased my appreciation for how software interacts with hardware. From debugging cryptic errors to optimizing memory usage, every experience is teaching me patience and problem-solving. Though it’s complex, the sense of achievement after writing efficient, low-level code is unmatched. How has your journey with low-level programming been? Let’s connect and share insights! 🙌 #AssemblyLanguage #LowLevelProgramming #TechLearning #CodingJourney #ProblemSolving #OperatingSystem #DrGViswanathan 

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"Starting today is much harder than it was before. There are more opportunities, but everything seems much more expensive." This was one of the things Miljan and Branko talked about in front of the startup community, and as someone who works with startups, I agree that scaling growth requires both skills and large budgets. What I say now might sound controversial, but I firmly believe that NOW we need those skills more than the funding 🙀 These two segments should grow together, in parallel. And Serbia's funding situation is much better now. In just three years, we went from: - 2 to 4 VC Funds - A business angels network that invested in 10+ startups - The grants available to startups also improved significantly with larger budgets of existing programs, and new ones created All this while the global startup investment marked a 38% YoY decline. So, getting international investors has become more competitive, which means that our startups need to show relevant growth to be even considered for an investment. At the same time, this growth could keep them afloat even without the funding. And this is the hardest thing to achieve. Everyone is talking about it — we need to teach our startups sales and marketing, which drives revenue growth. Only with it will the funding drive results.

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50% towards giving myself a completely separate sales stack totally decoupled (yup not just for developers) from my CEO inbox, something I should have done years ago to aid with focus and getting away from the constant hamster wheel of ‘priorities.’ So far: * Google Chrome for its multi-profile browser functionality  * Google Workspace for email * Pipedrive for scheduling calendar, CRM, proposals and sales reporting * Google Meet integrated with Pipedrive for meeting scheduling  * Loom for video messaging, explainer videos  * Canva for proposal design (then using Pipedrive’s Google Drive integration for proposals) * Zapier for moving data around (would entertain alternatives that are easier to configure, their AI setups stuff is duff) * Drift for webchats Chuck your ideas or recommendations at me before I’m too deep in to get back out! What would you use in your sales stack if you could start again? Next week: automations…

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My journey on LinkedIn for the last 3 years.. It feels crazy to be where i am today. ✅ Grown my follower base from a few hundred to almost 17 000. Which tells me that i’m talking about something of interest. ✅ Established myself as an expert within the demand generation and paid advertising realm. ✅ Made countless of new friends that have been vital in my own career but that i’ve also had the opportunity to help. ✅ Gave me the opportunity to join a number of different podcasts but also invite experts to my own. Without all of this. Without starting from 0 and putting in the work. I would have never been able to create Fibbler 🦁 and have the crazy initial traction that we’ve seen. So that would now be my advice to anyone looking to build something on their own. Build your personal brand within a specific expertise first. Then build a product that solves a pain that you have on a consistent basis. Then you have a foundation to get this out to the world 🌍 #demandgeneration #growth #marketing

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"What if someone steals my idea?!?!" I believe it’s crucial for us at Drivn to improve our external communication. When starting out, most startups are understandably a bit hesitant about being completely upfront with what they’re building. The fear of someone stealing your idea is common, but here’s the reality: If someone takes your idea and overtakes you, it likely means you weren’t the one destined to make that idea a success in the first place. The truth is, very few people are willing to sacrifice everything to copy a startup that hasn’t yet proven itself beyond having a functional product and a handful of paying customers. The types of ideas that attract copycats are those like Airbnb, Netflix, or LinkedIn—companies that have already demonstrated massive success. But by the time you’ve reached the stage of being a company worth copying, you’re usually so far ahead of the competition that it’s no longer a real threat. In Drivn’s case—and in almost every other startup’s case—it’s far more important that potential customers, who might be quietly observing us without our knowledge, have access to the information they need to decide to implement Drivn in their company. Keeping everything a secret only limits our growth potential. Ideally, when someone hears the name Drivn, they should immediately think: “The best way to reduce work, streamline processes, and engage employees in cutting CO2 emissions from transportation.” Our first step in this direction is to change the cover pictures on our LinkedIn profiles. It’s a small step, but one in the right direction!

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Founder Friendly or Not Founder Friendly? About 1 month ago I heard a founder report that another fund accused me of being too founder friendly and thus why my input did not count. The founders who I work with know I am not easy to deal with as I will push when I see areas for improvement. In that way, I am NOT founder friendly. Sometimes I do it in the wrong way, but I never miss an opportunity to say what must be said or to ask the question nobody wants to ask. For sure not all founders are wired to run public companies. All self-aware founders kind of know that under the public persona of strength. More need to find "Presidents" or "CEOs" early in their journey to avoid having their stakes in companies lose value. Once again, this concept is NOT founder friendly. But the more I get to hang and see the ups and downs, the more I become sympathetic to founder's problems. The vast majority of us investors do not take the time to get to know them personally. We do not build trust first. And then conflicts abound. I myself have made this mistake before multiple times. To all the founders I help, personally and professionally, Mi Casa es Su Casa: you are always invited to Sag Harbor for a weekend with my family. In times of capital scarcity and uncertainty, we need to lean on being more Human and more supportive. If a company has a problem, reach out offering help not asking how much we lost. In a way, whoever criticized me is actually right: I am becoming more founder friendly.

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Quite a lot can happen in those 4 years since you lost that sales proposal. The main decision-maker could have left A new CEO could have come in, with different priorities The decision for your service now rests with more people The company is now in deep pain in the area you solve for They could be re-visiting the whole issue with a ready-to-buy focus Not to mention everything that's happened in the world - Economic challenges Wars that create supply chain issues Uncertainty and risk impacting everything we do So go back through your Closed Lost. At the very least, you'll get the pulse on how they're doing. Which is always good for building those relationships. ______________________________________________ I'm Mary, founder of Magnify Consulting. We help B2B founders across engineering, tech + professional services to grow sales - without hiring. I post on here about Sales Pipelines: 🔥 How to build them 🔥 How to grow them 🔥 How to turn opportunities into sales (cash in your business bank account) Need some help to unblock your sales pipeline? DM me and let's talk. #sales #salesdevelopment #businessdevelopment #salespipeline #pipeline

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🌟 Next Stop: SLUSH 2024 in Helsinki! 🌟 I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be attending Slush 2024 from November 19th to 21st, one of the world’s most exciting gatherings for startups, innovators, and investors. 🚀 Why Slush? Because it’s the perfect place to dive into a dynamic atmosphere filled with inspiring conversations, cutting-edge ideas, and global networking. 🌍✈️ My Goals for the Event: 1️⃣ Discover the latest trends in Conversational Commerce, a topic we’re deeply passionate about at Spoki. 2️⃣ Connect with founders, VCs, and innovators to explore new partnerships and collaborations. 3️⃣ Bring back fresh insights to continue enhancing how companies communicate with their customers on WhatsApp. If you’re attending Slush, I’d love to connect for a chat or a coffee. ☕👋 ➡️ Feel free to DM me or drop a comment if you're interested in meeting up! Let’s make the most of this incredible event! 💥 #Slush2024 #Helsinki #ConversationalCommerce #WhatsAppMarketing #StartupLife #Networking #TechEvents

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Officially an employee (again)… 🤠 It was around this time last year that I handed in my notice at my previous company, choosing the freelancing journey, and thinking that I will never want to be employed again. Yet here we are, one year later, becoming full-time employed as the first Employer Branding Manager at Robin AI. I’ve done quite a few videos with employees at Robin, asking them why they decided to join. Actually, it’s one of those questions that I feel like someone in my position should ask employees on a daily basis. While I won’t share their answers, I can share my personal reasons as to why I decided to join: 👉 Startup culture: There is so much learning to be had and so many lessons to be learned that you’d have to be very unlucky not to progress on a personal level. This also comes with a higher level of responsibility and ownership - both of which drive me forward. 👉 Equity: By joining, I have become an owner at Robin as every employee gets an equity package which I think is fantastic as it will motivate me to see the company grow and put in my best effort. 👉 The team: Every day, I work with incredibly smart, driven, and talented people, many of them I look up to in many ways and many of them I find inspiring. Additionally, some of them have become my mentors and have influenced my rapid progress so far. 👉 I WANT TO WIN: Lastly, I consider myself quite a competitive person and it will bring me a great joy once we win this two-horse race in the legal tech industry. Do you know your reasons behind joining a company you're currently at? #StartupCulture #Employee #BackInTheOffice #RobinAI

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Has LinkedIn AI been developing so fast & well that it filters more irrelevant content, gets better results when matching the VALUABLE content you produce with a more accurate audience, and gives better results for REAL content rather than the traditional social selling? What is your experience about this? Especially asking you Mikko Alasaarela, the Finnish messiah of LinkedIn.

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Aiming for an 80 LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI): A CEO’s Journey Setting goals is essential in every part of business life. A month ago, I set a target to reach 75 SSI points—a level I had never hit before. Now, I’m thrilled to say I’ve reached 75, keeping 100% in relationship building! :) I focused on two areas: finding the right people and engaging with insights, and it paid off. Each success fuels my passion. This journey is driving valuable conversations and helping to build a global business. My next challenge? Reaching 80 SSI! Valerio, what's your secret? Who's joining me at the 80 plateau? To Infinityn(n) and Beyond! 🚀 #SSI #Passion Infinityn: Account-Based GTM | Demandbase Strategic Partner

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I want to talk about the business model approach. Specifically, regarding the FINNX case, let me unfold how we approached it. First, I want to provide some background before I start. I worked in SaaS startups more than I am willing to admit. In the past 10 years, I have worked in various C-Level roles, so business models and GTM are no strangers to me. That's it, that's the background...if you want more, go to my LinkedIn profile...;) Back to the story. When we started thinking about our business model, we played with many ideas: freemium, credits, trials, you name it! But then it hit us... 💡 If we claim to have built an AI finance employee who acts like a human, why are we approaching it as software? This was when we started thinking about the buyer journey, or in our case, the relationship between an employer and a future employee. The "decision stage" in this buyer journey is not about subscribing to software but rather hiring an employee. Once we understood that part, we started thinking about the buyer journey in an entirely different way. YOU, the finance person reading this post right now, have the power to decide if our employee Edith is a good fit for your team. You do it by interviewing her and, ultimately, making an executive decision if you'd like to hire her. You can make an offer just like with an actual human being. 💡 In this paradigm shift with AI, not only has technology evolved, but also the way we approach software from a business perspective. My call to action to you in the post is to go to our website and sign up to interview Edith. Join the other 400+ companies from the United States, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, Germany, Indonesia, the UK, and India looking to try something new. PS: we won't spam you, and there is no need to log in to anything for the interview. It will be open to all. The signup is for Edith to contact you when she's ready. 🤞 #FINNX #AI #Finance #Accounting #HR Link in comment 👇

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