Matti Saarinen

With our $61.500 USD (430.000 DKK) investment We will not hire anyone. Here is how we will use it: Monthly costs Salaries Marius - 2200 USD (15.000 DKK) Villads - 2200 USD (15.000 DKK) Software licenses Total - 1100 USD (7.500 DKK) Food (dinner for the long evenings) Total - 1000 USD (7.500 DKK) Office 2 desks - 600 USD (4.000 DKK) Other - 1000 USD (7.000 DKK) Monthly income: Recurring revenue - 3250 USD (23.000 DKK) In short, we’ve been able to build a product from 0 to 1 and get to 3250 MRR without funding I think every founder would agree that it was way harder to get from 0 to 3250 MRR than to go from 3250 MRR to 10.000 MRR When we hit that we will be profitable Which means that we can grow faster The key insight that Sebastian Seilund and Esben Friis-Jensen taught us In our situation, money does not guarantee that we grow faster, it can easily be a distraction So we will continue to do everything ourselves Keep executing 🦄 #investment #unicorn #StartUp #founder 

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How to onboard a team member in the worst way possible I’ve worked in many companies in my short career as a software engineer, and one stood out as the worst onboarding experience. On the first day, you’re expected to watch a video of the CEO ‘welcoming’ you and talking about their culture, I was then given a windows laptop that barely worked and I had to submit tickets already to the IT team to fix it. So there I was in the first day just sitting at my desk waiting for IT to respond and with only a single interaction with my supervisor. One of the things I noticed with great companies, is that if there’s an individual joining a team, they get their entire team to interact with the new guy, as early as possible. It could be through team building activities, a clear induction, team lunch, anything that would get them to establish themselves as ‘friends’. Because believe it or not, the more your team likes and cares about each other, the more productive and enjoyable it becomes for them to work together.

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My last post was two months ago, so it's time for an update. As a founding developer or a developing founder, you always run out of time—either for development or all the other stuff. After two months in coding mode, it’s time to share an update. The articles by Stefan Grasmann, covering his interview with Jón Egilsson from Monerium, the commentary by Dr. Sven Hildebrandt on recent developments at Deutsche Bundesbank, and Jakob Bosshard's post about Janus Henderson Investors exploring on-chain asset management have led me to the conclusion that I should speak up again. Why? Monerium has always been a pioneer in bringing EURO e-money to the blockchain. Monerium was the first to achieve compliance with EU regulations, and they did it well—especially for us developers who need a way to bring cash on-chain. They’ve delivered excellently. If you want to leverage the possibilities of a Turing-complete money execution machine, there is no better way. For non-developers: this is HUGE! Dr. Sven Hildebrandt spoke about Deutsche Bundesbank because the bank is explicitly searching for someone to operate its platform in a private, hybrid public environment. The latter is important. While there are arguments for private blockchains, I believe in public ones. The reason is simple—there were arguments for intranets as well, and while they still exist, it was the internet that made the difference. I believe it will be the same with private vs. public blockchains. We now have a protocol for value transfer. Do we really want to limit it to in-house transactions or just for a set of institutions in Germany? Sure, we can imagine exporting our private tech to the whole world, but let’s be honest—the probability is tiny. Do we really want to be a gated financial community while everyone else plays without us? (Hint: BlackRock deployed their BUIDL fund on the public Ethereum blockchain!) Jakob Bosshard mentioned Janus Henderson Investors, a $360B asset manager, taking its first steps into blockchain by partnering on a tokenized treasury fund, joining industry giants like BlackRock. This is amazing. Every asset manager will move on-chain in the next ten years. That’s my prediction. Why? The technologies mentioned above will streamline the process of setting up funds, monitoring investments, and investing in funds in an unprecedented way. Our proof of concept shows how you can set up a fund infrastructure, including a payment channel and product pipeline, in minutes—obviously without BaFin approval (that takes a bit more time 😉). All transactions are transparent, secure, and verifiable because we use public blockchains. We use Enzyme for the fund infrastructure, Cashlink for issuing eWpG-compliant fund shares, and Monerium for achieving settlement times of 30 seconds. Check out our One-Pager if you want to learn more: https://shorturl.at/uJct6 What is your take on this?

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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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Over the years of managing talented developers at COXIT, I’ve seen firsthand how the proper workspace setup can significantly boost productivity and job satisfaction. Based on my personal experience and that of our developers, here are a few suggestions: My personal productivity boosters: - Quality keyboard and mouse: I use the Numphy Air V2 keyboard and Logitech MX Anywhere 3s mouse, and I couldn’t be more satisfied with them. - The right music choice: For me, it was Dubstep between 2011 and 2015, and since then, it has been a few Drum and Bass playlists. - Physical routine every few hours: Doing 20 push-ups and 20 squats makes the heart beat faster, stimulating the brain. - A 1-hour power nap: I try to split my day into two, so my productivity is revived after the first half-day sprint. Here are some more practices I try to maintain: - Keep physical and digital workspaces tidy (especially challenging when working from home). - Wear protective glasses and take regular breaks to look away from the screen every few hours. - Add greenery to both the office and personal workspaces. (This is something we've embraced at COXIT.) - Plan tasks ahead of time using sticky notes or handwritten reminders, a method I prefer. The goal is to create an environment that supports deep work, which is challenging considering the short attention spans many of us have these days. Explore other elements that might work for you—meditation, aromatherapy, power naps, or a standing desk—and incorporate them into your routine. Now, I’m curious about you. What’s your favorite working music or work equipment? How have you customized your environment to boost productivity?

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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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It's been an amazing 7 years as the CTO of Supermetrics. But as with all things, it's time to learn new things and impact our wonderful company in different, almost Impossible ways. Looking back now, it seems so long ago that I moved to Finland to be CTO on July 4, 2017 for ten brilliant people working for Mikael Thuneberg.  We've come a long way, and we've gone from 6 developers to over 120 in our Product Development. Late last year, we hired a fantastic Chief Product Officer in Matt Simmonds, not only has Matt set a clear direction for our product teams, he is technically savvy and a great steward of our engineering teams. With Product Engineering reporting to Niklas Lampén, our VP of Engineering, Matt will now oversee a combined Product, Design, Product Marketing and Product Engineering inside a single function, something I've always wanted. I am so very confident that all our customers are going to be delighted with some of the new features, integrations and applications we are about to release. Every monthly product session is a joy to attend. What now for me? Being CTO at Supermetrics has been a career highlight. I don't know if I could have asked for a better person to work for and help grow Supermetrics with than Mikael Thuneberg, from coding together late into the night, to partying after a great win. Heck, I never thought I would receive CTO of the Year for Finland in 2021 on behalf of our amazing team. So it's kind of weird, but fitting, to also say that we will divide “CTO” duties across multiple people for the time being. Anssi Rusi and I created a new position for me that allows me to have a wider impact in the organization. Scaling an organization can fail simply because internal processes fail us, or things get lost between the business silos. We want to improve our systems integrations, reduce time to impact for employees with automations, cleaner processes, cutting through to what matters, and not doing things simply because “that’s how we’ve always done things”. Ultimately, everything we do to improve our employees' lives and happiness means we have time to do what really matters: helping our customers to be successful and drive growth. I will still continue to oversee security and infrastructure as well. We first thought of making it a traditional Chief Information Officer (CIO), but the role is wider and more complex and what I describe can sometimes feel like an impossible task to tackle. So with that in mind, my new role will be the Chief “Impossible” Officer for Supermetrics :) We will keep the "I" part ambiguous a bit (Information/Innovation/Impact), and yes, maybe we poke a bit of fun at titles which try to silo you. So, Thank You Supermetrics for allowing me to be your CTO for seven years, it’s been a heck of a ride! Thank You Anssi Rusi for having the faith in me to let me grow.

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Screenshot this post, and show it to me in one year. The one thing I will miss most from these early days of FINNX is building our MVP. You get your hands dirty, learn new things, and spend hours in MIRO, Figma, and JIRA with a smile on your face until your cheeks hurt by the end of the day. That is it. Thank you for joining my TED Talk post this morning. #FINNX #startups #founderstalkshit

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Are they making software? Yes TH-EY are! I am more than happy to welcome another software agency that decided to switch to Apropo for #estimating their projects - please give a round of applause to TH-EY! 👏 👏 👏 TH-EY is (or shall I say “are”?) a custom software development company with HQ in London and Krakow, specialized in building web & mobile applications for companies from the #UK, #US, #Canada and #Western_Europe 👈 They are also one of the client-#ROI-oriented companies - they first work out the problem on a paper and only then fit the best technology into it, regardless of whether that's a clickable design prototype, #MVP, or a fully-fledged custom software product 💡 👉 I’m very happy to see such approach, especially that I’ve written about it in one of my recent posts (link in the comments). 👉 TH-EY switched to Apropo in search for a tool that would make their estimates faster, more accurate and more transparent for their clients. 👉 Here is how Filip Kubala, Founder at TH-EY, comments the results of implementing Apropo: "𝘌𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭. 𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘲𝘶𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯. 𝘐𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝙨𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙪𝙨 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 - 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙙 𝙈𝙑𝙋 𝙦𝙪𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘴. 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝙬𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚𝙙 𝙀𝙭𝙘𝙚𝙡 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬." Thanks Filip and TH-EY! I really like how responsibly you approach solving business problems with technology 🎖️ We wish you a lot of good projects #estimated & #won with our tool! 👏

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Our churn rates have historically been between 5-7%. In March I got together with the team and asked, what small things can we do to change this? We went through reviews, talked about user experiences, and then started implementing minor UX changes and implementing improvements that would probably not be even noticeable to most. There were a few hiccups along the way, some changes we had to almost immediately roll back. Some of this can be attributed to some big tools I released like zipper and knife, but for the most part, it was a lot of little things. In my first years of monetizing (nearly 10+ years ago, my churn rates would be around 20%). Anyways, it worked, and last month we broke the 5% line. Our NPS scores are hitting new highs. Sometimes the difference between good and great is not that large. The crazy thing is, we are only maybe halfway through our list. #startups #GIS #mapping

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Explore the #NordicBaltic Funded Startups List! You can access the list of startups funded in the #NordicBaltic region at any time. Link to the list https://lnkd.in/dVfQCKMU #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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https://lnkd.in/djDyhZNz Finnish payment API coders are trying to pre-empt even further insanity from the Finnish government: "My only concern with this scheme is that it only allows for tax rates that are easily represented by rational numbers. There's a risk that future legislation introduces tax percentages (say π%) that require an unfeasibly large numerator and/or denominator to achieve the desired accuracy." Relates to: https://lnkd.in/dgYgwyQN

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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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I keep hearing about some relevant events, usually too late. So I'm scratching my own itch. Here is a list of events related to data and/or AI in Estonia in the next 6 months. This is assembled from multiple different sources and is probably very incomplete. These are all in Tallinn unless otherwise specified. Focused on data and/or AI: September 18th - Data catalog insights, part 1 (https://lnkd.in/dhgUMiSD) with Maria Zukova and Anna Kovaleva. Following events on September 25, October 9th and 23rd. September 19th - ProductTank Tallinn (https://lnkd.in/dki7DK4a) at Katana Cloud Inventory, featuring Andres Aava and Krete Paal. September 24th, Tartu - Data science seminar "AI in Action" (https://lnkd.in/dZEXnRcz) October 1st - AI idea day (https://lnkd.in/dfvj6rC5) October 4th, Tartu - Digit (software conference) (https://digit.dev/), with a lot of AI and data topics October 28th (5 days) - Helsinki Data Week (https://lnkd.in/d2aX5J4c), featuring Joe Reis 🤓! The AboutUs page of the event is awesome. November 12th - AI conference (https://lnkd.in/de9R--7H), gathering all the local heavy hitters, including Gerlyn Tiigemäe and Sandra Reivik of AIPowerment! 🎉 January 23rd - Marketing Analytics Conference (https://lnkd.in/dq6twgTF) Related to data: October 10th - Impact Day (https://impactday.eu/), Gert Lõhmus and SelectZero have a session based on data. I believe most of the conference is fairly data-driven. October 24th - HRxTech (https://lnkd.in/dZK8Sr6C) with specific AI topics. November 14th - Telia Digital Hub (https://lnkd.in/dQQnw2kr) with an insane speaker list! January 30th - Cloud Technology Townhall Tallinn 2025 (https://lnkd.in/d-2SPe3q), has a separate data track. --- Please let me know in the comments of any other events and I'll include them. The plan is to post an updated list once a week.

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I don't buy into Klarna's AI transformation story. It feels a bit too, say, fairy-tale-like. Klarna, recently made the news again for ending their fancy SaaS subscriptions in favor of AI-accelerated software development. I've had the "pleasure" of dealing with Klarna AI, and while it's pretty grounded, it's no Robochat-007 they make it sound. AI-generated code, more often than not, slows down the releases rather than accelerating it. Then there is a whole lot of compliance, security, and other mumbo jumbo. I wonder what mystical OpenAI models they have that other lesser mortals don't! Klarna has an IPO on the horizon, and this whole thing feels like a carefully staged PR stunt. By playing the AI card, they look like tech pioneers to future investors. Suddenly, they can justify what really seems like an after-effect of a massive drop in valuation due to overspending, interest rates, and competition. Meanwhile, the customers! Huh, what about them? They should be happy that Klarna AI Bot can tackle their Python questions. Jeez, some people just can’t be pleased, can they? --------------------- Hi, I am Maheep. Follow me for a candid, fun, and cynical perspective on tech and business. #klarna #ai

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A big misconception I see in pitch decks and with first time founders: Money will speed things up immediately! Wrong, it will first slow things down, and in case you are a great operator it might help to get more things done in the future. But if you only hire lots of people it will certainly slow things down for a couple of months. So please don't anticipate a massive growth rate starting the day after closing a round. The more you raise, the more money your organization needs to "digest" before it might be more productive.

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🚀 Mitigating Risks in Software Product Development: Our 8 P's Framework 👍🏽 Why do 80% of software projects fail? After 25+ years in developing software products, we have seen firsthand the challenges tech product leaders face. Drawing from our experiences at ISHIR building software products for BOLD startups and enterprises, we’ve developed a practical framework to mitigate these software development risks and drive success. 🤜🏽Introducing the 8 P's — key principles within our Innovation Accelerator that can help you navigate the complexities of software development, from understanding your users to crafting a robust product vision. These insights are designed to guide your team toward success, ensuring you deliver real value to your users. Here is what we have experienced after following this framework in our client engagements: ✅ Upfront clarity, expectations alignment ✅ Professional delivery ✅ Innovative product development ✅ Richer sprint planning ✅ Fewer failed sprints ✅ More productive sprint retrospectives ✅ Increased team productivity ✅ Reduced rework ✅ Improved team morale ✅ Improvement in product quality ✅ Drive continuous improvement ✅ Improved visibility and management of projects risks ✅ Lower CAC ✅ End-user delight Ready to transform your approach to software development? 🔗 Check out my latest blog post (link in comments) where I break down each of the 8 P's and share actionable strategies to boost innovation and unlock your product's success. —- 👋🏽 I help founders, funded startups, and enterprises with Innovation, AI and Product-Market Fit (PMF). If this is you, pls follow me. ISHIR’s Innovation Acceleration is a powerful approach to uncover customer pain, learn what users love, delight them and make them raving fans of your product. This helps our startup founders to get their product right from the start. #SoftwareThatMatters #CustomerFirst #InnovationAcceleration #NoShortCuts #FailureisNotAnOption #ProductDevelopment #CustomerFocus #LeanStartup #Innovation #BeBOLD #DSW24

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The AI landscape is changing so fast that it's important not to write code that ties you to a specific AI provider. Here is a real-world example: We're running an exciting AI project at Gazella AB and yesterday we ran into some issues where Anthropic's 3.5 Sonnet didn't perform well enough. With a single line of code changed, we changed to OpenAI's GPT 4o and it was able to solve the task perfectly. All this because we used Vercel's AI SDK which is AMAZING! The developer experience is awesome and the portability between AI models is as easy as changing a single line of code, which means we'll never build ourselves into a corner with any AI model. Highly recommended. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dzR-ZvfE

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Big news! Yuno just launched a powerful new feature: Monitors. This is how it’s set to save our clients millions this Black Friday: Monitors does 2 critical things: 1. Alerts It notifies you immediately when a payment processor goes down. No more finding out 30 minutes after the fact that you've been losing sales. 2. Traffic Redirection When a processor goes down, Monitors automatically redirects the traffic to another provider. Why is this so crucial? Let me paint you a picture: Imagine you're a major e-commerce platform. It's Black Friday, your biggest sales day of the year. Suddenly, your main payment processor goes down. In the past, this could mean: 10 minutes of manual work to switch providers Thousands of lost orders in that time A potential PR nightmare With Monitors, this nightmare scenario becomes a non-issue. The switch happens automatically in milliseconds. One of our clients, Rappi, put it perfectly: Before Monitors, it took them 10 minutes to make a decision and redirect traffic. Those 10 minutes equated to thousands of lost orders. Now, It's done in a millisecond. As we approach the busiest shopping season of the year, ask yourself: Is your payment system ready for the pressure? Can it handle unexpected failures? With Monitors, your business runs smoothly even when things go wrong.

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