 Hello everyone. Great to be here. I'm really much looking forward to sharing with you on how to come up with great startup ideas. And before that I would like to share with you on how startups normally fail due to the fact of not proving as well as not tracking through how expensive is the idea. So 90% of the startups fail in the first two years. There's currently 300 million startups around the world being built in yearly basis. Which means that after two to five years around 70% of them have already gone bankrupt or validated that they are not able to scale their businesses. Coming from the perspective of how startups are launched and coming from the perspective of how to solve expensive ideas. I would like to share that I have been currently innovating and investing in plus 70 startups in different industries in different niches. Mostly the challenge comes from the fact that founders themselves expect that there is a viable market or the viable market doesn't have technological capabilities for what the builders are building. So I would like to share with you that just recently a company came to me and they came to pitch and they were looking to expand their gaming ecosystem in Central Africa. And what happened there is that they have only 2G network in the area. And this company was looking into incorporating augmented reality artificial intelligence components. And I asked okay great. So how are you planning to do this in an environment where 2G and 3G are prevalent. So starting from this case study I would like to share how for example. When you are thinking about the ideas how can you avoid the biggest mistakes. How to not start solving problems that not are expensive enough. How to start solving problems that are viable in the concrete technological environment in the countries. And how to evaluate the ideas. So in terms of you to understand how to proceed forward. I would like to make everyone to think if you would be starting a startup right now. What would you consider the biggest problem being. In our case it was sustainability. However there are much more expensive problems than that. For example 1 billion people on earth don't have currently access to banking. 1 billion people on earth don't have access to identity. There's 3 billion people who don't have access to even internet. Which means that only 55% of the whole population on earth has access to internet. This limits the access to technological adoption. This limits the access to your potential markets. And this limits the access to the scale and growth of your business. So coming back to the previous case studies that I shared with you of African expansion. This was by some companies invested by Microsoft, companies invested by Google. When they realized they would need to set up mesh networks before even proceeding forward with the startup hub. When they realized that there were no banking infrastructure. They went there and realized that 90% of the population in this country didn't have identity. So when you are starting up to coming up with your idea. I would highly recommend you to put on a paper. What do you consider are the three most significant challenges right now. Not just in your environment. But in geographies nearby you as well as in completely opposite side of the world. Due to the fact that it's very highly probable that you can implement the current solutions in your country. In elsewhere just by tweaking it slightly. And that will solve most of the problems that they had. For example when Uber was born in 2008. There was a person friend of mine in Singapore. Who came up with a concept now called Crap. Crap is a billion dollar company. It happened in Indonesia. Go check is a billion dollar company. Both of those are exactly the copy of Uber. However they were tailored for the audience there in the ground. Therefore sometimes coming up with excellent startup ideas. It's not just about innovation. It's not just about disruption. It's about understanding the core behavior in the ground. The behavior of that nationality and their needs. For example in this case in the same example of Uber and Crap. They don't only provide rate hailing in Asia. They also provide identity. Why? Because if you require your clients in third or second world countries. To do identity verification or undimanium laundry. It might as well be the case that 90% of your audience doesn't have any identity. How to do the KYC. Therefore we had a case where Nigeria and Kenya. They were very low subscription and engagement rates in one of our fintech apps. And we were wondering how is this possible. It turns out that 70% of people under 30 years old. Didn't have the documents that we required them to onboard. Before using this platform. Therefore not just regulatory uncertainty. But also the behavior and customs of the currency impact. Not just the scalability but entry of your company. So now when you ask how to come up with great ideas. You should also definitely consider. Do you have an intrinsic value of not just expand this business. But be better in that specific industry segment. Why? I'm saying this. As you heard before I started quite a few companies. However I failed many times on the way as well. Once I started a food tech companies. It got significant funding. And I realized look I'm from finance background. I'm from legal background. I know how to scale fintech companies. However there will always be better founders in FNB than me. They will always be much highly qualified people for this exact position. So when you are thinking about the idea. It's not just about your capabilities. But also of your soft knowledge of your hard skills. And also of the capability of you to scale. And improve as a person. One thing is to start a company. One thing is to engage clients. Another thing is to retain them. And at the retainer states. You need to be much better than any other founder in that exact segment of industry. Therefore if you look at the best companies now on earth. Or most highly scalable startups. What happens is that most of the founders have 20, 30 years. Or 10 years experience in that exact segment. And their identity. Their beliefs. And their ideology is directly connected to the concept that they are imposing you to use. Therefore I would say that coming up with ideas. Always comes hands together with behavior change. And ideological change. In terms of a market fit. I would highly recommend you to scan not just building companies in geographical regions. Where you expect there to be immense growth. But also bring technologies that you currently have in your country. Or combine them with other companies. But taking in consideration not just how much money they can spend. Or not just regulatory certainty. But also are these people ready from the technological readiness perspective to add up such a solutions. Why I am sharing this. Due to the fact that we recently went to Rwanda. And there was a technological solutions that came from a startup that we have funded. And they were proposing one step payment through QR code. However making it viable in Rwanda would increase the price of one dollar Coca Cola to one dollar seventy cents. This means that in terms of taking off steps and facilitating the access to Coca Cola. We were making additional steps as well as increasing the price. So taking in consideration that sometimes it's not just about technological constraints. But also about how much money consumers are willing to pay for the additional access that you give them. Because access to technology shouldn't be a constraint. Not just to the wallets or behavior. But also to the fact that some people don't want to change their current systems. So what we see between Asia what we see in here in the West. Is that in Asia people are more more willing to take a step forward and try everything new. Here in Europe it takes some time a few times for them to let me see through. That's why I would like to recommend you to when you are coming up with your idea. Try it before executing it try it through education. What do I mean with that try to make curses or educational content on. Okay this is the type of startup idea I'm coming in. Try to see if people are even interested into education that you share. Why because sometimes in a theoretical level people have interest. But then in practical level they don't have either technical capability either. In some cases intellectual capability to use your products because the access to them or previous knowledge required to use them is too high. What do I mean with this when you are scanning through your possible problems. Try to take in consideration that sometimes people don't know what they don't know. What do I mean with that. People weren't aware that they would have this problem and you will need to educate them in multiple phases and go through. Why do they have this problem. For example in the case of crap and Uber or Bolt we didn't know that we need more faster instant drive hailing and transportation. So all this comes to the fact that education comes before you should be selling anything. Education comes before you spend years on building the product. As well as second step is try to sell the product before you make one year plans on building this and this amount of the product. Why I'm saying this Elon Musk has no cars. Elon Musk pre sells the cars. Why would he pre sell the cars. Do the fact that the cost of manufacturing would be of course very high if he would be starting first building the cars and then selling them. This same compliance to a company I met two days ago. They were looking to expand right hailing through motorbikes and they came to pitch me and they mentioned. Vilma I would like to raise 50 million now to make 100 thousands of these motorbikes. And I say how have you already sold. How many have you sold. How much are your customers looking to buy and at what price. Have you had a conversation with your clients. Do you know what do your clients use this motorbike for. Do you know what are the hobbies of your clients. Do you know how your how your clients behave. Do you know what is their biggest challenge. And they mentioned look we we didn't think on first selling all the bikes and then then raising capital. So I said why wouldn't you why would you first raise capital. Please go and pre sell the bikes make educational content. Ask questions from your clients and make polls and actual fact factual analytics of your clients current and future needs. You don't need to always ask OK what does my client want now but ask from your clients directly. What if in three years from now how would you like to do this and this three years from now. How do you think the future of food for example look like. What do you believe that you would be consuming two years from now. So a third step would be when you are coming up with your new idea startup idea is to scan trends on foresight. So there is science called future thinking. I would highly recommend to you not just think three five years ahead but ten years ahead. Because even when you are making a plan for your investors you need to explain where is your company going to be five years from now. Therefore you need to have a vision on how are people going to consume your type of products ten years from now. How are they going to get access to them and how are they going to distribute them and share them with their friends. This goes to the fourth aspect of when you are making assumptions of somebody needing such a product. In addition to just understand their personality and their needs please ask from your competition get on a call with your competition. Why would you do that ask from your competition what are your biggest challenges right now. Is there any regular answer to a regulatory uncertainty that you are facing. Is there any specific areas where you have had challenges in expanding and your competition is right there out. So you can go to have a transparent conversation with them and this will help you to fail fast. Which is the most important aspect of a starting a startup. You need to pivot fast and fail fast. So when we have conversations with our with our competitors we realize that for example in case of Coca Cola and Pepsi. They are not selling a product they are selling an emotion. Why I'm saying this wouldn't it be nice to have something refreshing. That makes you happy when you are watching a football match. That's what Coca Cola Coca Cola is not dark liquid dark chemical liquid. People don't buy technical descriptions of product. People buy what are the core benefits of me and what is the outcome that I get from there. So when you are thinking about the idea or startups that you are starting. Please try to focus on what is the core benefit that your user is feeling to experience. Not what are the test technical descriptions that are lacking of their current business. Due to the fact that people mostly take decisions in driven by emotion. Now as mentioned great products feel one of the 12 needs. But right now a post covid the most demanded need to be filled is actually loneliness. We have been seeing great success in startups ideas and scaled up that are focused on solving loneliness. After covid obviously our behavior changed. We have new needs and we have new uncertainties to take care of. In addition to loneliness connectivity as well as new ways of communicating in encrypted manner in secure manner. As well as in inter communication between countries has of course increased. So second post would be security. What are your basic needs? Connecting with other people and feel safe. So I would recommend to when you are scanning your possible ideas to tap into the emotional aspects of them. Tap into how you expect the social behavior of the humanity. Go forward from here as well as how we can increase the communication and engagement between different parties. Because right now most of the communication is already happening online. So how we can enhance the way how we communicate. Let it be through AR, let it be through VR, let it be through technologies that add extra components. There also from that perspective there comes uncertainty of when our behavior and when our technologies change. How and which are the segments of the industry that will be living behind. For example right now we are living behind most of the people over 60 years old. What are the needs that we can fulfill for those people? What are the needs that we can fulfill for children when the parents are watching their phones? What are some of the solutions that we can come up with that change the exact codes of conducts. That for example children or what our grandparents are taking forward right now. So right now in terms of coming up with a future vision I would highly recommend you to think ahead. That would be the science fiction reality of your current industry. Not just 10 years from now but 5, 10, 15 years from now. Normally when we speak with emerging technology companies they have built the product. They spent all the money on the product. They didn't spend enough money on caring about the customers, about the customer service. So they took into consideration that possibly this scenario that they have planned wasn't the one that society took off. For example during COVID everybody who had great plans for 2020-2021 completely pivoted. So I would like to recommend for any new startups to make at least 5 scenarios and go with bullet points on what are the 3 aspects that possible action, probable action and certain action that you expect that will happen. Why? Because in any case as future is uncertain you will need to pivot without knowing what happens in not just in your current competitors scene but what happens from the perspective of environmental crisis from perspective of economical crisis and that's exactly the reason why most of the companies right now that are most highly growing are focused on either sustainability, they are focused on either zero poverty, they are focused on education, they are focused on financial inclusivity. Why? Because these 4 aspects they will for sure sooner or later they will be ahead of us and when you are the forefront of it you can of course upsell around your startup. For example, okay study. Let's say I provide an identity for somebody in India. There's 200 million people in India who don't have access to identity. They take that from granted here in Finland. However they don't have access to identity which means that they don't have access to the land that they own. Which means that they cannot get loans or credit because they don't have any ownership on their track record. Therefore if you facilitate them identity you can also facilitate them access to the land. Therefore you can also facilitate them access to credit, you can facilitate them access to loans, you can facilitate them access to financial ecosystem and finance for the first time on their life and you can facilitate them access to education. So that's why I mentioned that when you are screening through ideas you should always think on connectivity and future probabilities of expansion of that idea. Why is this idea, why is identity so expensive? So the fact that if you scan around you right now all of us are here because we could to prove our identity. There could be 1 billion more people that apply here but they don't have identity so they couldn't do that because they wouldn't have access to the event anyways. So right now inspiration for ideas I would highly recommend you to do mind mapping to do brainstorming around east and west and put highly competitive and high-ranking companies on east. High-ranking companies in west rank what are the three key areas in both of the sides of the planet and go through what are, why are those ideas expensive? Is there something that I can bring from east to the west? Is there something that I can fusion together? Is there something that doesn't just improve the processes but disrupts how the processes are made? So through mind mapping what we normally do is that we don't scan trends because trends are away in the next two years. We scanned what are people's expectations of their society, what are people's expectations of their consuming habits and where do you expect if let's say five years from now we are more connected? Where do you expect being our problems? Where do you expect that people will focus during their loneliness and how do you expect them to spend money? For example in this case we had one of our portfolio companies that was looking forward to gaining 100,000 clients in Philippines and they did so but they asked me, Wilma, why are we making so little revenue? And I said, did you realize that your consumers in Philippines don't have the same USD value that your consumers in US or your consumers here in Finland? Did you realize that of their monthly salary and their future savings the amount that you would have earned in Finland would be 80% more? They said yes, however the technological advancement and the behavior of our clients is more focused on Philippines. And I mentioned however if you are willing to make this company profitable you either need to change the behavior here or either need to educate them to learn the behavior from elsewhere or you need to be charging more which you cannot do in Philippines. Therefore when you consider the cost of your current solutions please do not build the solutions before you have understood comprehensively how much per month your client affords to pay and is willing to pay because one thing is to have an optional solution but one thing is to have elementary solutions that they cannot live with so you should be focused on solving problems that the citizens cannot live with rather than being an option for them that they use once in a while. Therefore next time and this week when you are scanning through companies when you are scanning through ideas please keep in mind that most of the ideas that initially sound excellent their capability of you to adapt them in the reality will be 2 years from now 3 years from now, 5 years from now. Why? Because people tend to think that the current technological breakthrough would be accessible to the clients right now if you just give it to them. People need to see your concept multiple times. They need to change what they are currently doing in their daily tasks and they need to be able to skip processes rather than adding them. Most of the companies add processes for you rather than take them away. So please let's try to build companies that facilitate innovation through action towards making you to stand out from a way that you are saving their time, you are saving their money and you are facilitating them 10x more because we shouldn't be just innovating, we should be here all disrupting and I look forward to having a conversation with many of you. Thank you.