 Hei, katsotaan, että tästä on aivan ollut todella hyvää ympäristöryhmässä, mutta koska korona ei olleet jääntänyt, niin tämä on semmoinen asia, mutta hei, meillä on tällaista kolme x plus CEO's täällä, joten meillä on Miikka, joka on nyt tai ei ole x CEO, he are still employed, then we have Andreas, who used to be a CEO, and Marianne, who used to be a CEO, so my first question is really that please tell me which one of you is the best CEO. The best? If I have to name one, I would have to name me, I mean the guy has gone through COVID and everything we're now here together like insane. Yeah, I would really say the same. Yeah, so hey, Slash has been about to go bankrupt like several times, right? I guess you have even cried. Tell me about what has been the worst situation, and now I want you to be really open, and no boilerplates please, just be really open of your feelings and the event, it can be a smaller Marianne, if you start. Yeah, I can start. I was the CFO 2013 before doing other things and running the conference, and the year I joined, I was 21, I had never done finance and never been CFO, the event was supposed to be 800k, the event was 1.6 million euro budget, and we all thought that yeah, like a lot of ticket sales and sold out, this is going so well, and then during the event and after the event just like invoices started coming in last minute stuff we had to do, we had tents and cable factory, had to buy gasoline with thousands of euros to warm the tents up and everything, and we had moments of zero cash from bank account, and we had partners abroad who just didn't pay their invoices, and I remember days between Christmas and New Year's that we had a limit of I could pay out 8,000 euros a day, so every day I paid 8,000, and that was max I could do it next day, I got again 8,000, that's what I paid, and ultimately we made I think 27,000 euros of profit, but I was not sure if that would have happened, not in control for sure. Cool, how about Andres, you told me before this that there was a moment when you felt that you are just a smiling facade but you are dead inside. I think all of us have gone through that at some point. No, it's that moment was something that actually happened after one of the events, there was a situation where everything had gone super well, but there were some people in the team whose experience wasn't great, and then obviously that colors everything that happens after the event, when you're supposed to be celebrating everything that's gone well, and then it is actually something where you as a leader feel like it's obviously your fault, you've done something wrong for something like this to happen, so then it's that's what happens I think quite often, but another time which is maybe it's not quite as dramatic as Marianne's experience or example, but one thing that was actually one of the most difficult and one of the most teaching experiences for me during the whole slash tenure was actually before I was CEO, I was doing investor operations, and that was the first year when we wanted to get a lot of people over from San Francisco to Helsinki, and there was no direct flight, and obviously you have all these billionaire investors who are used to having their private planes or at least a direct flight in first class, and they wouldn't move their ass anywhere, so somehow someone managed to make a deal with Finner that we can take one of their brand new airplanes, the big Airbus A350 ones that have 300 seats, that we can fly it over to San Francisco to get the speakers over on a charter private flight, but obviously the thing was that we had to sell four legs of flights, so we had to fill the plane with people out of Helsinki to San Francisco for the duration of the conference to be able to cover the finances of doing that, so we just spent several weeks in San Francisco just from meeting to meeting to meeting, literally knocking on people's doors, selling the seats on the plane, and there was one particular call which when I was there with another friend of mine who was also in the team who's now running his own company as well, you called with Nikki who was working with you back at the time and we were just in between some meetings that you asked, well how many seats have you guys sold? We had only gotten a lot of American interest, yeah we'll talk to everyone about it and we're going to do it, but obviously the response was that there was zero and I think the next day there were headlines in one of the main newspapers here that slash flight sold out, which is then we had a little bit of Shustufilm. But you Miikka, you are real like a wartime CEO I guess with COVID etc, so you started just like two months before the corona pandemic like started, right? Yeah exactly, so I started as a CEO in January 2020 and we cancelled the event in March and I think that's definitely the most toughest experience that I have gone through. Obviously back then if you think about it back in 2020, at that time March, April, many people thought that the pandemic will be over after the summer or during the summer, but we kind of like felt that in the best case we could do the event and it will be okay. In the worst case the downside was that the slush will go bankrupt and obviously when we realized that and when I actually realized what it would mean, it would mean that I have to lay off many of lovely slush team members that was definitely the toughest part and I have to do it and go through it and I think one of the biggest learnings from that experience was that there was many times that I wanted to kind of like hide myself under the mat, but I just realized that it's me eventually who will do the decisions and will push forward this organization. Kind of these men horvits, hard things about hard things, are you actively running towards the pain? I think that's the core learning of the past two years of being a CEO of slush and that's also one of the reasons what makes me so incredibly happy and grateful for seeing all of you here today. So thank you for being here. Yeah, so this is maybe a little bit provocative question, but like if you think about like slush, this is like a great event and this is a really good like a leadership grinder in a way, right? You all are nodding, but when you left slush, so when you left and when you left and when you're leaving right now, do you feel like a pressure that you need to be successful? What if you fail? I mean, what if you found a company and it fails? Don't you feel like a pressure? You are like the star of the ecosystem, right? And then you found a company, you fail. What happens then? Do you feel the pressure? Yeah, it's a good question. I think the wall team hasn't helped this, the pressure thing, but I think it's highly likely that the first thing will fail or the second one as well. But I think how I think about it is that I'm building something on the long term and obviously it involves maybe a few failures, I don't know. Hopefully the first one is successful, but I don't know. I'm not taking a stress about it. What was your experience like? Well, I can say that the first thought, I mean, I guess it's a very human reaction is that, okay, what do others think? Like, where can I go? But I've really learned during the last years that no one cares. I actually, like in Finnish, what I would say, Geta ne ihan oikea stikkii nostamita feit. No one really cares what you do. So do only the things that make you happy where you learn, that kind of give you energy every day. And that's kind of also what I end up doing. I went through a lot of different alternatives, everything from going back to school to finding a company of my own and joining WALT was just the best, felt the best choice. Yeah, hey, that sounds like a really good advice for everybody. Just do things that you enjoy. Everything else is a side product, right? So how about you, Andreas? For me it was clear for a long time that I'll have to do my own thing and I had my own areas of interest that I really wanted to contribute to and my way of contributing to them, I think was probably starting my own organization because I didn't find anything that was directly doing what I wanted to be doing. So it was kind of a self-evident choice, but when it comes to the pressure, that's definitely there. But then again, having had the experience of running slush, you kind of alluded to the fact that it's a leadership training program, not only for the CEO, but for many other people in the team as well. And we've spoken about it with Marianne Ricquam-Mikki as well before, that never again, even if you're building a highly successful company that is growing very fast, takes on a lot of funding and there's a lot of pressure, never again will you feel the same amount of pressure as you do here when organizing this event because you have all the same elements as when you're building a company, but the time pressure is so absolute. It's not like you're launching a new product and you can postpone the launch event, everything has to be ready by that one day and there's just no slack. So when did you realize that everything needs to be ready by one day? Was it like if the event is first of December, is it like during the summertime or first part of the event? When do you realize that the deadlines are real? I mean, I guess these days it sets way in advance. Yeah, but when do you realize that it's coming? It starts feeling after summer vacations and then it just becomes more and more intense. But what typically happens is that a group of team leads, like tens of people joined the team, August 15, somewhere there. And then action starts happening every single day. And then typically, about six to four weeks before the event, we really need to lock stuff so that the production you see around can be produced. So that's like the first deadline that you really can't miss. Yeah, so how do you actually do this? I mean, I've been wondering it like, I mean age is not the critical thing, right? But you are like 20-something and you are like 2-3,000 volunteers. So you're running like a 2-3,000 person company. You had also like 2-3,000. Now because of coronavirus scale down, it's like 1-2,000. It's still a pretty sizeable team, right? So how are you doing that? I mean, you guys have so limited life experience. How do you act as this like a smart Gandalf? You know, you have a beard, so that's great. But that helps, I know. But how do you act like this smart Gandalf who comes to the stage and kind of tells to the troops and sets the spirit and culture and everything that people have been talking about here? I mean, you didn't get any training for that. So how is that possible? Well, not formal training. But my answer would be you just flex the muzzle. You do, you train. So you just flex the muzzle. I mean, you kind of get yourself. So do you mean that you train it or you flex it? That's so amazing. I've always been wondering that I couldn't do this. You still can, Timo. It's not too late. I couldn't. If somebody would say that Timo, you will run slash, I would run away. No, I think like with anything, it's of course, the way you succeed is by building a good team who does the actual work, obviously. That's such a jargon. I mean, come on. But it's true. It is true. But it's such a jargon. You know, build a good team. So how do you build a good team? You have never hired anybody before this. It's a good question. I mean, I don't know how we did. This thing still exists. Yeah, I know. I was the chairperson when you were the CEO. And you had a good team. I mean, there's like Emma, who is right now COO at Swappy, right? Yes. Great company. There are several other people who are doing great things, right? Filling companies, et cetera. But how is that possible? Are you so charming or? It doesn't start from us. No, no, no, no. So where does it start? Does it mean because of the board is so good that everybody... Definitely. I think it starts from the fact that, at least to me, like why did I join it back in the days? The sheer amount of responsibility you can take, even as a volunteer, and how much, like the amount of action and energy you find is, it doesn't exist anywhere else. And when you see growth stories like, you know, Otto, for example, who was talking in the volunteer's day, who's been here in the ecosystem and now runs a company of its own, you really kind of, you get it. You understand that these are stories where you can get a lot of inspiration and energy for, from being part of it. So that's really a big part of it, understanding the culture and getting, being part of it. And then realizing that I can actually impact. I told earlier about the story of me being 21. I had no idea of finance. I found myself running finances for a conference of 1.6 million euros. Where could I do that elsewhere? So basically the three things that we look when we hire people to this last team is, one is that, do we see that the potential of these people is about to explode when we give enough responsibility? The second thing is kind of this clarity of thought. And also, thirdly, is this person actually a great person? Because we want to find people who are smart, but also good people. And when you have these kind of people that have these three different traits, and you say kind of like what we want to achieve, you don't have to say like how to do it. They will figure it out. And then you just kind of like build kind of like the environment where these people can foster. I think that's how this event gets built. So why have you been doing this? And just for the audience, you know, maybe this is unfair to say because these people are just like outstanding, right? I mean, when you guys started to run this thing, it was so obvious that of course, you know, Maria and Andreas and Mika are gonna do. But in fact, like when you started, you just took it over, right? You just started doing it. When you started, there was nobody else basically, right? It doesn't make you, you know, when you started, it was also in a way that, hey, it's gonna be this guy, right? So why are you doing this? Are you pressured by it? You know, all these like old heroes like Miki Kuusia coming to you and saying that Mika, you can't say no. So then it's very difficult to say no, you know, Ilkapanen comes to you and says that you can't say no. So and I remember you guys were all thinking that should I take this task? What were you thinking in that? Did you really feel that this crown jewel of Finland is now in your hands and you can't break it? You have a duty to do it or was it just like you said that hey, let's do it, right? For me, it was literally, I was sitting in the middle seat of a car, back middle seat of a car, driving back from Lapland. I get a call. Can you do this? I say yes, let's do it. Okay, good. So that's the story. So how about you? Did you feel like that this is something that you wanted to do, something that you were required to do? Is this relevant question? Because I remembered all these talks. Yeah, I think for me it wasn't obvious. Obviously, being the CEO of Slush is kind of like, there is a high tendency that you would go into that role for wrong reasons, for having a chance to speak on this stage or do the opening show or having the privilege to speak in front of all of you in general. But I really have to think about like, what do I have for this organization and am I doing this for the right reasons? And when I realized that, yes, I am. I want to learn to build the company in the future. This is a great sandbox to do it. And also I have been part of Slush as volunteers since 2014. So I really live and breathe the mission, create the help founders to change the world. So that's how I eventually decided. I think it's not entirely untrue that there isn't pressure from these people who have, you have already gotten to know the people who have done it in the past. But then again, obviously it ultimately has to be your decision and there's certainly, for me the reason, it wasn't obvious for me either. My other option would have been to start my own company back then and not do this instead. But then combine with the fact that it's such, it's a learning opportunity that you will just not get anywhere else on that scale at that level of, or with the little life experience that you have. And on the other hand, maybe you think rightly or wrongly that you have some ideas where you think like, okay Slush has this certain kind of a potential, which I think it can fulfill. And if I take on the job, then at least I can only blame myself if it doesn't fulfill that potential that you see in it. So that's maybe one part of it. And then obviously it's just a huge privilege to be surrounded by the kinds of people that you are surrounded by when doing this. That's reasoning of itself. Hey, totally different question. And I know because we have been discussing this with Mika, for example. So now when you are leaving this, you want to find an idea for a company, right? And that's very difficult. So how do you decide what you do? Which industry, which idea? So do you get to the cottage over one month with friends and a lot of beer cans or something or sweatsuits or choking activities or whatever. And then you just analyze the internet and then you come with the idea. What's your methodology? What are you going to do, Mika, in practice? That's a good question. How do you find the idea? I think you sold also one of the ways you sold this position to me was that this is a good time to think for your next company. And how much have you had time to think about it? Well, the pandemic didn't help. But I have some ideas. So after Slush, it's time to sit down. What I have maybe realized from discussing with many entrepreneurs, it's not a thing that just comes to your head at some point and you just have to do it. There are companies that have been built from that way as well, but I think it's an active process. You have to look for problems, look for things that could be done better. But how do you look those? So do you walk the streets and you look around or do you read articles? I mean, what is the way how you look those? Do you discuss the smart people? It's a good question. What about Andreas? You have been kind of like in the midst of process. He would have made a really good politician. Yeah, we were joking ahead of time. That's why, by the way, the biggest risk with Slush active members is that they become politicians. Hasn't happened that much? No, it hasn't, because there's a pressure. Let's see if that changes. Well, I've been in the middle of trying to navigate what the company should do that I'm doing. And we've gone through one fairly large transition already. And I think the way to navigate it is that's, I mean, it's pretty clear that you shouldn't start a company just for the sake of starting a company. No, I don't think that makes any sense. Why not? Because wouldn't it be just good to do something instead of thinking what to do? Sure. You can do that. I wouldn't do it. I would do something else. And then in the meantime, try to think. If I have an idea that could actually be best deployed as a company. Like me, if I have access to it done now. Well, very successfully, yeah. With a lot of spare time. It's a difficult question. Yeah, it's a difficult question. Because I don't know how if I would need to go out right now and say that I want to become an entrepreneur in six months. And we have invested in like 120 companies. And there's always a different story. How you run into the company idea, right? And it's always a different story. But the worst thing is that you try to invent it forcefully because you want to be an entrepreneur. It's very difficult to push through the obstacles. If you are not like 100% committed to doing what you decided to do. Right? Well, yeah. One thing that Slush is great for is finding. Getting access to people that you otherwise would not get access to. Yeah. Which means that if you actually manage to develop relationships with those people and stay friends with some of those people. I have a story where my co-founder is someone who I got to know through Slush over the years. And we stayed in touch. And now we are co-founders. What is your message? And let's start with Mika maybe. I'm hearing a lot. I mean, I haven't heard it lately. But in 2019 as a chairperson, I got a lot of like emails and calls that hey, Slush is totally irrelevant. It's too big. It's too cluttered. It's too old. You need to renew yourself. It's kind of becoming irrelevant. Why is Slush not irrelevant? Yeah, I think... I want sharp answer. Okay, then I have to think. Well, I think it's... The reason is what I also mentioned in the opening show. I think we all have learned to do things remotely. We have learned to raise capital. We have learned to build organizations. Some of the organizations are fully remote. But Slush is not only what happens in the meeting area. Like finding deals, doing transactions. But it's more the community. So meeting other people. Sharing advice. Getting inspiration. And learning. So I think that makes Slush relevant now and the future. So what's your opinion? It still seems like people want to meet each other. In some sort of a focused setting. And that seems to be happening here right now. Yeah. Especially with one gap here. It seems like the people who got the most out of Slush were really missing it. Those people are definitely here. I've seen those people. But it's a good question. I mean everything has to... We were having these discussions already back in 2018 and 2019 as well. So... Yeah. No finished answer. For me, I mean look at the crowd. I don't think anybody is forced to here. Or do I know? You can raise your hand now. Yeah, I trust the evidence and also myself. I was yesterday walking around for... What was supposed to be a 10 minute round around the venue. But it took me two hours. Because I've just met so many people I haven't met in two years. And it was amazing. Like the best part of my Slush. I really hope everyone else has had a similar experience as well. Yeah, there's this serendipity. I think it's great. Hey, now I offer you. I've been on the Slush board probably for too long already. Since 2012 or 2013 or something. I've seen every living Slush CEO. There are no unliving CEOs. Yeah, that's right. Just to be clear. But hey, tell me. And now you can be brutally honest. How the board could have been supported you better. What did we not deliver? As you can tell, we did not get this question ahead of time. And now if you have really hard things. Tell before and I block my ear. So we can still be friends. Yeah, we'll be friends anyway as well. Yeah, you're on the board right now. Yeah, okay, yeah. I'm in a very biased position here. But Andreas or Marianne, if you want to start. Yeah, if I start. I think the role of Slush board has always been rather to be there for the team through tough times. But it's never been really like this decision making where the team would come with like, you know, I need an approval for doing this or this or that. So it's been always a great, great form of feedback. If there's something that I would have done differently going back five years from now, I would have just utilized the board more. Like just nudged people. I don't think it's the board's responsibility to nudge me all the time, but I could have realized that I could have leveraged what the board had a lot more. That is actually before I give you some time to think. That's actually as an investor. What I'm kind of seeing is that the best teams are actually really good at dragging you in. So you are in a way that hey, I have like, imagine 10 companies. So it's not 10% time for everybody, but it's like 40% for somebody who drags you in all the time. It's like the best entrepreneurs are really good at utilizing advisors. When I was an entrepreneur, I was really lousin that. I was also really lousin that as a CEO of Slush. So what about Andreas? I think the trouble is that you have people who have been involved with Slush for such a long time that in a way, if you want to do it your own way, there's a certain barrier for asking for advice because you feel like the old world is going to be reflected in the advice. And there's no renewal in that sense. Now this is maybe a little bit abstract. Don't trust old timers. No, it's not that. Old timers give old-timer advice. Which is fine. You're just a private mover, right? Thank you. That's why my advice never gets implemented in any of our companies. Now I always learn something. No, no, I like seriously speaking. Of course, I agree with Marianne. There's a wealth of experience represented in the board. It's by design. I think it has always been so that the board is not in the way or steps out of the way of the operative team of actually building that company. But it is there when it's needed. And it's definitely up to the CEO or the core team to utilize the board. And it is hard to remember that because your days are full of stuff. And if the board doesn't want to intrude, then maybe you do waste some of the potential that is in there. So what you are saying is that the board is lacking commitment, right? No, I'm not saying that. You're still here. So Mika, you have the most refreshed memory. Yeah, I don't know. I would say I have taken quite active role with the board. With managing the schedule and creating way too long board decks. So sometimes it would have been great if you have just said just use one slide and tell what's essential, not 40. Other than that, what you have done well but what maybe our team and especially me, just calling. Just calling. One day, 10 minutes, how it's going. Is everything all right? That's maybe one thing. But all in all, I think that's it. Maybe we have to do a debriefing in Christmas. Yeah. So that's good. Hey, why do you think that all this Lassan community is happening in Finland? Why not in Denmark? So why is it happening here? Finnsa is not really like networking people. No. But it still all starts with people and I think as with everything it started with people. There was a clear cause changing the culture towards entrepreneurship and everything and people were willing to do that and then timing. We were just a bit lucky as well. So where did that cause emerge? So the beginnings of all this started in 2008, 2009, 2007 and like you said it was because somebody wanted to do more companies, right? More startups, more entrepreneurs. So how did the cause emerge? Very briefly. A few people like Christo, Ovaska and Miki and others. Bunch of people saw what's happening to Finnish economy. Mainly corporates, new companies were not being established. Saw what's happening around the world for example in Silicon Valley and understood that we just don't have this. And becoming an entrepreneur was not something anybody someone graduating from university would even consider doing. We just completely changed. So why here? You have traveled a lot. Yeah, Finns Finns prefer doing to talking. I think that's one reason. I think part of that story is that these students who were initially involved in setting up the Alta Entrepreneurship Society and the whole foundation of the startup ecosystem they wanted to see what's being done in the different entrepreneurial capitals in the States and got back and got the advice from a professor very luckily who told them not to do another report but actually to do something. So they just did something. So normal small people, right? Yeah. I mean they're great entrepreneurs. No Gandalfs. The beard helps. Miikka, why is this here? You have been also traveling a lot. A lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of cities. Yeah, I think it's super simple. So there was actually really national need for for more startups, more companies to be built. So why would you care about national need? You are a young person. You could move anywhere. Yeah, I think it's a it's a different pitch to ask help for. Whether it's to get one speaker to slush or whatever when it's, if you compare like we have this event that I'm building for profit could you help me to get speaker than it is. So we're doing this event to create and help founders to change the world and also build better ecosystems to help Sinki. We're not profit organization. Can you help? So I think these things that really like in the essence like what slush and these other ecosystem organizations are I think that's the core reason why it's here not in different cities. Let's have applause for these mission driven leaders. I have really been privileged to work with all of them. Although I tried to give hard time but they are all like great human beings. Thanks for everybody.