Milja Inkeri Mäkelä 10/08/2023
Whether you’re a FiBAN member or a founder looking for funding, Miikka will be your touch point to matchmaking Finland’s most prominent scalable early-stage startups with industry expertise from angel investors.
He envisions leveling up the position of FiBANs deal flow manager as the touchpoint between founders and investors.
“I wish to be seen in the startup sector as one of the culminating personalities who help startups to find funding opportunities and also then investors, how they can find potential startups”, he describes.
Miikka brings in his experience of having his hands in the mud. Before Miikka joined the FiBAN team, he led two different startups as a COO and Co-founder.
“The latter one is called DaySave and the other was called Grib 3D which was a 3D design application for mobile devices and people who are not familiar with 3D design and want to get into it easily. DaySave is about money-saving for people who are not very familiar with saving”, he describes.
What he has learned from his founder experience is one of the key lessons of a successful startup’s journey: ensuring that you have customers.
“Try to get customers as soon as possible. You don’t need to have an actual product and a 100% ready service for the customers in the beginning. You get valuable feedback as you’re already testing with the customers in the early stages,” he says.
Experiencing the startup ecosystem from the inside has given him a true understanding of the daily pains that entrepreneurs face.
“It’s easy for me to understand the pains of the startup world. Oftentimes I found as a startup founder that one of the biggest struggles is that you don’t get honest feedback about your progress and about your state”, he describes.
“I will be sympathizing very highly with the startups when they’re applying. I believe I’ll be able to find common ground between founders and investors”, he adds.
“Feedback is important for startups”
As FiBAN’s Deal Flow Manager, one of these focus points will be feedback and easier access to educative content about angel investing.
“It’s important to bring out the knowledge about angel investing out before the startups are even applying, and to clearly communicate to the startups what the angels are looking for to be eligible for funding,” Miikka says.
“One thing that I find very cool about FiBAN’s approach is that we are startup-friendly in the way that if you apply through FiBAN you get feedback on your application,” he explains.
“It feels like it’s our responsibility to help by giving the feedback that will help them in the future to be more successful. Often startup founders are first-time founders, so they can’t even necessarily know what to improve without feedback”, he adds.
If you’re looking for a fun conversation starter with Miikka, try breaking the ice with a sports topic.
“When it comes to sports, I’ll probably be very, very happy to share experiences and tips. I think that’s a nice connection point to start along and slide into talking about business,” he adds.
Contact Miikka
