Disqus - Latest Comments for Setok

Re: Solu – täysin uudenlainen tietokone Suomesta

Setok — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 02:11:13 -0000

Sami, kiitokset artikkelista! Pieni korjaus: tukikohtamme on Helsinki. Meillä hardiksen vetäjä on kuitenkin Oulussa, ja tarinamme alkoi Polarbear tapahtumssa, missä kaksi Solun perustajista tapasi :-)

Re: The iPhone 5 ad that Apple wants you to forget today

Setok — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:33:18 -0000

You're holding it wrong!

Re: My Problem With 48h Startups

Setok — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:54:07 -0000

Maybe there is some stigma for you personally in being a Baltic state. For me there is none, it is mere geography. All the Baltic countries have great opportunities ahead of them, and the change in 2 years since we were last through is massive. I'd suggest there is more to gain by working with the other Baltic countries (and the Nordic countries, utilising your close proximity and culture), than worrying about categories. The same probably applies to Finland. The Travelling Salesman project is all about building ties rather than worrying about who belongs where.

Re: Competing with a Mac

Setok — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 05:05:48 -0000

Yeah, Apple was really the first to properly use hardware in rendering of the UI. It's somewhat incomprehensible why it took so long.

The n800 came out 2007, but the 770 (the direct predecessor to the n800) in 2005.

Re: Competing with a Mac

Setok — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 18:49:47 -0000

It really goes even further than this when you consider the 770 and n800/n810 in 2005. Those truly were full computers, with a completely modern OS at the core (Linux / Debian). Modern dev tools and the ability to do anything a computer could do. Nokia was just so wary of disrupting its own Symbian business it decided not to include phone radios in those devices, and left them dangling for way too long as hobbyist projects and without concentrated UI refinement work. Even when the n900 came out, which finally had GSM radios, it was still a side project — even though it was actually better than the n97 in just about every single way.

They finally got the plot in building the follow-on project to the n900, but a string of dubious revisions and an unnecessary tie-up with Intel led to further delays. Finally when the N9 came out, it was beautiful and displayed UI innovations I miss to this day (on my iPhone). That device gained heaps of praise, despite coming out much later than it should have, only to be unceremoniously EOLed before even reaching the shops.

Nokia had the future in their hands.

Re: Valkee lands $9.7m to improve your mood and wellbeing with its bright light headset

Setok — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 06:40:09 -0000

Ehm, aren't we still waiting for placebo-controlled double blind actual scientific tests for this? We've been waiting years for them. Who knows, maybe the tech really does work, but with so much skepticism around you would think it not overly difficult to arrange that.

Re: One Sim Card To Rule Them All: Ukko Mobile From Helsinki Eliminates Data Roaming Forever

Setok — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:33:14 -0000

Sign me up for this. Desperately needed.

Re: Banking conferences are broken…

Setok — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:13:52 -0000

What can I say? Hear hear. Been sorry to miss BarCampBank (due to preparing for Finovate), but would love to be there, and the New Finance meetups are affordable with a good crowd. It's the punk grassroots level where the real innovation takes place.

Re: Crowdfunding Site Mesenaatti.me Launched By Accident And Successfully Funded 5 Projects

Setok — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:04:11 -0000

Great to see Mesenaatti finally on ArcticStartup. Good going. Fantastic as well that Holvi has been able to be a part of what you are doing. It truly makes it all worthwhile for us to see the amazing things people have created.

Re: Crowdfunding Roundup In The ArcticStartup Region

Setok — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 06:29:24 -0000

I think you guys have yet to cover Mesenaatti.me, which is Finland's 1st Kickstarter style crowdfunding service (with tweaks for local regulations). They now have five pilot projects running, of which the first, a band recording project called Bel Vel, completed with more than twice the target they aimed for.

Re: Banking and Unbundling

Setok — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:46:47 -0000

I was talking at one event with a couple of folks from traditional banks. Someone from the crowd asked exactly that question. Their answer? "No. It's nice to see new ideas, but we do not really do that". Many were surprised by the response. Banks are aware they are in a spot of trouble right now, but I think they are still at the level where they view new players as interesting, but not yet fundamentally disruptive. That the solution to their problems is, well, something they will themselves provide.

I feel this is dangerously erroneous on their part, but it is also not a bad thing for the entrepreneurs as it means you can truly go for the opportunity. It just means as a startup you aim to be seriously huge, and seriously different, instead of striving for a smaller, quicker exit from a traditional player (or that the exit comes from a completely different direction).

These were just representatives, so I too would love to hear what Sean has been seeing. It's certainly true that banks are keen to buy the technology, but at least some of us are not selling :)

Re: Banking and Unbundling

Setok — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:28:40 -0000

No worries. It's something we've been talking a lot about over the past few months, so great to see others writing about it as well. Change is upon us.

Re: Banking and Unbundling

Setok — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:41:02 -0000

One of the reasons why the EU, for once, is in a particularly strong position for disruption in the financial sector. Regulation here is actually fairly progressive and, if not easy, then at least slightly more feasible for a startup to deal with. It is allowing us (Holvi.com) to effectively disrupt even the core activity of traditional banks in a very head-on manner.

Re: We Have An Early Christmas Present For You: The Next Web / ArcticStartup Helsinki Meetup - 13.12.2012

Setok — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:31:59 -0000

We should bring him to One Pint and Pikkulintu. Belgian beers there that you can't even get in Belgium :)

Re: Holvi's Banking Service Used To Provide Open Budgets For Political Campaigners

Setok — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:15:47 -0000

Yes, the world, in Europe, is definitely quite nice for this kind of thing :-) It's still a major process to go through, which is a barrier, but we are pushing hard to innovate around it. Oh and the directive applies to the whole European Economic Area, including Sweden. Although, yes, you do end up dealing with a different currency.

Re: Holvi's Banking Service Used To Provide Open Budgets For Political Campaigners

Setok — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:13:40 -0000

Thanks for the good comment. You're in luck because we actually have that two-tier regulatory system in place today :-) It is quite unique to the EU, but one which is increasingly being used by innovative new finance companies such as us (Holvi) and others. It is called the payment services directive.

It limits in how customer funds can be used, but otherwise offers great flexibility in the kind of service that can be built. We can offer a full plethora of banking functionality. It does still require going through a regulatory process, which we have done. That does not happen overnight, but it is still lighter than being regulated as a credit institution.

Re: Take Part In The Northern Europe Startup #CityChallenge During The Arctic15

Setok — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:59:54 -0000

I fully agree. We should have someone from Iceland there. Lots of good vibe there.

Re: The Travelling Salesman "Burning Platform" Tour Ends Outside Nokia HQ

Setok — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:50:11 -0000

Cheers. We too were half-disappointed the police didn't turn up! Next time we will obviously have to be more outrageous. All in all around 40 folks turned up, making a really nice end to another exhausting story. A big hug to everyone who made it happen.

Re: Mobile Payments In The Nordics And Baltics

Setok — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 04:41:37 -0000

I think the real core question to any mobile payments solution is: what need does it serve? The muddled answer to this question is why there were no big winners from mobile payments in the previous wave of Nordic companies (90s/00s) — at the end of the day they provided no obvious benefit versus using your card. The not-very-painful aspect of carrying a physical wallet around does not really disappear, as we still have other things to carry in it. To put it simply: I would rather use my card to operate the Coke machine than dial a number and pay operator fees.

With this next wave we face that same question all over again, and many startups have not really taken the lessons from earlier. Getting rid of a card is not enough of a benefit, as it really is quite limited pain. Many appear to be riding on a mobile payments bandwagon, without really doing anything different. Mobile payment solutions need to communicate clear additional benefits for them really to be worthwhile.

Re: The Real Industry Transformers, Where Are They?

Setok — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:04:35 -0000

Why do you assume they create more value for society? As mentioned below, the chain almost always follows down to the consumer. Surely things that make an individual's life and their peer's lives better or more efficient are those of greatest value to the society?

Re: Where Are Helsinki's Big Startups?

Setok — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 07:24:16 -0000

Hold on, are we talking about startups that are already big, or ones that are aiming big, or with big markets?

There are several, including I believe us at Holvi, that fit into the latter. However it is true that we have yet to see many big hits in Helsinki to match the enthusiasm and energy. Having said that, this energy is a relatively new phenomenon, so it will take some time yet to start seeing the big wins. It's also interesting to note that many previous big wins had to struggle for long without proper financing. I hope that, too, will begin to change.

If this article is seriously stating that there are no Helsinki startups with a big opportunity or big vision, I'm calling 'BS'.

Re: Placebo-Controlled Valkee Study Published

Setok — Wed, 30 May 2012 13:18:03 -0000

Surely this was a study that was actually talked of earlier? It proved light affects the brain, which is indeed an important part of the puzzle. What needs to be done is placebo-controlled research on whether that effect is reducing SAD. Light affects many things, so there is still an important leap between the two statements.

I find it odd that that is still missing, and thus giving doubters and skeptics a voice. Implement that experiment, and most of the community will be happy.

Re: The Real Industry Transformers, Where Are They?

Setok — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:42:17 -0000

One final point on this that I also realised: banks, while selling to consumers, are actually not truly scalable b2c companies with low distribution and sales effort. That is, they are not structured in the way most scalable b2c businesses are structured. There is a batch of new companies on the horizon that are now changing that — including, of course, us at Holvi. Expect many disruptions to that area in the coming years.

Re: The Real Industry Transformers, Where Are They?

Setok — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:39:13 -0000

I've been giving this issue some more thought, and I think you're missing a crucial point here:

All b2b business, by definition, are not sitting at the top of the mountain. If there was no b2c, there would be no b2b. B2b only exists to serve the companies who, at the end of the day, are serving consumers. You are thus always at least one step removed in the business chain (I guess the only real exception is military contractors, but you could argue that is serving the government, which is serving the 'consumers').

So why aren't there more b2c businesses if that is potentially more scalable and you sit on top of the chain? Because traditionally managing that sales channel is a hugely expensive and risky endeavour, as the sales process has to be virtually zero — the closer you get to that the better. That means big investment into the brand and distribution networks.

This is still the case: building that network and brand is more risky and potentially more expensive than just going up to a big company and saying "Hi, buy this" (although the rewards can be very large). However, it has, through the Internet, also changed very dramatically. The level of expense and the mechanisms is drastically lower, if you play the variables correctly. Distribution for many online services is virtually free. The jump from even the first software age (Microsoft etc) to the post-software age, where we are now, is ridiculously big.

That doesn't mean getting users and sales in is easy or that it doesn't cost money. Making users aware of you is still a big challenge, as is having the right product. But the investment required is of a different scale completely.

That is why we are seeing more b2c companies, and why we should be seeing even more investment into the area than previously. Certainly more than is available in Finland. It's a maths game, with probabilities and risk, but the outcomes are clear.

Re: The Real Industry Transformers, Where Are They?

Setok — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:25:26 -0000

Of course there are big B2B businesses, and many before Facebook or Zynga. It's an easier business, as you don't have to worry about channels. However, none of them are anywhere near as scalable as Facebook or Zynga, or any successful b2c business.