12) Last week of January

The last week started sort of slowly, but it became very particular. However no news about Finnvera yet.

I sent one e-mail last week to the Director of Företagar Förbundet (Swedish companies' assosiation), Camilla Littorin, and another e-mail to the Danish enterprises association, Copenhagen Capacity, with a couple of general questions regarding about financing small and medium enterprises and the names of the main risk capital banks in both countries. So far, no answer yet.

I already started translating the blog in different languages, and I hope to finish four different languages versions within this week.

I assume that many people will wonder how much help can it be to read "how is the opening process of a company in a different country?" specially, when the situation varies so much from one country to another country. Here is what I think, despite the different levels of bureaucracy, financing problems, banks, local cultural problems, corruption, and so on. We entrepreneurs need support, and we understand each others feelings, therefore anyone in my position will definitely understand me. I give to all of you my story and my guidelines, take whatever is helpful to you and please make comments if the information was of any value to you. For the people who might think "it is easier for him, because in that country...", well, I am sorry to disappoint you, but the whole process is as laborious as it is if I was in China, Venezuela, Egypt or USA.

Freda, a friend from China, explained me that in China they do not receive any economical support for opening a company (like in many countries around the world). She is an entrepreneur and she did manage to create her own company from scratch. Women power and cleverness. If she could do it, I can do it.

Another friend of mine, Carlos, explained me a bit the long bureaucratic way of getting a loan in Mexico in his own words "you lose the motivation". I just hope to be able to keep my motivation.

We all wish that money grows from the trees, but not in this capitalist world.

I called today to the financial manager Karina Fogel of Finnvera regarding about the situation of my application, but she was busy in another appointment. The secretary told me to hold on and then she hung up the telephone. I wonder if I should call tomorrow or let them contact me.

I guess I just have to believe...

Otherwise I had a nice weekend surrounded by friends and drinking a lot in different parties.

11) Week 3

The week has started with some nice windy weather... and we still have lots of snow :P

Haiti's tragedy is still in the news and it will be soon one week since the disaster. My best wishes to the Haitians in these moments of pain.

There was an article in the newspaper HBL about importing clothes to Finland. A good friend of mine told me that the regulations are very strict, however, it all depends on who is importing. The customs has been sending her threats of sending her imported clothes' shipment of 15-20 kg to their laboratory for which she should pay the fee of 500€. However, it seems to be the same payment for a whole H & M container: 5kg of clothes or 500 kg of clothes, it´s all 500€, it makes sense!

Finnvera hasn't contacted me yet, but I've already started to translate the business plan into Swedish, Danish and German.

I think it is always important to have a plan B, plan C, plan D, plan E, and so on. It is not my intention just to jump off to the next country, but since the cultural factor plays an important role in the creation of a business I must be aware that my idea might not be accepted in conservative societies, but in more business oriented ones.

Let's see....

p.d. There is sauna this evening at my friend's :)

10) Flu and conjunctivitis...

Week 2 of 2010: Diagnostic ->A cold and conjunctivitis

I'm so lucky... yes I am.

Let's remember that I was sick for the whole of 2008. A very long and slow recovery from my sepsis (septicemia) due to an extremely weird illness. I should create a club in Facebook called "We, the survivors of the streptococcus intermedius", probably maximum of 20 members in the whole wide world. So a flu and conjunctivitis are nothing compared to it... however it's annoying.

I got a cold in September, October, November and now January. Due to all the amount of work I was doing, my left eye got swollen in November and I had to spent 2 days in total darkness (no TV, Internet, computer, reading, only bed and darkness). In December the same eye became infected, I don't know how. But I got some antibiotics prescribed.

However, on Monday 11th in the awakening of my pain, the financial manager Karina Fogel of Finnvera, called me to make sure she had the names of the people I'd been talking to in Ålandsbanken, Nordea and Säästöpankki. I gave her the names and phone numbers and asked her again if she would like to get more information. She replied that it was enough. My case was finally on the desk.

I got in touch with Anne Urpo from Nordea by e-mail since there have been some problems with the domains of Nordea's servers. She said that her e-mail was "nordea.fi" but the e-mails I got from her were "nordea.com". Despite my frustration, because I thought she already had all my files, I managed to send them all, again.

Let's see....

p.s. No sauna this week :(

9) After the storm a bit of sauna...

Christmas and New Year's weeks were very peaceful compared to the amount of work I was doing before with all the stress of concentration.

Lots of eating, drinking, karaoke and chatting among my family-friends.

The weather was exceptional, for the first time in more than I don't know how many years... the snow didn't melt and it got to -25 degrees a couple of days. One more reason to eat more since we were burning too many calories, just sitting and drinking indoors.

Financial manager Karina Fogel of Finnvera told me that I would probably get an answer in January since the Christmas holidays were coming, so in a way, it stopped being my problem and now it was up to them.

The next step will be the real negotiations... most of the estimates are already done.

After you finish your business plan and present it to all the credit institutions, try to take a small break. In my case the Christmas holidays were just at the right time, however, even if there aren't any official holidays (Easter, Ramadan, Spring break, etc.) just take a nice free week for yourself.

But now, let's go to the sauna...

8) Round 2

Monday, 21th of December... Cold... brr..... but sunny :) at least for 5 hours :D

I arrived half an hour earlier to the Ålandsbanken and, well, I had to wait for a while... Funding specialist Terhi Iso-Ilomäki was quite friendly and listened to my whole presentation. She complimented the presentation and understood the idea relatively easily which gave me a feeling of satisfaction.

As expected, she also told me that Finnvera must give its approval and warranty. However, she bid me welcome to go back to Åland if I get my project accepted :)

Since the interview finished quite early, and Finnvera's offices were on the same street, I decided to pay a small visit and see if I could give them more information. After all the maximum amount of files I could sent through Finnvera's web page was 4, even though I have 17 text/numeric files and 3 presentations in power point.

To my surprise, the financial manager in charge of my case, Karina Fogel, was available and willing to give me an interview.

It was one of the most stressful interviews in my life, I must confess. Even though I was more than ready to give the whole explanation of my project, I got a bit nervous, and since she was asking me random questions of the whole project, the idea of showing her my power point presentation became pointless. However, even though she complained about the amount of money I was requesting, I believe the interview went quite well. At the end she asked me "which Bank would you like to work with?" :) For me it was a positive question.

I was able to go out and breathe the -16 degrees (3.19 F) fresh air we had on that historical Monday 21st, in Christmas week.

p.s. Yes, I had a sauna that evening :)

7) Round 1

Friday, 18th December, 2009

I hardly slept the whole night but I'm happy and ready to give my presentation :)

Jyrki Laaksonen from Nordea was waiting for me and we had a relatively short interview of about 1 and a half hours. The funny thing is that he understood the business idea very easily, at least that's what he said, hehe..., but, yes, I believe that the communication man-to-man/woman-to-woman is always easier than between a man and a woman.

He just asked me to send all the financial information to him and to Anne Urpo, which I did the week after.

Carita Heikkilä from Liedon Säästöpankki wasn't waiting for me and she didn't tell anyone I had an appointment with her. She had a sudden appointment with the doctor, and left without any message to anyone. Instead, one of the bank employees was going to listen to my whole presentation in public, in the middle of the bank hall. I wasn't at all happy about that, but what could I do? He asked me to explain the whole project at the cash desk (for general bank affairs), I was surprised I was even permitted to sit down :D

I managed to convince him to move to a close by office, however, who I am to guess what the Säästöpankki traditions are? :D

Carita showed up later on, she apologized for being late, and she also told me that the interview will last only 10 minutes since she had another (more important) appointment. Well, straight to the point. She asked me to send her the same financial information I sent to Finnvera and explained to me that they are not a capital risk bank, therefore the last word was with Finnvera.

Next interview, Monday in Ålandsbanken....

As for today, sauna at 18.00

6) Around 3 weeks...

I had a lot of research to do, but I managed to finish it in November...

I want to thank Tuomas, Tapani, Sören, Ulla, Staffan, Dolinna, Freda, Grace, Andy, Rita, Carlos and my parents who gave me some advice, ideas and support for the whole research process.

I sent my project on week 49 to Finnvera, the local capital risk bank. According to their web page an "answer" would arrive in about 3 weeks time. I could have sent it at least one week earlier, but Finnvera's web page has its own financial format sheet, to be filled out, so I had to recalculate many of my estimates in order to make it fit in the accounts the national company's analysis committee provides to everybody applying for a business loan.

Plus I made appointments in 3 different Banks:

1) Nordea with Jyrki Laaksonen: Friday 18th December 10.00 am

2) Liedon Säästöpankki with Carita Heikkilä: Friday 18th of December 13.30

3) Ålandsbanken with Terhi Iso-Ilomäki: Monday 21st 13.30

I wanted to make an appointment with Osuuspankki, but the woman at the information desk told me that I must have an account in Osuuspankki for at least 1 year before any attempt in obtaining a "business loan".

Enough... time for a sauna :)

5) Gray November

The beginning of November was very nice, Halloween parties, Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day, Souls day, you name it.... Probably the most beautiful day to visit a grave yard full of candles, flowers and memories, specially memories.

I certainly had lots of memories going on in my head plus I had a lot of work to do before the interview and, unfortunately, I couldn't finish the Financial plan. However the interview at Potkuri was in some ways positive and in some ways negative:

Positive: Business advisor Antti Mäkimattila was impressed with my business idea, my business plan and the whole presentation. He said that it was very well done.

Negative: Antti Mäkimattila told me that the government does NOT support Internet related businesses and my project was in need of a larger start up capital than the one they could "provide".

What I had ahead of me was a steep hill, since in order to ask for a loan, the financial plan, and in general the whole business plan, must be absolutely PERFECT.

So I started climbing... :)

4) Bed times

Yes, the whole of my Business Plan was made in bed :)

I called the local institute for Small and Medium enterprises "Potkuri" in order to make an appointment and explain my idea = I need money :D

Monday 9th of November at 9.00 am I have an appointment with business advisor Antti Mäkimattila = I have now one month to finish everything perfectly.

Chapter 1 Idea plan: The weather is sort of nice, beautiful Autumn colours outside... sunny and surprisingly dry for Autumn. I got an answer from one of my main manufacturers and this gave me a nice start.

- Problems Idea plan - It's still hard to say how much I am going to sell. I have a certain clear idea of my vision and goals for the short, medium and long term, but I'm pretty sure I will be constantly updating them. However, for all of us who are willing to go along all this glorious path the main problem has always been and it will always be: What? Where? When? How? Why? and finally Me? Am I able? Can I really do it? Can I take the step? Please someone tell me?! When you feel the Passion, you don't need to ask anyone. You just know it... you believe.

Chapter 2 Business plan: It was sort of easy to elaborate, except for the start up total capital I would be needing. At least I started a list of all the expenses that I think I'll have.

- Problems Business plan - well I still don´t have a lot of real prices and costs, but I'm pretty sure they will start popping up.

Chapter 3 Product/Service: I had a lot of fun doing this, basically a lot of imagination and segmentation. I also had to contact a lot of different manufacturers.

- Problems Product/Service - Well, despite the fact that everybody wants to do business, many companies didn't answer me, so I had to keep waiting for further information. I'm not expecting an answer straight away, but I´d like one before my appointment at Potkuri.

Chapter 4 Market research: I had already done a lot of it so it wasn't that laborious. However, the ideas are just popping up and I am really more enthusiastic about the whole project.

-Problems in Market research - Well, not so many except that the file became so big that I had to fragment it because it was taking a lot of time to save, open, do any tiny little change, not to even mention the risk of loosing it due to some misreading.

Chapter 5 Strategy: Now this is really war... a lot of analyzing, segmenting, research, imagination, some reading and more and more ideas emerging.

-Problems Strategy - I basically didn't sleep for the whole October. I started working in the morning and then continued working the whole day and the whole night until it was morning again. The funny thing is that I don't regret it. I didn't feel that I was working at all, but only having fun.

Chapter 6 Management: This part was a bit difficult to elaborate since I had to plan how many people will be working for me in the future, and I also had to determine my salary :P

- Problems Management - I'm definitely not so good at fiscal and labor laws. I need help and the estimates, despite being crucial, are somehow a dream, at least in the first and second year. Why? I need to prioritize the allocation of as much money as possible in some key areas, and my private bank account is not one of them. As long as the rent and food expenses are paid for, I can live on a low budget until my flight takes off.

Chapter 7 Financial plan: It took me a lot of nerve and patience to make it. A lot of research, a lot of calculations, a lot of passion. The file became again so big that I had to fragment it again in order to avoid any future problems.

- Problems Financial plan - Taxes and some other costs that I am not going to have this month. It won't be ready by November 9th :(

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Every business plan is different, therefore it's impossible to homogenize or compare my problems with other people, except for the financial plan which really is hard work.

What's my best advice to everybody? Relax and smile. It won't be ready in 1 week, for some it takes a month for others it takes an eternity, just keep going and smile.

Also, remember to always thank everybody no matter if it was just a tiny little help or a big one, even if nothing resulted as you were planning it, in times of storm and darkness, just a simple smile is a ray of light that will keep you believing that the rainbow will come out after the storm.

A big hug and a smile to all of you who have showed me your unconditional love, help and support.

Thank you! Tack! Kiitti! Xiè Xiè! Gracias! Danke! Kösz!

3) Passions

Many multinationals have been born in garages, in kitchens or in student accommodation. Many were born in moments of grief, in desperate situations, in funny ones, perhaps with arrogant attitudes or in moments of love and happiness.

I wonder in which category my idea will fall. I guess it will just be a mixture of everything.

I started my business plan from my favorite part, the market analysis, perhaps not the right place to start from, but I did manage to write a large part of it.

Since the "Passion" was getting stronger and stronger I realized it brought along positive feelings about myself again.

Why is it important to feel the "Passion"? A passion brings with it faith and faith makes you believe, believe in yourself, believe in people, believe in the world, believe in life, believe that you can make it. You are able to reach the highest point of the world, just by believing...

Without "Passion" everything is just normal routine, a normal day, a normal job...

The first time I made a business plan, 11 years ago, it was made as if in prehistoric times compared to today. I had a book, a guide and lots of texts to be read and researched. Internet was available, of course, but it definitely was not very advanced, and it didn´t have all the information and all the different sources that we have today = I wonder how it will be in 10 years´ time?

I easily found different web pages about How to write a Business Plan, How to start a business, videos, blogs, people I could ask for advice, so basically to create a business nowadays just requires willingness, attitude and a sufficiently strong character to be able to see it through.

I started writing my business plan in September 2009, but it wasn't until the end of September 2009 when I wrote Chapter one: Idea plan :)

2) from zero to a Multinational company?

I heard about the product, but I never saw it. In the summer I had the opportunity to purchase it, and I did.

I thought it was a good idea, but still I wasn´t 100% sure. Why? Well.... the manufacturing would be different... way too different, if I managed to solve the problem of the manufacturing I would go for it.

And guess what? I did :)

I am going to create a multinational company from scratch. I invite you to follow me in this amazing journey that will probably last all my life. A journey to learn and follow your goals and dreams, but above all to learn about yourself. A step by step guide you should follow, an also, unfortunately, a recount of all the possible mistakes I will make, so that hopefully you won't make them. A constant support and counsel for me and for you to take a small step for the human kind, but a huge one for yourself. You are not alone!

If I can do it, you can do it. It doesn't necessary have to be a company you want to reach, but a goal in your life, something that you have never dared to accomplish or you have tried before or, even better, something you are willing to try. Let's do it together. We can do everything...

This was at the end of August of 2009

1) Entrepreneur

In my life as a student, listening to one particular lecture, I discovered the world of Entrepreneurship.

An amazing feeling, equal to love, sex on the first date :P and any other kind of passion. A lifestyle of goals and dreams in search of something. First I though it was money, after all starting a business is all about money. Now I think it's about happiness, at least I hope so.

After being unemployed for a while and unlucky in the few jobs I found, I decided it was time to start a business, again. This will be my fourth attempt, but apart from the first time I haven't had this same feeling.

I suppose, in a way, I never really stopped thinking about it. Or there wouldn't have been any further attempts. The typical problem is what kind of a business? In 10 years I haven't got a very clear answer.

Luckily, in the summer of 2009, I found the egg and with it the passion again :)

Let's see how good I am at hatching :P

P.S. This video is amazing! Check it out... We are all entrepreneurs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0&translated=1