The startup journey.

Vitaly is a technology enthusiast, an entrepreneur and a globalist, whose dream is to make technology work for all people and improve their quality of life.

Originally from Riga, Vitaly has a very international background coming from a Russian family, having lived in the USA during high school years and graduating from a university in Finland. In parallel to his studies, Vitaly started working at a small, but very international financial software company, DataPartner, which taught him a lot about the enterprise software and international sales as DataPartner has been serving its investment analysis software to customers in over 60 countries.

In 2017 Vitaly co-founded DeskMe, a technology startup that aims to change the way we use our offices. At Wonderland’s Waffle Wednesday Vitaly will be covering the following topics:

• Bootstrapping a startup.
• Starting a startup during free time in parallel to other full-time job.
• The importance of first customers.
• Modern tools for MVP (Figma, etc.).
• MVP – launch/ship/release early (done is better than perfect + get early customer feedback).
• Sell before you make it, as much as possible. Develop only once you already know it is needed for sure.
• Customer request cooldown – In the beginning customers often ask for much more than they actually need.
• Doing things that don’t scale.
• Joining forces vs competing (the best chances of success).
• The importance of mentors or “adult supervision”.
• The importance of co-founders.
• The importance of early business partnerships (+which to avoid).
• The importance of networking (exposing to opportunities).
• Advantages of starting in Finland (Slush, Arctic15, Junction, Ultrahack, Business Finland, culture).
• The importance of internationalization.
• Funding topic (timing; when is it really needed).

Connect with Vitaly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitals/

Connect with Vitaly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/svifi

This event will be held in English .

Help us host a safe event by following these instructions:

– Please arrive to the event only 100% healthy and without symptoms

– You’re most welcome to wear a mask if you so choose!

– Remember to keep a safe distance between other participants and disinfect regularly