Coming to Estonia

Looks like the spring finally arrived. The sun is shining, everything’s blooming and green, and people escape to nature in the weekends. However,  for many animals it seems to work the other way around. Whilst folks are heading to the forest to witness the arrival of spring, animals come to pay us a visit in the city. Several news headlines report about a Lost Bear in Tallinn, or a Moose Strolling In Town and Another Moose In Town hit by a car when crossing a road in Tallinn. Are the animals going crazy?

I have several theories:

1. Estonian animals share the spring enthusiasm of/with their human Estonian counterparts
2. After the long winter Estonian animals are just in desperate need of a drink. The bear was probably on his way to the Russian restaurant Troika in Tallinn for a proper Vodka shot.
3. After so much winter darkness Animals are shocked by all the light and get confused. I can imagine that Bears are especially confused and grumpy after their winter sleep.

So what’s up with the animals here in Estonia? Is this normal spring behavior?

Learned this week: “hullud loomad”; about the Bear I must add: “ilus loom, karv läigib”

‘Spring is coming’ is a popular phrase lately. For the past two and a half months I have heard it all over at least a dozen times -  the very first time in February after the temperatures dropped from -30 to -8. Really, spring is coming? Have I missed something? Do the Estonians have a sixth sense? I watched the days go by expecting dramatic temperature jumps, green explosion, anything that would hint at what people were telling me.

The snow disappeared gradually and now I can finally see the first green signs or ‘pungad’ as locals like to refer to it. It’s not warm-warm yet but the sun is back. Spring, it seems, has indeed finally arrived! Emotionless expressions have turned into relieved smiles and people can’t wait to go outside. The streets in the old town are buzzing with life. And I have been warned to enjoy while it lasts – spring will transition into summer before you know it… Not bad either if you ask me.

And I too am starting to understand the passion and excitement around the nordic spring. I only arrived at the end of January, but people here had been putting up with the cold and darkness since November. That’s why the build-up towards spring seems to become such an event. Once you spot the first “pung”, even though there might still be massive amounts of snow, there is hope. The first “pung” is a messenger with a delivery everyone has been waiting for. It says: “There will be light, there will be sun, there will be warmth…we’re almost there”.

Learned this week: “Kevad tuleb!”

PS. When a kid and leaving for a car trip, I often liked to ask my mom the how much longer? question. And she kept telling me how we would be on our way for a while. After a while she would add how there is a little song you can sing which goes: “We zijn er bijna, we zijn er bijna, maar nog niet helemaal – helemaal!” Which basically means that we are almost there but not completely. I can’t remember how long I kept up with the song, but I’m pretty sure that she looked forward to the end of the car drive as much as Estonians look forward to the end of the winter. If not more.

In Amsterdam thousands of suited-up folks choose to bike to work every morning. And then there are mothers with three children on their bike who stop in front of the local supermarket to get some food for lunch, and plenty of papa´s who bike their kids to work instead of driving there. While there are quite some cars in Amsterdam, not many people actually use it within the city. Partly because it´s expensive and difficult to find a parking spot and mostly because it might very well take you more travel time opposed to taking public transport or your always trustworthy bike. What can I say - the Dutch want less cars in their capital city and are doing a pretty good job demotivating the drivers. Amsterdam is designed for efficient biking and inefficient driving. In the very center, it might take you up to 10 years to receive a parking licence next to your house. If you haven’t moved by then.

In recent years I have also grown to believe that parking automats are deliberately designed to frustrate drivers. Some automats might accept cards or coins only and when I talk about cards then in most cases they don’t accept credit cards but only CHIP (which is a weird Dutch payment thingie requiring the user to separately charge the chip on the debit card first). Most automats ask you to type in your licence plate number. While I´ve seen a touch screen machine twice (what was my licence plate number again?), most exhibit most strange buttons you need to turn to select every single letter & number separately. Exhausting and error sensitive much?

Here in Estonia the biking culture is not that developed to say the least and also the public transport not particularly popular. Many people prefer to take their car – especially when going out of town this becomes almost a necessity. Parking, however, does not seem to be a problem. People just park their car and click on a button on their smartphone parking app. That´s it. For the folks who don’t have a smartphone they can text their licence plate with a short code to a short number and they are done. And everybody is doing it.

Mobile parking in Holland? Not on that level. While there are already startups in Tallinn working on devices to pay the parking automatically, crazy Dutch bike through the rain and turn buttons in an attempt to pay for their expensive parking. Here you might get run over when biking in the city, it might take you ages with public transport, but you can step out of your car without a worry and with a smile on your face. M-parking rocks.

P.S. They are talking about making the public transport free up here in Tallinn??

Learned this week: “ühistransport”

Someone recently told me that the quickest way to conquer the Estonian heart is by language. Estonians just love it when you make an effort and actually speak a little Estonian. Whilst my efforts are still limited to a few hours per week, and I might only impress people with my estonian animal vocabulary, I really do enjoy to slowly dig deeper. Next to my language explorations I also rediscovered the saying that love goes through the stomach. Apparently for an Estonian this applies to dark bread.

Already back in Holland I heard Estonians complaining about the bread. “Please bring me some proper dark bread from back home”. First I thought this to be a coincidence either caused by the soft and mostly light bread back in the lowlands, or by a rather personal taste. Here in Estonia I frequently find myself overhearing small talk about the dark bread and why its so great. So I wonder more and more. Dear Estonians please enlighten me. This foreigner needs some education on the topic of dark bread. Share your views and tell me why this topic is so popular. Whats up with the must leib??

Learned this week: “kiluvõileib and räimerull on parim musta leiba”

Last Thursday I attended a mobile startup meetup on how to monetize Android, organized by Cannedapps. Some experienced mobile entrepreneurs provided detailed advice how best to make money with mobile apps and the Android platform in particular. People were excited and happy about the opportunities. Everything went smooth until a young Swedish guy took the stage.

Stefan’s presentation started with a very slick trailer of an iPhone/iPad game Continuity that he had developed with his college friends . The last release, Continuity 2, got more than 800.000 downloads and was a paid app. So far so good. People were nodding approvingly. Stefan told a little more about his releases and the lessons learned when someone in the audience queried about the next part coming out. “There won’t be a next part” Stefan replied. “It´s not that much fun anymore. I work as a designer now and enjoy doing different things.” Grave silence took the hall. I could hear people thinking, hey, you´re an established brand now, surely there is more money to be made milking the current concept?! Meanwhile, Stefan was already opening another game trailer playing in space. Again, the graphics looked pretty neat and people started to relax: Alright. So this guy is just making new types of games and uses the network to promote them. How big is this one? How much revenue?

Before the crowd got any answers Stefan was opening the next slick trailer of a GTA type of game about bank robbers. “Tell us a bit more about the previous game,” audience asked. “When was it released? How many downloads?”

Stefan looked up and smiled. “Oh, it was almost ready but we never released it. Not fun enough in my opinion. The one about bank robbers was actually much more fun, but we didn’t release that as well. Kinda lost interest a bit even though it was almost ready.”

People looked shocked. There was a brief silence before questions started coming in rapid succesion. Why didn’t you release them? How much time would you need to finish them? Why don’t you sell them? Are they for sale?  Clearly, the answer that it was simply not much fun to develop them further was not the right answer.

Always fun observing cultural differences at meetups! I could feel the stereotypes – lazy Swedes who don’t care much about money and ambitious Estonians watching missed opportunities with pain in their heart. What if Skype wouldn’t have felt like finishing their product? Well, I would have been sitting here in Tallinn with an empty bank account hating the filthy rich Telecoms, whilst spending my days watching game trailers of games I could never hope to play.

- Learned this week: “elu on mäng”

In a previous post I mentioned that I’m now involved in setting up the Startup Wise Guys Accelerator here in Tallinn. Our application rounds closed at the 11th of March and after our first selection of around 220 application we are now interviewing around 50 teams via Skype. Its a lot of fun for very different reasons. You get to see incredibly talented teams, great products, crazy videos and also…unique applications.

While most teams aim to conquer the world, build the next Facebook or Skype, a few other teams aim to target a more local market with less IT know how. One specific application truly stood out. Below a small part of it; judge for yourself.

Describe your company in a tweet (max. 140 characters):
I want to plant blueberrys on my land.

Describe your idea in more detail:
I have the land, a pond for water, i know from where to buy the plants and the irigation system. I just need help buying them, I have some money just need some more. I don’t want to aply for European funds becuase they are hard to acces and if I’m eligeble for this, I want to give you guys the money back or give them for charity if you don’t want them. I just want help to start.

What’s new, innovative or exciting about what your company will do?
I think my company will be innovative, because the water used will be from a creek that flows nearby and fills my pond so I don’t pay for the water. Also the electricity will be from my small wind turbine and some solar panels. And because of this things my production costs will be really really low.

What problem are you solving?
Right now I’m searching for wood chips, because blueberrys need wood chips in the soil.

Whats your solution to it?
Searching for a sawmill, but right now I need to wait for the snow to melt because trucks can’t get to my plantation.

How will your company make money?
I will make money from seling blueberrys and if I can’t sell them all make other products from them like jam and a blueberry drink.

Who else is out there looking to solve the same problem as you?
I don’t know anybody else.

Is your company incorporated?
No, it’s just me!

How long have you been working together as a team?
I don’t have a team.

Skype id:
I don’t use skype.

Dear applicant, thanks so much for freshening up our review process. If this is a joke, thanks for the pleasant break and if this is for real I must say that its the sweetest application I have ever read. In the latter case I do hope he gets his money and I’m sure the area will enjoy the local berry boost. That said, I’d like to finish with a quote of another reviewer, Jon: “Could have been worse, it could have been blackberries”

- Learned this week: “mustikad või näoraamat”

So it’s official: I am not fond of cross country skiing (or how the Austrians refer to it: langlauf). Shortly after I arrived in Estonia people started asking me in full excitement whether I want to join them skiing. And yes, the first time I naively shared their enthusiasm and nodded in excitement.

This was before discovering that what they were actually talking about was cross country skiing. The pushing-yourself-forward-on-a-flat-field-covered-with-snow-sport. Covering a circle and continuing in the same tracks to complete the same circle again. WHAT IS the point? Why suffer on a field when you can come down a mountain?!

The thing is, whenever they talk about skiing back in Holland they refer to downhill skiing. Not many people do the cross country thing over there. This is certainly not the case in Estonia. I get some disturbed looks before someone points out how downhill skiing is not a sport, but entertainment for lazy people at the very best. “You see, skiing down a mountain is piece of cake. Everybody can do that. Now I’d like to see the same people try some proper skiing and see how long they last…”

So there you go. After politely declining some times I decided to at least give it a shot. What if it’s awesome after all?

We went with a small group of enthusiasts. The ski track was nearby, but during the short car drive I already received elaborate introductions. “There are basically two ways of  skiing, one which is like jogging with skies and the other which is sort of like skating.”       I was half listening and half worrying. This was langlauf for crying out loud and most definitely not skiing! Skiing is downhill. Skiing is fun!

After  arriving and putting on our gear we started on our first round. It didn’t take long before I lost my fellow skiers and was forced to venture on alone.  There went the social aspect of this great sport. Soon I had also fallen two times, on the same spot which was my ass. I was determined to keep the number at two. It’s just that those skis were so damn thin and slippery!

I completely didn’t get the jogging part of the sport and pretty much skipped it altogether  to focus on the skating technique. At least that seemed faster, but I couldn’t stop wondering: Why not do some real skating and have fun instead of this misery-skiing? At this point I must have finished my third round and reached a state of boredom and exhaustion. Perhaps my technique was not too efficient. That’s it, I thought. Never again.

I went back to the car hoping to find some like-minded lazy souls hanging around, but the parking lot was deserted. So I sat down on a cold bench and waited. Perhaps I did something wrong. Perhaps this sport is actually fun when doing it the right way. And perhaps I should give it another try. One day in the far future. There was only one thought that kept me warm while waiting there on a freezing bench in the cold. One part that made the effort absolutely worthwhile. After skiing there always comes sauna!

- Learned this week: “õudne ja üüratu”

Entering the TechCrunch conference in Riga one month ago I was handed a T-shirt of a new accelerator program called the Startup Wise Guys. The back side read: #estonianmafia. Who are those guys? I shrugged, put on the shirt and entered the conference area. Little did I know that I talked to ”The Don” just a couple of days before about helping them set up a new accelerator in Estonia.

We talked a little longer at the afterparty and the week after I was asked to join the team. The timelines were incredibly short and application rounds already started – best time for promotional roadshows and attracting a fine international mix of applicants. After a look around, I found a large startup event called TWiST Berlin just two days later. Just the right place to get started. I contacted the organizers, got a slot to pitch our new accelerator and booked the ticket.

TWiST Berlin was packed – 20 companies were getting ready to take the stage and pitch their company to a local jury of VC’s and experienced entrepreneurs. The first thing I noticed was the remarkable quality of value propositions and pitches. From keyboard shortcuts to mail-order toys to time-saving e-mail apps, the German startup community is a force to be reckoned with. Check out the show to see the five best companies pitching to Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley in their US studio.

While watching the pitches I couldn’t help but thinking: How come the overall quality of the pitches is so much higher here than at the TechCrunch event in Riga? There were many great products among the Baltic pitches, but the execution of the presentations in general did not impress me. An example: At the Berlin event the presenters knew their pitches by heart – word by word. During the webcast the connection with the US broke several times due to the overloaded Wifi and the presenters had to repeat their show which they did – flawlessly in the exact same, and well-studied manner.

So here goes my stereotype:

• Eastern Europeans care more about building and coding than selling.

Which is a great thing come to think about it. In the US someone will sell you plain air by pretending they have a working product with paying customers, whilst in reality there is not even a prototype. More towards the East, take Baltics for instance, teams might develop brilliant products for years without creating any significant sales. Even worse, people are not thinking about selling until they have a ready product and then they might lack the connections to sell at all – especially abroad.
Another aspect is the lack of preparation, especially in terms of pitching. If you intend to sell your idea/product you do need a good pitch. This requires some preparation and very likely some rehearsing. If you are planning to pitch in front of a VC panel at TechCrunch, you better come prepared. Looking at the ground, complete lack of interaction with the public or jury, flat voices without passion, “…next slide” are just a few examples that came along in Riga, whilst the ideas and products were great!

There is an incredible startup potential here in the Baltics, especially in ICT. And especially – in Estonia. The reason that the Startup Wise Guys are based in Tallinn has to do with an incredibly large percentage of Estonian startups in the top Accelerators such as TechStars or Seedcamp over the last few years. Every single time!

This week week I’m in Amsterdam and Prague to discover some talented local startups. We want to mix different nationalities and startups to create a synergistic team learning from each other – with an emphasis on the Baltics. We need to reach out and help all these high potential startups to make the right connections and expand abroad. The world needs to know about them. Investors need to know where to put their large piles of money. So, get out of your garage and show us the great products you’ve been working on!

- Learned this week: “kiirendama” -

When a friend over here asked me two weeks ago whether I wanted to join them on a skiing trip I right away asked: “You are not talking about cross country skiing, right?!” – “No, we are going to Finland, Himos, with a bunch of people to snowboard and ski. We rented a wooden house with sauna and a hot tub for the weekend. It’s only a 3 hour drive away”. Wait a minute. Snowboarding and Skiing.. downhill? Sauna??? Hot tub??! I’m in!

So, last weekend it was time. Off to Finland – country of fierce snow, as close to the North Pole as it gets. Home of Santa Claus. How could the Alps compete with this? Soon I would send action pictures to my friends back in Amsterdam doing 180 on top of polar bears. Good times.

During our drive to Himos I had to readjust some of my expectations.  I learned that Himos is only 300 meters high. I learned about No Polar Bears. And not exactly on the North Pole . BUT, there would be sauna and a hot tub!

When we queued to get the tickets I discovered the slopes are open until 20:00! That’s what I call value for your money. Not the 7 Euro beer, but an actual whole day of snowboarding!
On another note, I was surprised to hear Estonian all around me. I’m not that great of a judge as Finnish and Estonian are pretty close, but it certainly sounded a lot like Estonian. “Are these people talking Finnish or is this Estonian?” I asked. “Estonian.”
“And those people?” “Estonian”. Hell, they even spoke Estonian behind the counter! I was getting curious whether we were in Finland at all.

As it appears a lot of Estonians go to Himos for wintersport. And I do mean a lot. It kinda felt like being in a Estonian colony. Like being in Val Thorens, France as a dutch person during peak season. It feels like you never left home in the first place.

I must repeat one thing about Finns and Estonians. They definitely do get the sauna culture right! We should start implementing this all over Europe. There is nothing better than jumping into a hot sauna after a long day of snowboarding. First sauna, then jumping into the snow, then sauna again and then some more chilling in the hot tub. With some occasional cool down pauses in the snow, of course. All the muscle pain after a day of rough boarding just melts away in the warmth. Some central European countries might pride themselves with the Alps, great wintersport locations and long slopes. But you can’t compete with the Finnish apres-ski. You might have better parties, you might drink more beer, but you don’t chill in a sauna with an ice cold beer after a long day of boarding – walk outside to jump into the snow and chill some more in the hot tub whilst opening your next beer. Finns, get you mobile saunas and show the rest of Europe how its done!!!

- Learned this week: “lumelauatama” -