Technopark Warms up Startups at Startup Sauna

Startup Sauna Warmup is a project of a famous Scandinavian business accelerator to be held at the Skolkovo Technopark March 14 in the park’s conference hall. The "warmup" consists of 3-minute pitch sessions in English and talks with mentors and investors, with the participation of 15 specially selected startups, Finnish mentors and venture capitalists

The goal of the Startup Sauna project – with which the Skolkovo foundation signed an agreement at the Slush event in Helsinki – is to select several startups and Skolkovo residents to participate in an international startup training program to be held over 4-6 weeks in Helsinki and in the Silicon Valley in the U.S.

Today the Skolkovo Technopark welcomed famous Scandinavian mentors and venture capitalists participating in the Startup Sauna project, including: Antti Ylimutka, co-CEO and captain of the Startup Sauna team; Ilkka Kivimäki, coach, board member of Kibron Inc, chairman of the board of directors at Valoya Oy and the founder of Domino Mechanics Oy; Inka Mero, entrepreneur, working with companies in the seed stage, co-founder of Koppicatch; Oleg Podsechin, Finnish entrepreneur and consultant of Russian origin; Jussi Harvela, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, founder of Veturi Venture Accelerator; Tuomas Kosonen, partnter at the Inventure fund. The event was also attended by Evgeny Peltola, who directs international relations at StartupSauna.

Speaking before the pitch session, representatives of the team, who flew in from Finland, said Startup Sauna is driven by the idea of ​​creating a region in Northern Europe and Russia with a huge and highly competitive high-tech area, a sort of North-European Silicon Valley. And Russia, thanks to its great technological potential, will play a key role in this ambitious plan.

Before the pitch session, coaches from Startup Sauna gave participants  simple and practical tips that can be useful to many startup speakers:

• Always hold the microphone with one hand your chin. If you gesture, then do it with your free hand, since the periodic loss of sound from the microphone annoys listeners;
• Do not try to use complex phrases in English, just say it, do not rush, and clearly pronounce foreign words that are familiar;
• talk to the people, not the slides – look at the room, for example, at beautiful girls in the audience. The audience does not like it when the speaker is facing the screen and not the audience;
• Learn to control the projector's remote control, try to practice advancing slides before the pitch