ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Pekka Viljakainen is sick to the back teeth of hearing people blame the lack of startups on the financial crisis.
A national Kazakh television network interviews Pekka Viljakainen. Photo: sk.ru
The Finnish tech entrepreneur is part of Skolkovo’s delegation to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the sixth stage of the Startup Tour was taking place on Thursday and Friday.
Addressing the most immediate concerns within the crowd of Kazakh investors, entrepreneurs and startups – the current economic slowdown – Viljakainen was unequivocal.
“People complain too much about the circumstances: What about the crisis? Why wasn’t I born in Silicon Valley? Why isn’t my father a billionaire? But it’s entrepreneurs – you, the people – who can change the world,” he said.
Viljakainen recalled a meeting with Russia’s former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who asked what needed to be done to take the economy beyond its dependence on oil and gas.
“My statement was very provocative,” he said. “In Finland we needed our baby, Nokia, to get into trouble. In Russia it’s needed that oil is $45. It’s not my wish. But it is the truth that only difficult times can create entrepreneurship. Most companies are built when times are tough. Then people focus on the right things. There is enough, but not too much money,” Viljakainen said.
“I am honest when I say that it’s a wonderful day to start a business,” he added.
Viljakainen said he started first company when he was 13 years old in “in the middle of the woods in Finland.”
“I can tell you that there was no entrepreneurship society helping me,” he said. “There were no business angels, no advice, no technoparks, no universities, absolutely nothing.”
“There were 400 cows, but they didn’t advise me much in this. And still I was able to make a company that made a 20,000-person business,” he added.
Viljakainen, a founding partner of Slush, Europe’s biggest tech conference, said he could personally attest to how tough times bring the best out of entrepreneurs.
“I started a company right on the eve of one of the biggest crises in Finland. It was in 1988, and in 1999 in Finland the most serious repressions in the history of the country began.”
Viljakainen’s role at Skolkovo is advisor to president Victor Vekselberg. He advises the Russian government on developing a high-tech economy and is the chief protagonist of the Startup Village, the biggest conference of its kind in Eastern Europe.
He currently has investments in nine Russian companies and is in negotiations with another four.