Reflections from the trip to Ukraine — Fall 2023
Writing this in the Krakow airport, head full of memories and reflections from the trip to Ukraine — Lviv and Kyiv. I have no ways to write down everything, instead I am making a list of of experiences. Please do reach out if you want to know more.
But first
We in the civilised world together with Ukraine need to do everything we can to stop the war. The need to do this came really evident talking with the Ukrainians — students, entrepreneurs, people from the armed forces, specifically those that have been or going to the zero line.
Than to the reflections.
The Origins
My friend Ivan from greate medical technology company Knopka connected me with Vladislav and before I realized I was invited to be a jury member and speaker at the IT Arena 2023 — The power of the network effect. By the way I feel that IT Arena is like Slush in 2010. Great vibe. Good job.
The Team Finland
I thought that there is no point of going alone to beautiful LVIV so I called to Jussi and he said yes. Jussi ignited his superpower that got 10 people from Finland to join with us. The economic rebuilding cannot wait the war to end, it has to happen again.
The start ups and jury
It was just inspiring to listen 29 pitches and see how the presentations evolved to the finals. In the finals and in general I was positively surprised about the level of the presentations, but also the ratio of female founders was high. Being in the jury is an intensive work and you need the team. It was great to get to know Ukrainian VCs and especially super cool Mariia!
In the middle of everything drinkin cherry wine with cool people in the shelter.
Bridges of Trust
Together with Liquido, Ministry of Foreigns Affairs and partners we organised a side event at the event. The event was a success of networking and we were able to connect with the Ukrainian venture capitals with investors from Finland, Latvia and Denmark.
Speaking and connecting at the event
My topic was Growth Mindset — feature that entrepreneurs need to survive and succeed. The speech was a success I got so much heartwarming feedback of which one stood up. Thank you for showing up and coming to Ukraine. What can you say.
Defence Technology
Ukraine — unfortunately — is the place where the future of defence technology is happening and being tested. Meeting founders and companies that has battleground experience and skills to turn that experience to scalable solutions quickly is a great reminder what does proper product design actually is. Thank you my friends at Brave1
IT arena was done and friends from Finland traveled back and I took a road towards Kyiv.
This time I had chance to work from Kooperativ — a great coworking place if you happen to be Kyiv. Great meetings and cool people. Had an honour to meet United24 people, discuss about the business of marketing in Ukraine with Andriy and have a great conversation with ZAS ventures about the growth opportunities in Ukraine. I sense that more stories will arise from this.
Finally
Ministry of Good Spirit and Good Spirit Ventures is now officially launched in Ukraine. Wait for more info on this, but YES — the community of good spirit is growing with Ukrainian members and welcoming good spirit companies from Ukraine to join to global Good Spirit Ventures growth platform.
The kick off was relaxed get together of good spirit people just like in Finland.
You probably are now wondering what happens next. That is up to you. Please do connect if you want to know more and let’s talk.
