First time I heard about Boost Turku was when a researcher colleague of mine asked me to apply for the Startup Journey in spring 2014. As cell biologists, we would come up with a business idea that was to “create your personal training program based on your DNA”. We entered the accelerator with that idea, but during the Journey changed it to “creating DNA tests for racehorses” after being sparred by advisors. When summer ended and the Journey was over, we all went back to our research and the business idea was almost forgotten.
After a while I started to miss the candid and energetic atmosphere of Boost Turku, so in spring 2015 I applied for a board position and was elected to the Boost Turku board. During my year as a board member I had some of the most awesome times as well as learned plenty of useful things regarding board activity and budgeting. What I had no idea about at the time was that the fact that I joined the board would very soon change my entire life.
In late November of 2015, three representatives of Boost Turku were sent to the UK to London and Cambridge, in order to be introduced to the local start-up-scene and some key players impacting it. I wasn’t supposed to go, but one of the members fell ill the day before the trip. I was asked to go instead, 12 hours prior to take-off, and without hesitating I booked the flight tickets and found myself in London and later Cambridge talking to some key investors and entrepreneurs. Inspired by the encouraging environment and mind-set I couldn’t help myself when people approached me and asked who I was. My answer was: “I’m Maria from Boost Turku. I’m a cell biologist and I have a business idea” and I presented the idea of creating DNA tests for racehorses. This quickly led to me being invited back to the UK, where I found myself talking to world-famous breeders at massive racehorse sales. I quickly realised that the business idea has great potential and decided to dedicate myself to it.
During the following year, I spent my savings on travelling to the UK and Ireland, visiting stud farms, trainers and equine hospitals in order to map the needs of genetic tests in the industry. The year that followed (2017) I founded the company Aavagen Oy, set up our own lab, launched our first product and closed the first financing round. Today I find myself surrounded by the most awesome team members, looking forward to our first year of growth! My story proves that anything is possible, and if you have an opportunity that comes your way, I recommend you to grab it! BOOST!
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My name is Erika and I worked with Boost from 2012 to the fall of 2015. I started out as a volunteer, helping out with events and what not. After that I was part of the board and after that I worked community manager from 2013 to 2015.
So was it worth it? Did I learn anything?
Absolutely.
When it comes to my career I think Boost was the best thing that could have happened to me. It provided me with an environment of ambitious people from all sorts of backgrounds who taught me a lot about startups, entrepreneurship, technology, and event management just to name a few.
I think, at least for me, what made it such an important experience is that I was surrounded by people equally ambitious as myself, but who at the same time kept me humble because of the amount of knowledge that was being shared. Realizing there is a TON of things you do not know, while at the same time realizing that as long as you have ambition there isn’t anything you can’t learn is a very powerful thing.
If you are joining Boost, be ready to contribute with the things you already know, be ready to learn from everyone around you and be ready to work hard. Regardless of if the work you are doing is volunteer based or paid, the quality of your work will always be your most important reference. It can take you to a lot of interesting places.
For me it lead to being selected to the US Department of state’s premier professional exchange program IVLP, becoming one of the founders and the first creative director of SHIFT, working as Chief Experience Officer for Maria 01, the biggest startup hub in the Nordics, taking part in drafting the World Economic Forum’s white paper on collaboration between startups and corporates, and being invited to speak at an event during Beijing Design Week, just to mention a few things that I thought were pretty cool.
I care a lot about Boost, it’s been super important in my personal development. This is why I’m hoping to see the most ambitious and hardworking people leading it forward. Maybe you are one of them!
Tell us about yourself and how was your time in Boost like?
I guess my journey with Boost started like all the best things do, by accident. I’ve always been involved in different extracurricular activities and at Turku School of Economics I was in the board of KKOY & Wiiniklubi. In the autumn of 2009 by couple of co-incidences a group of weirdos who wanted to help students to become entrepreneurs was formed within Universities of Turku. That group was later before the Christmas to be transformed into the founding team of Boost Turku. I was part of that group. That was the beginning of Boost Turku for me and Boost Turku.
The following years with Boost taught me more about business than I could have learned anywhere else. In addition to learning different aspects of running a startup, meeting rockstar entrepreneurs like Mårten Mickos, Sami Inkinen and many other inspiring people, I found myself in places where I would not have never thought finding myself in. These included visiting Silicon Valley four times to learn how startups are built, ending up in a graduation ball at the Library of Congress on the Capitol Hill or coaching university students on entrepreneurship in Pskov, Russia. But topping all these are the lifelong friendships I’ve been fortunate to make along the way with fellow Boost members.
And yeah.. without Boost I would probably had ended up in the traditional Economics career as a management consultant (so thank God for Boost). Instead Boost put me on a trajectory which led me through building and running multiple accelerator programs, being part of 21MEUR project funding mobile startups, leading the startup support of Microsoft in whole Finland and joining a kick-ass machine learning startup as their COO. So thanks Boost for saving me from a traditional work career.
