#protomo

Week 40, visiting Promoto at the AAlto university, building in bulevardi, Helsinki, Finland

Protomo is a development community for starting businesses. In addition to a work space, that is provided to each entrepreneur teams, Promoto supports its community to develop their idea into a commercially viable business concept, boldly towards implementation with concrete action. In addition Promoto helps with its strong brand and networks to give advice and help to gain funding the entrepreneurs ideas.

This is the stuff dreams are made of. You quit your job and set out to do something, which many people tell you it can’t be done. You start slaving away night and day, weekends, and pour every free minute into proving that it can be done indeed. And then, less than two months after launch, it happens: The first call with someone proclaiming excitedly: “Thank you! We met our co-founder on Founder2be and now we are starting up with our startup.”

And that is exactly what happened last week. Aniekan had an idea for a B2B network bringing together government agencies, chambers of commerce and businesses: Ziliot. Together with Tuan they had been pondering about it for a while. In need for extra firepower on the development side, they were looking for an experienced co-founder to fill the CTO role.

So Aniekan registered at Founder2be. Browsing some profiles, he decided to contact Juha who has just the skills he was looking for. After sending a message around midnight, Juha responded 20 min later: “Let’s meet tomorrow.” And so they did.

This is how startups get started: You have an idea, you put together a team, and you start doing. It’s as simple as that. Anyone can take the first step. Nobody knows everything, and everyone knows something. With the right team, you can make it happen, too. And with Founder2be, the step of putting together a team has never been easier. What’s next for Ziliot? Now the real fun starts: Working hard on getting the product ready for launch, spreading the message, and finding customers. As for any startup, the path to success is long and rocky. In order to maximize the chances for success, the team at Ziliot is seeking advise and support by applying to the Protomo incubator in Jyväskylä.

We wish you success and hope you will surpass your own expectations. You are an example to all of us!

Who is next?

If you have an idea and you are looking to turn it into reality rather than just keep on thinking about it, find yourself a co-founder and get started.

And if you don't have an idea yourself, but you have skills and some time, make sure whoever has the idea for the next Twitter knows that you want in.

Or as Fred Wilson said: "If you have an idea that you can't get out of your head, do a startup. Otherwise join a startup."