Startup Commons

  • Startup Commons
    • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Our Customers
    • Services And Pricing
    • Our Business Model
    • Our Digital Solutions
    • Our History
    • Contact Us
    • Partner With Us
    • Request For Speakers
    • Job Opportunities
    • International Internships
  • Business Creators
    • About Business Creators
    • Creating Businesses
    • What Is A Startup
    • Startup Development Phases
    • Growth Academy Elearning Platform
    • Founders Shareholders' Agreement and Team Building Online Training
  • Support Providers
    • About Support Providers
    • Learn About Startup Ecosystem
    • Startup Development Phases
    • Providing Support Functions
    • Innovation Entrepreneurship Education
    • Innovation Entrepreneurship Curriculum
    • Growth Academy eLearning Platform
    • Certified Trainers
    • Become Growth Academy Provider In Your Ecosystem
    • Growth Academy Training On-Site By Startup Commons
  • Ecosystem Development
    • About Ecosystem Developers
    • What Is Startup Ecosystem
    • Ecosystem Development
    • Ecosystem Development Academy eLearning Platform
    • Subscribe to Support Membership
    • Ecosystem Operators
    • Development Funding
    • For Development Financiers
    • Startup Ecosystem Maturity
    • Case Studies
    • Submit Marketplace App Challenge
    • Become Ecosystem Operator
  • Digital Transformation
    • Digital Transformation
    • Ecosystem Operators
    • Apply To Become Ecosystem Operator
    • Applications Partnership
    • Ecosystem OS
    • Circle Pass User Accounts
    • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
    • Digital Ecosystem Applications
    • App Developers
  • Contact Us
  • Startup Commons
    • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Our Customers
    • Services And Pricing
    • Our Business Model
    • Our Digital Solutions
    • Our History
    • Contact Us
    • Partner With Us
    • Request For Speakers
    • Job Opportunities
    • International Internships
  • Business Creators
    • About Business Creators
    • Creating Businesses
    • What Is A Startup
    • Startup Development Phases
    • Growth Academy Elearning Platform
    • Founders Shareholders' Agreement and Team Building Online Training
  • Support Providers
    • About Support Providers
    • Learn About Startup Ecosystem
    • Startup Development Phases
    • Providing Support Functions
    • Innovation Entrepreneurship Education
    • Innovation Entrepreneurship Curriculum
    • Growth Academy eLearning Platform
    • Certified Trainers
    • Become Growth Academy Provider In Your Ecosystem
    • Growth Academy Training On-Site By Startup Commons
  • Ecosystem Development
    • About Ecosystem Developers
    • What Is Startup Ecosystem
    • Ecosystem Development
    • Ecosystem Development Academy eLearning Platform
    • Subscribe to Support Membership
    • Ecosystem Operators
    • Development Funding
    • For Development Financiers
    • Startup Ecosystem Maturity
    • Case Studies
    • Submit Marketplace App Challenge
    • Become Ecosystem Operator
  • Digital Transformation
    • Digital Transformation
    • Ecosystem Operators
    • Apply To Become Ecosystem Operator
    • Applications Partnership
    • Ecosystem OS
    • Circle Pass User Accounts
    • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
    • Digital Ecosystem Applications
    • App Developers
  • Contact Us

Startup Talks: "Seek for feedback and talk to potential customers" with Screenful

24/6/2014

Comments

 
Picture
Is your team working hard but running blind? Sami Linnanvuo, CEO & Co-founder of Screenful Oy, and his team found the solution that keeps teams constantly informed of their progress. Screenful is still in a progress of finding the best  Product Market Fit and is about to scale.

Describe Screenful in under 50 words.
Screenful develops business dashboards that help companies to track and optimize their operations. A key part of the concept is the introduction of large touch enabled screens as a new medium for sharing information in a modern office space. We call them Information Radiators since they "radiate" relevant information for the people working in that space, or for those passing by.

Tell us the Screenful story. How and why was this project born?
Screenful was born out of frustration with the current business intelligence tools on the market. In today's fast paced business, tracking your key metrics is essential as it enables you to foresee possible issues so that you can take action proactively, rather than do firefighting later. However, BI projects are notoriously expensive and the results are often poor due to the complexity of integrations and the lack of UX skills in the dashboard design. 

We wanted to make life easier for our customers by doing all this work for them and creating set dashboards that are both actionable and beautiful to look at. Since we've automated the whole process of setting up the dashboards, we can have new customers up & running in a matter of days or weeks rather than months as in traditional BI.

How do you see the future of Screenful in 5 years?
Well, that seems like an eternity in the life of a startup where lots of new things are happening every week. I'd expect that in 5 years we've made our name known internationally and we have operations outside Finland. By that time I hope that the hardware has evolved as well, making it possible to realize the whole product vision we have. We believe that in 5 years, large touch screens will be commonplace in offices and Screenful will be the leading vendor providing content to those screens. 

Could you share with us how you validated your product?
We followed the lean startup principles, and validated our hypotheses through customer interviews before committing to actually build the product. The learning we got from those interviews led to our first pivot, which wasn't so much about changing the core product offering, but about finding the right target audience. There was no way we could have figured that out without discussing with potential customers early on. 

We're still applying these tactics whenever planning new features. We are not ashamed of using "slideware" in our product demonstrations. If it turns out that there's no demand for the shiny new feature that we're about to build, we can just abandon it without much time invested.

What one piece of advice would you like to give to those who want to transform an idea into a business?
Think of ways to do validation early on before committing resources on actual implementation. In most cases the product that you plan to build can be emulated with something much simpler, e.g. using mockups instead of real UI, replacing automation with manual steps etc. Seek for feedback and talk to potential customers. Keep your eyes and ears open, and don't fall in love with your initial ideas. 

Screenful was founded in 2013. What are the main challenges faced so far?
When you start a new business you start from zero. You have no team, no product, no customers. Typically, at this stage you have no access to investors' money either. So what you need to do is to acquire a team who's willing to work without salary to get the demo ready, so you can start approaching customers and investors. There's no manual for these very early steps - you just have to be creative and sort it out somehow. 

Perhaps the biggest challenge is to stay optimistic even though all odds are against you. It's all about selling your ideas - to your spouse, your team members, your investors, your customers. If you don't believe your ideas yourself, then you can't sell it to others so you first need to sell it yourself!

What are you most excited at the moment?
I'm ultimately a product guy so I'm constantly excited to see our product vision becoming a reality day by day. Also, seeing that our team dynamics work and we're getting things done without glitches makes me believe that we're ready for whatever challenges we might face down the road. 

Startup Ecosystem in Helsinki is doing pretty well and it is becoming into a hot spot in Europe Startup Scene. What kind of services are you receiving from them? What do you miss?
We have indeed very active startup ecosystem in Helsinki nowadays. We have some great events, meetups and all sorts of coaching programs for growth startups. It's not always been like that and I recall the times not so many years ago when none of this activity existed. 

We're finally even seeing some co-working spaces popping up, which we've lacked so far, as evidenced by the army of people working with their laptops in cafes. I'm looking forward to see those empty office spaces or warehouses converted into modern co-working spaces as they've done London and other major startup capitals. 

Comments
    Our Services
    Supporting startup ecosystem development, from entrepreneurship education, to consulting to digital infrastructure for connecting, measuring and international benchmarking.
    Picture
    ​Subscribe for updates
    Startup ecosystem development updates with news, tips and case studies from cities around the world. 
    Subscribe

    Join Us?

    Are you interested to join our global venture to help develop startup ecosystems around the world? 
    Learn more...
    ​

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    July 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    July 2013
    June 2013

    Categories

    All
    Accelerator
    Africa
    Asia
    Australia
    Commitment
    Concepting
    Design
    Digital
    Ecosystem
    Establishing
    Europe
    Event
    Growth
    Incubator
    Infrastructure
    Innovation
    Investment
    Leadership
    Lean Startup
    Mentor
    North America
    Report
    Scaling
    Startups
    Team
    Validation
    Vietnam
    Vision

    RSS Feed

Startup ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
To Scale INNOVATION Entrepreneurship

Business
​Creators

What is a Startup?
Startup Development Phases
Business Creation
​
Growth Academy eLearning 

​​Support
​Providers

Supporting Startups
​
Startup Curriculum
​
From Technology Transfer to Open IPR
Support Providers
​Knowledge Center
​
Funding Sources
Growth Academy eLearning ​

​​Ecosystem
​Developers

What is Startup Ecosystem?
​From Innovation Ecosystems to Startup Ecosystems
Startup Ecosystem Development
Startup Ecosystem Maturity
Ecosystem Developers 
​
Development Funding 

Ecosystem Operators

About Ecosystem Operators
Funding Sources
​Digital Ecosystem Applications

EcosystemOS​


Picture
Subscribe to our mailing list
Entrepreneurship, innovation and startup ecosystem development updates, with news, tips and results from cities and organizations around the world.  #startupecosystem
Subscribe
Growth Academy eLearning | Resources | Blog
Join Us | Sharing Policy
Picture
Service by Digiole Oy
​© 2023 Digiole Oy some rights reserved