Kiuas — Here to help you start up.
There are three primary realizations that inspired us to build Kiuas, and although these points primarily serve our direct community, our motivations are far reaching. We want to continue to explore how we can facilitate entrepreneurship in the Helsinki metropolitan area and push forward entrepreneurship education/awareness in the world as a whole.
Aaltoes is literally an entrepreneurship society. Despite this fact we felt not enough of our members were actively pursuing, experimenting, and trying out different business ideas. The whole purpose of Aaltoes is to connect people and give them a safe place to test the waters. Kiuas will provide our members and the broader community a great place to stop contemplating and get started. Theory can be learned in the classroom but nothing comes close to the skill and experience gained through action.
Since 2009 Aaltoes has done a fantastic job of creating cultural change regarding entrepreneurship in Finland. As a result, many successful startups have been founded and tons and tons of new students have been inspired every year by events such as Fall Up. Unfortunately inspiration is not enough and only execution counts. Through Kiuas we plan to help even more people take concrete steps towards their ideas and emphasize the importance of execution.
Another of the biggest problems we noticed was our inability to help folks on a 24/7 basis. Many people came to our open meetings with hopes of finding people or tools to start companies with. Unfortunately we always had to direct them to either help build our events or wait until our next event to participate. With Kiuas Incubator we will be able to give people an entrepreneurial outlet year round.
Kiuas facilitates the creation, development, and transformation of business ideas into early stage startups. By eliminating some of the biggest bottlenecks faced when starting up (finding missing cofounders, a place to work, mentorship) Kiuas provides a clear, fool proof way to either make it or break it with your business idea. From start to finish, Kiuas can help an idea get to the only thing that really matters: first paying users.
Kiuas has three parts, each designed to answer some of the most common problems faced when starting up:
Formerly known as Teamup Bootcamp.
So you have a great idea, maybe a friend you want to build it with, but you still need to find that guy with X skill set? Great. Come to Kiuas Team Up.
The three day event covers teaming up on Friday, idea generation and refining on Saturday, and pitching to an esteemed panel of judges on Sunday. Teams will even get a chance to meet some of the successful teams from last year’s program, some of which have made it to first paying customers and far far beyond. The best teams from Kiuas Team Up will advance to the next phase of Kiuas. Read more here.
Oh whats that? You have a validated idea and a strong team?
Welcome to Kiuas Incubator.
Kiuas Incubator is a collection of the hottest early stage startups in Finland, but most importantly Kiuas Incubator is a toolkit that provides these startups with 24/7/365 access to work space, access to a great minds network, and visibility through the Kiuas digital platform.
Formerly known as Summer of Startups.
Alright, I see you, you’ve got sisu, you’ve got spunk. You’ve built a great team, validated your idea, and now you have a product in some shape or form. Are you ready to take the last sprint and secure those first customers?
Enter Kiuas Accelerator, the last piece of the puzzle. Ten weeks of sprinting all for the sake of securing first cash flow, the life-blood of any venture. The intensive program includes close one-on-one coaching from industry experts, support from empowering partners, and teachings from entrepreneurs that have been there and done that.
Ultimately entrepreneurship is a lifestyle. It’s a culture. And it’s not easy.
It doesn’t culminate into one investor conference, one weekend of hacking, one inspiring keynote, or even one summer of gaining traction. It takes much much more than that. But thats okay, nothing feels better than progress and although progress is not guaranteed, personal development is. With Kiuas, those are the values we wish to convey.
Inside of Kiuas, making it or breaking it are the only options. There is no middle ground, you’re either racing to solve the next challenge of your venture or you’re forced to a stop because of x reason. Both outcomes are a win-win. The only way to fail is to not try at all, to be afraid to take steps in any direction, to be caught in inaction. Making it with your project is great. But breaking your project is also celebrated inside of Kiuas. The faster you break projects the faster you’ll find the project that makes it, and that’s why in the Kiuas, we run. We run boldly towards the next thing and of course occasionally run into walls.
Every sauna needs a kiuas. The home of Kiuas, and of course at the heart of Aaltoes, lies the beloved Startup Sauna. At the moment the team is working hard to renovate the place and transform it into a lean mean startup making machine. More info to come. Mark your calendar and join our next building day!
Are you ready to run?
Things are about to heat up.
🔥🔥 Applications to first phase of Kiuas are now open! Apply here.🔥🔥
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