Stories, lessons and observations from years of mentoring, investing and building companies across the Nordic and Baltic startup ecosystem.
Helena Ojala’s question made me revisit every episode I had hosted. I discovered the strengths I can build on and how noticing, insight and small experiments help me grow.
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Why can a poor hire fill a leader’s desk with fires? Helena Ojala and Mikk Orglaan discuss fit, motivation, critical roles and how recruiters, HR and leaders work together.
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When should you train a salesperson, and when should you redesign the work? A 28-task activity map reveals which sales process appeals to them and why skill alone does not ensure they stay.
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Sales starts with the courage to talk to customers. Birgit Arus and Mikk Orglaan discuss how leaders can recognize people’s strengths, give them freedom and solve real management problems.
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When an investor asks the right HR questions, you can tell they've actually invested. Notes from BSV Ventures Deep Tech Demo Day in Helsinki — on the quality of investor questions, team risk, and why deep tech needs an even sharper understanding of people.
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This time Latitude59 turned out to be a positioning-sharpening event for Sparkly rather than an investor-hunting marathon. A story about why investor, founder and HR see the same team problem from completely different worlds — and what that means for Sparkly's message in the AI era.
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Malta is always great — especially when you arrive from the Nordic cold. This time Sparkly was there as a working product, not just an idea. There were about half as many contacts, but the conversations were twice as substantive. A story about why, in a startup's growth, the number of contacts isn't what matters most — what matters is whether people actually understand the problem you're solving.
Read MoreSkinnovation took place in Innsbruck again this March. This time I was on stage as a startup, not as an investor — and the role switch taught me a lot. A story about a two-minute pitch on an Olympic mountain train, personal lessons, and why structure wins over emotion in my head.
Read MoreStartup Adventures International's Vibe Code Atelier Demo Day #4 at LIFT99 Telliskivi hub. 8 minutes per speaker, live demos and networking — Mikk Orglaan presents Sparkly.hr alongside Ahmed Aleryani and Mikk Õun.
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Startup Day was back in Tartu. This time we went as a startup — Sparkly wasn't quite where I wanted it yet, but alive enough to spark real conversations, real questions and real interest. A story about a month of building, a marathon of meetings, and why early-stage doesn't need to wait for the final version.
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The first time on a big stage under the Sparkly HR name. The knee was shaking, the jury was tough and the story went a bit off track. But W3N in Narva left a deep impression — technical perfectionism, an international crowd and conversations you wouldn't have found elsewhere.
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I'm joining the Bridge to Scale program by 1991 Accelerator and EBRD as a mentor. A non-equity program helping Ukrainian founders across CEE and the EU strengthen investment readiness and scale globally — mentorship, warm investor intros, a Warsaw bootcamp, a Demo Day, and up to EUR 30,000 in business development grants.
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