Stories, lessons and observations from years of mentoring, investing and building companies across the Nordic and Baltic startup ecosystem.
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.
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Skinnovation 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.
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Startup 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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Engaged Investments is a Central European investor conference in Prague. This time I was on stage with Sparkly HR, talking about what everyone knows but nobody does systematically — how to actually evaluate a startup's team. A story about learning speed, AI's impact on the role of the human, and why valuing a person isn't about nice words but about the right person in the right role.
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Ten years of fierce competition, one mature agreement and a new beginning. Reflections from Riga.comm, where the Mailbow and Smaily teams stood together in front of a camera for the first time — and why we should have joined forces years earlier instead of out-competing each other on a small market.
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