Building leaders with passion and purpose

0:01 This is Talks with Petri show and today's guest is Hans-Peter Siefen. Welcome. Thank you Petri. Good to be here. Happy to have you. You have built an exceptional company with your co-founder Juri Linden. What are the secrets for your success? Well exceptional is of course difficult but we have had at least a passion to the sport. We started Nordic Business Forum out of our own experience as young business boys attending our first business seminars back in. I attended my first one as a 19-year-old boy in 2003.

1:00 And yeah, sort of those experiences from different inspiring business seminars changed my thinking and taught me a lot and kind of changed my life and made me an entrepreneur as well. So with that kind of an experience, you have more passion in what you do since basically the idea or the dream of starting something like Nordic Business Forum came from that experience and those experiences. So I think passion and the strong feel of purpose is really key and important to making something really significant. But since I stick to my claim that you have made something exceptional, we can go a bit further, you know, what are the elements on that, but I think it takes a bit more.

2:05 You know, passion is important. And if I've understood that you've been really wanting to do training and learning for a long time, so that's basically you're fulfilling your dream. But did you have some benchmarks or some best practices? Because you started to do it from the very first international phone call a bit differently than the regular other event organizers of people who are providing training and conferences. Yeah, so on the side of my studies, I worked as a sales representative for quite some time, some years before starting Nordic Business Forum. And during those years, I attended a lot of sales-related conferences and also got to organize quite a few.

3:02 But I mean, our experience when we actually got started was still quite vague in terms of building something really top of the line. And it was not top of the line from the beginning, I think. Well, at least the guests were top of the line in a way. Well, you are now thinking about the 2011 edition with Al Gore, I suppose, but that was not the first one. The first annual main event we had was a year earlier with only Finnish keynote speakers. And it was not close or it was not in the same category of what Nordic Business Forum is nowadays, 11 years later. But it was enough and done with thought to surprise the audience that we had at that time.

4:03 So we had 700 people in the room, originally aimed at 500. Most of them were entrepreneurs from really small companies, micro companies, a lot of people who were probably still also only dreaming of their own company. And very few experienced business leaders, so to say. So the expectations were also lower and they were still lower, quite low, I would assume in 2011 when we managed to bring in Al Gore and we had Sauli Ninista and so on. big figures, but still the expectations from our audience were much lower than what they naturally are nowadays when we actually produce one of the best business conferences that there is on planet Earth, I believe. So it was easier to make mistakes and learn on the way. And anyway, we were playing above the expectations of our customers.

5:23 So that's always enough, I guess. Have you been raising those expectations year by year? Or is it like that you want to delight the customers more? Or what keeps you going? And you mentioned the planet Earth. So is the next level going to the Moon or Mars or the International Space Station? Or how can you delight more? Is there a limit? So far we haven't found a planet on which there would be competition. But yeah, I mean, we have been really passionate about becoming better at this all the time every year through the feedback, through the experiences, through benchmarking all over the world, through reading, through watching videos, through our own ideas and innovation.

6:23 So the events have improved and the way in which we organize them have improved both in terms of content and curation, but also in terms of audiovisual technology, drama, catering, logistics, all has improved. And naturally, when your reputation grows And when the experiences from the existing loyal customers sum up, the expectations rise up. So, like in any business, you need to be constantly innovating and constantly improving to not only satisfy, but also hopefully surprise your customers positively.

7:17 and if you manage to do it, you keep your customers quite well. So if you surprise your customers positively, they will stay most probably. And then if at the same time you work diligently with sales and marketing, with acquiring new customers, then you grow. And that's basically the simple growth formula that we have had. in terms of organic growth. And kind of this has helped with the unorganic growth as well. We have done some M&A activities when expanding to new countries. Some of them have been successful, some luckily few, but not all have been successful.

8:08 But it has been easier to go about M&A activities when you have a reputation and people actually want to learn from you and they see synergies in terms of joining forces and so on. So that's how it goes, step by step. If the first event was like MVP in a startup world, could we actually just make a tiny exercise and think about, like you said, you've been improving things over the years and picking up different bits and pieces and making them significantly better. And now over 10 years, you made also a documentary, which I recommend everybody to watch, you know, see what's the spectacle before the COVID hit. So 2019 event.

8:58 So for example, I remember in the very beginning, you did a lot of sales. So it was a cold calling and it was maybe four fifth of the whole, you know, fulfilling the selling the tickets that was basically with direct sales. And then you started also with the matchmaking application 2011 already, Prella or was it around that time, at least experimenting. So there are these elements which been coming. So maybe you could run through and I can obviously, you know, contribute and help us well to sort of, you know, maybe analyze and pick up you know that how do you build a hugely successful and exceptional event in 10 years year by year yeah we don't need to go all the years but i mean that you know the speaking sort of the components which are crucial yeah like you said we well both you yuri and myself uh and it It was only me and Yuri for the first one and a half years, I believe, or something.

10:11 We come from a sales background, so we are pretty simple sales boys. And the only thing we thought we knew well was selling. Of course, we started doing content, newsletters and a blog and social media, Facebook and so forth right from the beginning and that was important but we mainly filled the first events with sales and also when we made the first recruitments the first others were also focused on sales. I think the first person who came in whose primary focus area was not sales was in late 2011 probably.

11:08 And that role was then customer service. And as you said, I believe it was like four-fifths of the new acquired customers were through sales efforts, sales meetings and sales calls. but then on the other hand and the rest one fifth was through marketing but then on the other hand when year over year we were able to keep the existing customers with a very high percentage you need to acquire a loyal customer only once if you keep the customer well So the loyalty and also when you build a brand, you build a reputation. People buy much more through marketing.

12:09 So year over year, the number of new customers acquired through marketing also grew all the time. And nowadays it's bigger through marketing than sales usually. And then... It's also very international. Is it like 40 different nationalities at least in the event? Yeah, in Helsinki, 50 different nationalities last time. So, and then... How many people just for the audience as well to give a sort of magnitude of the event? 7,655 if I remember correctly in the previous one. plus the exhibitors and so on. So that's just for the ticket holders. But then on the other hand, we now operate in Norway. The company Norway Oslo Business Forum was mainly run up through marketing efforts. Same in Amsterdam or Netherlands where we where we started out through an acquisition now in April this year. Denk Produkseys, which is the name of the company over there, has operated for 18 years and basically only through marketing.

13:28 So they have never had a dedicated person or a sales team who would be contacting customers. Well, yeah, there is one nowadays, but that's for bigger group sales. And so there are different ways to go about it. What we knew was sales and that's how we got started. And luckily, luckily it succeeded. Yeah. So, but it's not the only path that can be taken. I believe the best case is that you have a clever combination of both sales and marketing. Also, if you just run on marketing, at least in our business, you waste a lot of good opportunities in terms of reaching out personally to your old clients, existing happy customers who just did not activate to purchase again without contacting them or similar many types of prospects who have shown interest and it might be the defining thing for you to be in contact with them. One of the things which is quite exceptional, I'm using that word a lot now, is that you sold out when you still have the event going in the last final minutes or in the next days, you will basically sell the next one already for the existing customers who go there.

15:07 When did that come about? How did you come up with the concept? Because I don't think that's a regular way usually events are sold. It's like probably the dream of an event organizer to have it sold out almost like a year before, but that usually that seldom happens. Yeah, that was built in the business idea, the business concept that we had when we started. So that's how we operated from day one. And we never sold out the next year's event immediately. Well, once we did sell out the capacity that we had planned for the next year in six days, and that meant five and a half thousand seats I believe in six days a year before the next year's event so that was indeed quite exceptional but then did you collect all the money as well so you had basically the budget to do the things yeah well yeah there were different schedules for payments which the customer could choose but we got all of that money very early so that's also also one thing that helps us with our business model, of course. But even then, we then found a way to add some more seats. So we then continued sales, I believe. Well, we sold out finally also extremely early that year. But anyway, so yeah, that has been something that we have done already in the very first event in 2010 when launching the next year's event for 2011 with Al Gore and so on.

16:48 And I don't remember the exact quantities, but I believe that we probably indeed had 700 people in the audience and we probably sold like 600 tickets for the next year. But of course, the event next year then. Originally, we had a plan of making it 1,200 attendees, but it was then 1,800 or 700, if I remember correct. So that has been built in the original idea on how we want to go about growing the business. And it requires, I mean, usually you sell tickets to an event very late, before the event begins.

17:38 And when you have uncertainty about how this year is going to play out, it's very difficult to build the next year's details yet. It's difficult to commit to expenses for next year. So you need to kind of be building at least two events, two major events, 12 months apart from each other at the same time to be able to launch the next year's event in an attractive way. That requires quite a lot, but that's how we have been just doing from day one. And so far it has been good for us. Then there's also the cultural aspect in the documentary. It's shown that you have almost a thousand people at the day of the event, working for the event.

18:29 There's volunteers, there's a lot of people involved. How did you build the culture and get everyone sort of organized for those things? Because the magic happens on those days and there are some magical moments in there. And you try to create also some magic. Maybe you can give some examples of what those magical things are. But it doesn't happen automatically. You need to build that. Yeah. The 1,000 people that you referred to, I'm not sure how much it is during the event days exactly, or I should look into it, but it's close to 1,000 during the event build-up week and the event days and the build-down days. And in many cases, the people who build up the event or many of those people are different than the ones who run the event during the run days.

19:26 But all in all, it's almost a thousand people. Regarding the culture and how we have built it, I believe it boils down to what I mentioned in the beginning. So the strong feel of purpose. we are really purpose-driven in our business. And that's how this thing originated. Is it coming from you and Yuri or did you sort of bring it away or did it come from the speakers or it was sort of combination of all of the above? Well, I guess, of course, a combination of all of the above, but I believe it originated from the way in which we actually got the idea and how we felt a strong feeling of meaning and that's why we were attracted to start doing this.

20:30 So that's where it has originated from the founders' feel of meaning and purpose, I guess. and that's where the passion originated from. And I believe that's how it's for everyone working for the event also. So there is a strong feel of meaning and purpose when producing the event and that leads into passion. So people really, they want to make it magnificent. They want to make it really valuable for the customer. And part of making it valuable for the customer in terms of learning and networking is that you build it into an experience through drama, through AV as well.

21:32 Sounds a bit boring, but definitely plays a part in building up the feeling and the experience. When does the experience start? You know, if I'm the conference, I buy the ticket now. So can you sort of define, you know, how do you plan it? Or is there sort of particular moments where you know, one year before you start to remind that this is happening soon and be ready? Well, in the best case, I think it starts maybe even before and it's built in the brand if you succeed over time, I guess. But it starts with the sales process. So people having a good feeling when they are approached through marketing or through active sales work.

22:28 and they get a smile on their face when they purchase. That would be a good way to start thinking of it. And then also, I mean, we of course try to pay attention to all of the communication, pre-communication and so on, but really when we meet the customer at the first time, For example, at the railway station when they arrive or at the garage when they park their car. We aim to treat them in an exceptional manner with smile, with attention to detail and care. And yeah, what I was about to mention as an important part of the experience is the service and the care that we try to give for each of the customers, even if it's a really large event with thousands of visitors.

23:39 Yeah, and the work that our team has been doing on that end, the customer service end, and all of the students who work at the event, or in the early days led by Mikko Jaatinen, who was leading those operations with us, and nowadays by Salla Seppa, and also others in our team. the work has been just exceptional. I mean, the spirit within all of the students who have different roles in the customer service end of the event, that's just exceptional. You mentioned some of the surprises and so on. That comes down to small things like opening the or giving a friendly smile, but also in actions when someone's high heel gets broken. And you find a way to serve them with a spare pair of shoes.

24:38 And during the next speech, go to the carpenter, or how do you call it? The man who fixes shoes anyway. and then you bring the shoe back, the heel fixed when the next break begins. Those are magical things that you can do if you have enough love and dedication to the sport. And that of course creates a lot of happy customers and also a lot of visibility on social media sometimes as well. All of which has has contributed to making our events grow. Is it becoming harder to sort of delight or surprise the 10 year old regular customers who are your loyal loyal customers for over a decade?

25:38 Yeah, kind of, kind of, I believe. Although it's perhaps a bit easier on the new markets. I mean, we can do things that we have found really successful during the years as new things on a new market for a new customer base. And each year there is also a lot of new customers at Nordic Business Forum in Finland, also. But yeah, but still we also get better each year. So always from the previous event and and from other opportunities we learn and we can do things better each year. And sometimes we innovate on something totally new. And of course we aim to do that every time so that we would surprise the customers in a big way. But with not only focusing on the next customer service trick, I mean the main thing is anyway the value that we try to provide the customers with through the world leading business thinkers and the networking opportunity around it. So we are not still trying to become a customer service showcase or a circus. We are trying to maximize or optimize the value that we produce for the customers. And all of these experience stuff around it just contributes to people's learning. I mean, usually most business seminars are boring.

27:43 You have a lot of people who battle against falling asleep. And that's what the coffee is for. They're usually just, you know. Yeah, and I mean, there is a lot of coffee consumed at Nordic Business Forum as well, definitely. But that doesn't contribute to learning or better networking. What contributes to learning is that you make the customer excited and you awaken emotions within the customers through different ways of drama and experience. And then the customer is awake and the customer is learning and really getting value out of it. So all of it in the end contributes to the actual main thing that we are trying to serve the business community with, which is also new ideas and new networks. There's also a lot of details, tiny things which add up to the total experience. For those who are not seeing this as a video, can you describe what's behind you and where it's coming from. Ah yeah I'm at our Jyväskylä office which is our headquarters kind of and here we have well this is our second office so this is not the actual building where we started off but anyway I have one piece of art behind me it's made out of logs Perch tree logs and it's one of the states decoration elements that we were using at the previous Nordic business forum in 2019. So yeah it's a beautiful piece of art and yeah that's all that I can tell of about it I believe. You also been doing some voluntary things inspiration for you

29:55 and was it 2019 you also bring some young ballet dancers also to from the opposite side of the planet and and what's the inspiration for doing these things can you elaborate a bit you know how they came about? hmm yeah with with uh yeah well inspiration for two we we indeed we How it came about was that in 2011, a bit before the second big event we had, or the first actually big one with Al Gore, we watched a recording from a conference in the United States where Blake Maikoski was speaking.

30:47 Blake is the founder of Tom's Shoes, and they have this policy of one plus one. Buy one and donate one. Yeah, one for one. I don't remember the phrase now, but anyway, the idea, you buy a pair of shoes, and someone who doesn't have shoes also receives a pair of shoes, thanks to your purchase. And yeah, we were just inspired about that and thought how, what kind of an idea could work for us in the same manner. And then from 2012 to 2016, for each ticket purchased, we visited a school and met, gave a lecture on entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship to a student. So we probably visited a school 250 times during those years, different schools, some schools with new students twice all over Finland.

31:59 And yeah, that's how it came about, that part. And then the other one you mentioned, the ballet dancers from Peru, who are from a slum or from a less wealthy area anyway in Lima. ja jotka eivätkä olevan aloittain huomioon, jota on ollut hommoinen huomioista enemmän huomioista. Mutta sitten on ollut seurin Lima-oara-ballettimisessa, joka haluaa tehdä mahdollisimman joitain some young children from less wealthy families over there.

32:51 And we saw a video of this magnificent story online and invited them in. In many cases, you can teach a valuable story. You can inspire someone to do something similar, something meaningful through having these things as a part of the drama that you build into the event. And I mean, laughter is powerful if you make people laugh, but moving people also in tears sometimes is even more. It needs to be a combination, of course, You don't want everyone to be crying throughout two days, but it's good to really move people in emotions.

33:46 And sometimes we succeed really well, sometimes not as well. We look for different ways on doing so, and hopefully in a meaningful way. And you give some examples over the last 10 years of highlights, and why not also something which you think was amazing and didn't work out exactly as planned. Yeah. In general, the ones that have worked exceptionally well have been the ones that have had a really meaningful, touching story to them. Like in 2014, we brought also something called landfill orchestra from...

34:48 I don't remember, probably Columbia or Ecuador, I believe. I have weakness in memory here at the moment, But we have, we actually, yeah, it was 2015 now that I remember better. So in 2014, one of our speakers, Sir Ken Robinson, who passed away last year, I believe. I think his TED talk was one of the most watched in the world at least one point. And one of his examples about innovation and creativity during his keynote speech in 2014 was this landfill orchestra. The young children from a poor area with their teacher as well.

35:49 And then for 2015, we just wanted to work on finding that orchestra, which we found online nowadays, of course. And it was actually quite difficult to get an answer. I was contacting them a lot in English myself. And then after a while, we thought that, hey, Mikko speaks Spanish. So let's let Mikko try. And then he got an immediate answer. Or at least much more easily an answer. And we were able to bring them in. And in the beginning of the conference, we kind of rewinded the previous year's conference in the opening video where Söker and Robison told about this example on creativity from Columbia or Ecuador.

36:46 Anyway, Landfill Orchestra being the case. And then when the video ended, Landfill Orchestra with all of the young people in it were on stage and started playing with the instruments made out of carpets that they are using. And it was a really touching, a really powerful story. There are quite a few similar ones and those have been usually the most successful ones. If I need to think of something that really failed as a surprise, I don't believe that we had one that really, really failed. But of course there have been more and there have been less powerful ones. So, yeah, that's just one example.

37:46 What are the most memorable moments, you know, something you have personally surprised, you know, from the speakers or from the guests or just from the audience as well, you know, over the years who have sort of blown you away with whatever, you know, the way. That's rather easy. I think Jim Collins, Jack Welch and Arnold Schwarzenegger have been the ones to blow me away personally the most. They were all, well, Jim is one of a kind. I guess they are, all of them are one of the kind. Yeah, all of them are one of the kind. And Jim is just amazing in his cleverness. And he really, we had a cup of tea.

38:37 He wanted to have a cup of tea on the previous day before Nordic Business Forum at the hotel in Helsinki. And he just... You couldn't refuse, even though I guess you would have been kind of busy for organizing the event as well. Well, what would be more important than to ensure that the speaker has all of the information he or she needs to make the presentation on the next day marvelous. So that was definitely a top priority. And he really, he taught me, he asked what business are we in or what are we actually doing from my point of view. I don't remember what I answered, but he said that you are building business leaders.

39:31 And that's the most valuable thing for the society that you can do, to build better leaders. That has huge effects. And that then was a really meaningful way to say what we are doing and what's the meaning of it internally and externally as well later on. Jim is my hero in terms of many business lessons. And then Jack... So he actually changed your business as well. Kind of. Yeah, in many ways. We have also much before ever meeting him, we have built a big part of our strategy on his teaching and so on.

40:24 But Jack Welch, wow, an amazing persona, was really bright, really warm. He was at Nordic Business Forum in 2013 in Jyväskylä, the last year in Jyväskylä, which was a really magical year. in all ways. For those who don't know the geography in Finland too well, Uvascula is not exactly close to Helsinki. You almost have to fly there or drive many, many hours. And how big was the venue at that last event there? Well, we had 3,319 seats. I think I remember that one quite exactly, 3,319. And it would have been challenging to have more, not only in terms of the venue capacity, but also in terms of the hotel capacity in, well, close by Jyväskylä.

41:33 But anyway, Czech was absolutely fantastic. And the way in which he was helpful during the dinners or how interested he was and how warm he was and so on was exceptional. And then also later on for 2017, I believe, I was attending C2 Montreal conference for benchmarking and learning in Montreal. And during my trip, we sold out the Helsinki event. And that was in April or May for the event in late September or early October. I don't remember which it was. And I opened up Twitter and I saw Jack Welch sending me a public tweet, tweeting congratulations.

42:32 He was visiting in 2013 and in 2017, early 2017 when we sold out the 2017 event, Jack Welch tweets a congratulation to me on Twitter. Also, about the same year or a year later or a year earlier, I'm not sure, but we had a topic internally that we really needed to pay attention to and discuss that the topic was culture. And we had a pre-Christmas gathering coming up in which we usually have a content part as well. And I was thinking that who would be a good visiting remote speaker for us. And then I thought that, well, Jack Welch would at least be someone exceptional to speak to us on this topic a bit and help us understand culture better.

43:32 And I sent him an email asking that, would it be, I'm pretty sure that I should not even send this email. and it will not be probably possible and we can't afford it probably and so on. But we have this situation and I wanted to discover if we could afford having you do a remote session for us on this topic during our pre-Christmas party, so to say. And he responded that I'm happy to do it free of charge. So that's how it was then. And that's to me that's pretty amazing. I even sent him an email actually a few months before he died now. In March 2019, he passed away.

44:30 No, 2020, March 2020 during COVID or just before the beginning of COVID basically in the United States. Yeah, I sent him an email. Don't remember. I had some silly, silly idea again, but but he responded. That's amazing to me. How old was he when he died? Is it a Google or something? You know, hard to do, you know, I don't remember. 85. Yeah, yeah, so he was old. Pretty old. Roughly something like that. Not exactly, but something like that. and Arnold Schwarzenegger was also really warm person who was bright and interested about what we were doing. And he was one of your early guests, was it 2013 or? No, 14. A year after Jack Welch.

45:28 Yeah, yeah. Well, there are small, really small moments in which I was close to Schwarzenegger, but those moments were exceptional in the way he was present. And, of course, he made quite a contribution on stage. His session was amazing. After the session, when we were going from backstage, with all the security cards around. And he was going to a small photo opportunity with a sponsor reactor actually upstairs. And we needed to go through the masses of people. When we exited backstage in the room, which we entered when we exited, There was a VIP evening that was just about to start, and there were waiters with sparkling on their plates.

46:37 And Schwarzenegger stopped, and he went to one waiter, took two glasses of sparkling, gave me one, and took another one and said that now it's time to celebrate. And then we had a small moment of a sip of sparkling. Yeah, he was very kind and a very clever man as well. So these three stand out as a personal experience to me. There's so many. The list is huge. You know, it's like who is who in the... There was Will Smith, George Clooney, all walks of life. Barack Obama. Yeah. All kinds of... Yes. Then you had a one person who was supposed to come to your Christmas party, but something more urgent almost happened.

47:30 Well, yeah, no, no, all kinds of things happen, of course, all the time. Yeah. Now we are in fall of 2020 and COVID is still a thing, but something has changed. -Volta olet jatkoi heiltä yleisöstä? -Oi. -Olet olet aina liikkohtaisesti. Voitko sanoa se, miten heidän näyttäisiä, miten heitä heiltä ja yleisöstä? -Kyllä. Olen jatkaistunin kaksi yleisöstä. this fall. One in Sweden, not our own event, but through an organization which I'm a member in, Founders Alliance. And then we had last week our first bigger live event, which was downsized due to COVID, but we had 750 attendees in Oslo at the Oslo Business Forum.

48:37 Yeah, it was quite an amazing experience to experience the bus. The bus when people arrived, I was like, I took a video and pictures to Yuri, my founding partner, that this feels amazing. When people came in and the start of the conference and the actual learning in the room when being physically present, We also had thousands of people participating remotely online and really, really good feedback from all of them, for all of them as well. But of course, now after a really long while, being able to attend in person was amazing. And of course, even our own events. So it felt great.

49:26 Next time, I'm going to Copenhagen in the beginning of November. now in October actually one event also in Helsinki and then Slush also in the beginning of December that's a must always and then probably more in the beginning of next year attending these is of course really important for us who work in the industry as well but also in terms of course becoming better as a leader and as a business builder. I love the possibility to learn at these kinds of events. Slush has been also pretty well done. I must almost say exceptional event in the startup field.

50:19 Exceptionally indeed. And I think I remember once I attended many years, not all of them, but almost. I came early and there was a sound or audio atmosphere there. There was bird singing and somebody actually mixed live environment. When you come in the early morning, you're sipping your first cup of coffee and there's basically no one around. There's nice, you know, I probably called it business disco at some point. You know, there was nice lights and it was just not any typical conference hall or trade fair hall. It was just something completely different. And you even have the sound environment there that, you know, there were birds singing and different stuff happening. And you could just basically close your eyes and just listen. And that was just experience.

51:08 And that was before the event actually started. And there's so many aspects in Slush as well. Yes. Do you compare notes? Do you compete somehow, you know, friendly? why it happens that there's two conferences physically even in the same conference place happening which are exceptional. Yeah it's quite a miracle especially in a country of this size in Finland. I mean we have the biggest Nordic business forum type of a conference and the biggest SLUS type of a conference both originated from Finland out of all of the Nordic countries and and even on European and global level they are they are exceptional ones. Yeah I've been Depending a bit on the year, Slush has had a few CEOs during the time of Nordic Business Forum's existence and Slush has had approximately the same length of existence and with some of them I've been more in contact than with others but we have been in contact all the time during the years and definitely learning from each other. We haven't had any formal partnership of any kind, but yeah, it's magnificent to get ideas from others and become better together.

52:57 What did? And I do it. I also am in frequent contact with multiple different event organizers, business event organizers from different countries. So that's an important way to build a network and and build ideas and get ideas and so on. Definitely. Can you name a few other awesome events like yours in the world which are really like top of the class? Yeah. C2 Montreal, I mentioned once already, it's quite exceptional. It's a bit more directed for the creatives than Nordic Business Forum content-wise and so on.

53:52 But still, I mean, anyone who attends Nordic Business Forum would also find a lot from C2 Montreal and vice versa, probably. It's a beautiful conference. Of course, Circo du Soleil and Sid Lee and so on, they are founding partners. So there is plenty of expertise in terms of drama and AV and all kinds of stuff, design that contributes to the C2 Montreal conference. Then, well, there is plenty. Of course, there is the TED conference, the main event of TED is quite an interesting experience.

54:43 I managed to get in. I mean, you need to apply to purchase a ticket worth of 10,000 USD. You need to apply to purchase it. And I got it for five as a first timer. There was a quota, if I remember correct, to get a ticket for 5,000 euros or USD. I managed to get in 2018 and it was quite a great experience. And in different ways, all of these are interesting in different ways. World Business Forum events are also great, especially in terms of content. and it's a franchise that has succeeded internationally.

55:41 They operate in about 10 different countries. Wobi, World of Business Ideas and the World Business Forum conferences are great and I'm quite a lot in touch with the CEO of Wobi. Yeah, there are plenty of really interesting ones to learn from. And of course, the ones that we also now play a part in Oslo Business Forum and the Deng Productions events with especially the big ones, the Amsterdam Business Forum and so on, They are also top of the line to get inspired with and learn from. So there is plenty.

56:36 When COVID hit, you needed to cancel like almost all the other event organizers, your annual event. And can you describe how did you, what did you need to do? You know, all that stuff now in retrospect, because it's sort of busy already light on the tunnel, but not everything goes back to the same. And you also missed a few of the events because you canceled this year's event as well. So there's a skip of two of them now. So how do you restart? And what are your feelings for the future? Well, my feelings are pretty bright for the future. It is of course sad that we needed to cancel two events for which we were really working hard at in Helsinki and also in Oslo.

57:37 In Oslo, we had a smaller version last week. the restrictions in Oslo and the COVID situation in Oslo played out in a bit different manner than in Finland during the summer and now in September as well. But yeah, it was of course a huge disappointment and not probably also I hope for a lot of customers or at least some customers as well I hope it was a disappointment but we are really excited about 2022 and I believe it will be one of the biggest and greatest, if not the biggest and the greatest year, with also more events than before in more countries.

58:40 And yeah, it's exciting to get. We have now gotten to full speed working with the 2022 events. And the sales situation is good. A lot of customers have maintained their tickets despite the canceled events in between. And yeah, if COVID does not bring us more surprises, I'm really confident about 2022 and the future in general as well. So a lot of excitement and a lot of growth plans ahead of us. You also diversified from the very beginning your business. So you had another side of the business which is run by Yuri. Can you tell a bit more about that?

59:31 And that's probably helped also during the years when the events were down and the revenues obviously quite significantly if not all of them. Yes. Well, yeah, it's a totally different business. So at the same time when, so it's not part of the same company, it's part of the same group. We have with Yuri, my co-founding partner, we have something called the Nordic Business Group, which owns the Business Forum group, including Nordic Business Forum, Oslo Business Forum, and Denk Productions, and Amsterdam Business Forum in the Netherlands. And then we have another subsider within real estate. We started with our first real estate.

1:00:25 We bought our first apartments with Yuri quite simultaneously with starting Nordic Business Forum. That was 2009. And that has grown. Originally, we did real estate things and Nordic Business Forum things in just one and the same company. But there is not much common in them as a business. So in 2012, we separated the businesses into their own companies, which are totally separate, except for the same mother, the same mother company, Nordic Business Group. So the real estate has been good and it has been profitable. So in a way it has helped.

1:01:16 I mean, we have had good years, but there has not been any financial support during COVID from our real estate company to the business forum companies. So there is not a connection. There is no such connection in these times. But yeah, Yuri has been responsible for our real estate operations And I've been responsible for the business forum operations. And that's how it has been for quite a long time. And we both then are active in the board of directors of both companies. Or I'm active in the board of directors of the real estate operation.

1:02:07 And Yuri is active in the board of directors of the business forum operation. So that's the connection. So it's just basically because you have different interests, you just want to do stuff together, so you have different divisions, and that's basically the reason for the two lines of businesses, more or less. Yeah, we were both active on both in the very beginning, but then when both grew, I mean, you need to have a lot of focus on both. And Yuri ended his operational roles at Nordic Business Forum in 2018, early 2018, when Aslak joined as the CEO of Nordic Business Forum.

1:03:04 That's when Yuri ended his operational roles, but he's very active. And especially through the strategy level. And I stopped focusing on anything operational on the real estate side in 2011 or 2012. So quite early. And Yuri has had the operational stuff under his fingers on the real estate business. What about the international expansion? Can you walk us through how that's been happening and what can be learned from your experience? And maybe there's some stories as well.

1:03:56 Yeah, so we of course started to try to attract international attendees to Nordic Business Forum, especially already in 2012. And we also managed to get some international attendance, especially from Estonia, but also from other countries. I mean, was there any particular reason it was Estonia and not like Poland or it could have been Sweden or? Yeah, there were people attending also from Sweden and multiple other countries, but a bit more from Estonia than others. Of course, the travel from Estonia to Helsinki is very simple.

1:04:46 It's quicker than come to Helsinki from Jyväskyl where I am today, you know? So it's close by. It's very convenient and close by. So if you have customers in large quantities from Oulu or Tampere or Jyväskylä or Turku, why not from Tallinn? I mean, it's equally close or closer to Helsinki. Then for 2013 we wanted to recruit personnel in Estonia. So in November 2012 we started an office in Tallinn and led by Preet Leiv who has had magnificent success in Estonia and the Baltic countries.

1:05:41 He's now the COO of Nordic Business Forum. And yeah, we also had good start, good traction for 2014 in Russia. And we had an employee in Russia from late 2013 to 2016 or such. 2014 was extremely promising. We had quite a good group coming from there. But then, you know, there were...

1:06:30 And we even announced that we will have an event in Russia. Not like a Nordic Business Forum event, but something we called Business Summit, if I remember correct. We were planning it for 2015, around May in 2015. And we, if I remember correctly, it could have been earlier in 2015. And we announced that we have such a plan. And we already were confirming speakers for it. We were planning that we will start an event in Russia in longer term as well. But then after the Olympic Games, the Winter Olympic Games, the rubble rate started to fly in all kinds of ways. And then the war in Ukraine came about and we retreated with that plan.

1:07:30 It was challenging and it has been ever since challenging with customers or attracting customers from Russia. and of course now also with COVID and other reasons. So then we shifted our focus and hopes to Sweden more than Russia and we initiated an event in Sweden in 2017 and it has not been easy. In Sweden, the start was much more difficult than in Estonia for many different reasons, I believe. But we had a sold out event in 2019.

1:08:21 So we had events 2017, 2018, 2019, promising situation 2020. Well, the sales and marketing for 2020 started in a bit sticky way. but anyway we needed then to cancel the event due to COVID like all of our events everywhere in Sweden we have not yet scheduled the next event in Sweden it was called Nordic Business Forum Sweden and then we in 2018 we started off in Norway we joined forces with a small rather small conference organizer who contacted me first time in 2013. He had had the idea of starting something called the Nordic Business Forum and then he found out that it already existed and we started to speak about whether we should collaborate in Norway and we started that in 2018. And then we had an event on our own, a really successful one in 2018, a small, I mean 500 seats, but a successful sold out 500 seat event, if I remember correct, might have been a bit more than 500, but anyway.

1:09:43 And 2019 was sticky, had some problems internally. But anyway, we had the event in 2019 and at the 2019 event, we announced that we had an M&A activity with Oslo Business Forum. We joined forces with Oslo Business Forum, which has been a wonderful ride with them together, learning from each other. It has a pretty similar founding story to ourselves, although a few years later, six years later than us, two young guys, Marius and Christopher, from the Norwegian business school BI in Oslo, very similar to us, and it's wonderful to work together and yeah also in 2018 we acquired a piece of President's Institute in Denmark which was financially in a bad shape. I had known the founder for a few years and he proposed to sell his ownership in President's Institute to us for a very reasonable price, but the company was deep in depth.

1:11:19 And there was a plan in place by them on how to turn it around, hopefully. And we acquired that part. It was 40% of the company. but it didn't work out. I mean it went to bankruptcy pretty quickly in a year's time after we joined. So that was very promising for the Denmark market and now it has a new owner. They are running the business in a good looking way in Denmark and we are in constant contact with them as well. But we have no ownership or no role in President's Summit or President's Institute nowadays. So that was a failure for us. And then now 2020 April, this year in April, we acquired the majority stake at my colleague's company in the Netherlands called Denk Produksees, which has been pre-COVID at approximately 4 million euros in revenue and okay normal good profitability.

1:12:38 And they are doing great stuff. They have a portfolio of about 10 to 12 different seminars a year and and we are building building up something called the amsterdam business forum on top of it and yeah it's it has been a great a great few months to work together but of course it was quite quite a lot of months already before before april when we finalized the the transaction in the netherlands when we already worked together on it and uh yeah it looks good and we are expanding through similar activities hopefully in the near future years as well. So looking forward to all the expansions that we are planning to make hopefully.

1:13:28 So what is the plan if you can reveal that are you gonna sort of not copy paste but adapt the Finnish model to other countries or is it more like coming from the existing players who you who will you know so usually we are usually we are looking for an entrepreneur or or or a team um who who are hosting really good events which we can still make much better together with our with what we know and with what uh what we can contribute with and with that increase the loyalty within their customer base and make the business grow. So that's basically the logic. But there is plenty that we usually also learn from them.

1:14:25 I mean they know other stuff much better than we do in many cases. So there is a lot of synergies usually and everyone gets better. The match in mission, the match in vision and the feel of purpose is key. That's also one reason why I have been during the previous years spending quite a lot of time to get to know my colleagues in different countries with rather similar events is that I try to see if there are good matches with whom we could grow and yeah there have been a few so hopefully more to come.

1:15:22 Have you taken any external funding I mean external investor money or is it basically just owned by you and and and maybe with employees yes it is so we are we are a bootstrap as it's called we have we have so far uh no no external investments at at uh nordic business forum and also no external investments at at our real estate business with juri of course in real estate the banks play play a big role in real estate, but in Nordic Business Forum, we have had one loan that has actually been utilized. Only one loan in 2010. A long time ago. A long time ago. And we have a credit limit, but we have never been using it. So No, we had one loan. In 2013, we had a negative year. We lost the sense of budget when building up the magnificent event. Like I told earlier, 2013 was magical, but we lost the sense of budget.

1:16:40 And at the same time, we invested into booking Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sir Alex Ferguson and Jim Collins and all kinds of magnificent names for 2014. So Nordic Business Forum ran out of money and we needed to loan, if I remember correct, half a million euros from the mother, from Nordic Business Group, which was basically income from the real estate. But that's all. And that was paid back in a few months time also. So, yeah. So what's in the future for you personally and for the company? are you gonna list or are you gonna sell and do something else or is there still enough passion for the next 10 years yeah there there is a lot of passion still so we are not looking into selling we are looking into buying as i mentioned before growing through m&a with with good colleagues That's very much on our agenda, but of course not forcing it.

1:17:52 So there needs to be a good match and it needs to make sense for everyone. I'm not too, and we are not too interested about one day listing, but you never know if there would be a good reason for it. And of course, there could be also, it could be that we do badly and we need external money. Luckily still now, even after or during COVID, we have not needed it. We have found other solutions, but there could be a bigger acquisition that we would do for which we would need external money, external investment. So it's possible that something will come, but so far we have been proceeding with smaller scale acquisitions, which we have been able to fund ourselves.

1:18:57 What is your favorite word? My favorite word? Learning, maybe. what is your least favorite word I don't know some ugly ugly cursing word probably maybe what turns you on creatively emotionally or spiritually feel of meaning purpose that turns me on. What turns you off?

1:19:50 Lack of lack of lack of purpose or the fear of doing something that is not good for the environment or the society at large. What is your favorite curse word? none I guess I don't have a favorite curse word what sound or noise do you love my children's voice when I come home what sound or noise do you hate some kind of a crazy when you scratch a surface that makes an awful noise.

1:20:44 What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt? One, one, one small idea, just quickly on the sound that I dislike, also the fire alarm. In Oslo, the previous event in 2019, there was a fire alarm during a keynote and everyone needed to evacuate. So that was the worst possible timing. Yeah. What was the next one? What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Nowadays, very difficult. to think of it even.

1:21:33 Well, an entrepreneur in a different industry. What profession would you not like to do? Well, anything that I wouldn't have passion to. I wouldn't like to be a smuggler. if you could be a co-founder of any startup in any era which one would you choose well I like the one that we have we have been able to build so I'll stick to this one Any final words for the audience?

1:22:43 Well, I guess, yeah, you could say any kinds of life advice, which doesn't apply to everyone. But yeah, remember to, even if you are a founder and you run an exciting business, remember also to take care of yourself and take care and spend time with your loved ones and so on. I think that's very important. And it's so easy to forget that as well when things are going. and especially when things are not going that well and that happens. Sure, sure. Yes, it's not if, if you're an entrepreneur, it's when. Yes, correct. Also.

1:23:34 Yes. Thank you, Hapa, for this amazing, exceptional. I just needed to add there and very insightful moment. And for the audience as well, hopefully you enjoyed. If you liked, please follow Nordic Business Forum even better. If you visit the next event, check their website for that. And if you really enjoyed listening to this episode, how about sending to one or a few of your friends and colleagues so they can enjoy and learn as well. Thanks for listening. And till next time.