What were the early days of the companies such as Mint, PayPal, Trulia and Yelp like? What kind of founder stories have Aaron, Russell, Sami and Paul to share? Come and find this out in Founders' Week's biggest public event.

Mint.com founder Aaron Patzer will hold a keynote, followed by a panel and Q&A with our entire cast of allstars. The evening’s theme is early days’ stories of starting up - the difficulties, the sweat, the giddiness - and on nurturing a culture that supports entrepreneurship.

Event hosted by Elinkeinoelämän Keskusliitto (EK) in partnership with Aalto Entrepreneurship Society.

________

What is this about?

Founders’ week is about entrepreneurship. It is about furthering and supporting the new entrepreneurial culture that is burgeoning in Finland. It is about understanding the importance of entrepreneurship for our collective future and appreciating the role of entrepreneurs as drivers of innovation, growth and welfare. 

We want to see Finland grow into the leading startup hub of Europe. During the week we hope to shed light on issues that need further development to truly sustain a functioning entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. 

Furthermore, a functioning hub can not be regulated into existence, rather it is the result of a much larger imperative – a culture. The four founders we have visiting us during the week represent the entrepreneurial culture of Silicon Valley. Through the week’s discussions and encounters we hope to realise an identity of our own, with which to take our hub forwards.

Who?

Russel Simmons is the co-founder and former CTO of Yelp. Started in 2004 to help people find great local businesses, Yelp has grown to over 66 million monthly users and held its initial public offering on the NYSE in March 2012. Prior to Yelp, Russ was part of the founding team and lead software architect at PayPal.

Sami Inkinen co-founded Trulia in 2005 and served as the company’s COO til March 2012. Trulia has grown into one of the largest real-estate sites in the US serving over 20 million unique monthly visitors. Sami is also a triathlete ranked second on the planet among amateurs in his age group. And on top of all that... he's a really nice guy.

Paul Bragiel is a co-founder of i/o Ventures, an early stage startup accelerator, operating out of a funky workspace+cafe in San Francisco and gathering an impressive network of mentors from the founders' personal connections in all walks of life. Before i/o, Paul co-founded three startups. He is a world traveller and has often advised governments on entrepreneurship and policy on startup ecosystems.

Aaron Patzer is both the visionary and technical mind behind Mint.com, now the leading free, online money management service in the US. Mint launched in 2007 and was sold in just 2 years to Intuit for $170 million dollars, where Aaron continued to grow the service. Prior to Mint, Aaron founded 3 other companies and holds 10 patents to his name. He is also an angel investor.