Just Thoughts #27: Know who you are and build it.

This weeks features leadership reflections, a review of the Finnish startup communities Vision statement and the final piece of the recipe for how to build ecosystems.

Just Thoughts is for modern-day leaders who want to think better about business, life, leadership, and entrepreneurship every week. You are either inspired or not when reading these thoughts.

The first rule of reading these thoughts is to ask yourself:
Why should I think this way?

This article's Content is “handwritten” and co-piloted with Grammarly’s spell-checking and rephrasing for the desired tone of voice. I’m dyslexic, so the tool helps me overcome my impediments.

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Some acknowledgments regarding Just Thoughts content. I’m currently creating content as I go. The content every week is written during the week prior, with a few exceptions. This is simply a factor in my writing habit. I hope to cover a lot of content, and I usually have to remove a headline or two from the whole, as I end up out of time to cover the other topics I want to write on. Hence, I may tease a headline for the upcoming week that doesn’t arrive until later.

Topics promised on Just Thoughts that haven’t been written yet: A few book reviews (I haven’t finished reading them), wedding reflection (decided to cover them when the last one of the season is held), thoughts about art and ai, the Finnish archipelago and a few startup reviews. Part two of ecosystem-building will be featured in this post.

Secondly, my tone of voice is straightforward. It’s not heartfully infused with positivity, nor does it include humor. Rest assured, I do not take myself seriously, even if the topics are serious. The writings are intended to describe, tell a story, be knowledgeable, and use direct but mundane language. I'm not too fond of toxic positivity. We can laugh when we agree it’s shit. Pretending there isn’t tension or that there isn’t a problem is a waste of life; acknowledging there is a problem and disregarding it is equally annoying.

Thirdly, I will talk about myself often, like in the De La Soul track “Me, myself, and I.”

It’s not to form a self-inflated sense of importance. I want to provide a point of reflection for developing leaders, as depicted in the framework described in Just Thoughts #26. Not because my thoughts are inferior but so they can improve.

It’s either my experiences and thoughts or others covered in the content. Remember that as the audience and the reader, you should always ask yourself; why you should I think that way—the first rule of Just Thoughts.

What do you think? What type of writing would make the content more engaging?

The free content is a personal reflection on leadership and features names like Marianne Vikkula, Jeff Bezos, and Karri Saarinen. It’s quite an exciting combo. Are you intrigued?

Free Headlines This Week:

1. Personal introductions

2. Nostalgia and leadership

3. A Heart Beat Hustle example - Linear

Paid Content features the Finnish Startup Communities vision in review, bridging over to some thoughts on how it was initially built and how to replicate it. Ending with an utterly unrelated review of the epicness of the movie Furiosa.

Paid Headlines This Week:

1. The Finnish Startup Communities Vision for 2040 - Review

2. Building Ecosystems - Part 2

3. Movie Review: Furiosa

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Personal Introduction

I’ve featured my introduction a few times. The most popular read, Just Thoughts #12, includes an introduction and a diversity story. Here’s an update.

My presentation at the AI and Art event covered Just Thoughts #26.

Cisgender - Identify with the sex assigned to me at birth
Allo - I feel love and have a desire for sex
Heterosexual - Attracted to the opposite sex
Able-Bodied - My physical abilities are not impeeded
White - Racial identity inherited by skin color.
Male - Gender
The Most Spoiled Minority in the World is the Swedish-speaking Finns—Finnish in nationality, but my mother tongue is Swedish. The statement is not science but reasoned. Roughly seven percent of the population in Finland has it as their mother tongue, but the entire nation must study it in school. There are even quotas for Swedes in universities, daycare services only for Swedish-speaking children, and public services in some parts of the country must be available in both languages everywhere.
A son of an immigrant who’s a son of an immigrant - My Father was born Brazilian in Brazil by Parents who weren’t. My grandfather was from the Croatian and Italian border, while my grandmother is American.

The “exes” refer to companies I identified with as being part of a team. Master of Science relates to education (Computer Science, a degree in Software project Management). What’s missing is my;

Age - Millenial, born in 1989, unlike the AI-generated picture that might suggest.
Marital Status - Divorced, but in a new relationship
Father - This was made apparent later in the presentation. I have two children.
Neurodivergent - I have dyslexia.
Mental Health - Due to emotional traumas, I sometimes have sentimental breakdowns for no good reason.
Officer in reserve—Completed officer schooling during military service. Boomers in the country hold a positive bias towards this accomplishment.

I’ve also been an entrepreneur most of my professional life, but that’s a state of mind rather than a conceptual fact. I’ve also written a lot, released books, created events, and used social media to influence. I started projects and movements and helped kickstart companies while investing in a couple of others. I identify as a creator more than an artist.

There was a time when I also identified as a basketball player and pro athlete, to the extent that was my entire identity if you asked me about it 15 years ago. However, that is just part of my personal story when introduced, even if I still try to make time to play and watch a few games here and there.

Finally, someone might label me a low-income individual with my current income, but for some reason, this doesn’t compute as it’s either a phase in my life or a perception employed by some point in history. Even the poor in my country have a level of wealth poor people could only dream of 100 years ago. Furthermore, I’m a Lutheran protestant and belong to a church out of tradition; while not being religious, I am, to some extent, spiritual.

As 6x accredited founder Chisom Udeze highlighted in an event I covered in Just Thoughts #9, we all love polarization as it highlights our uniqueness. With what I’m sharing, I’m not striving for uniqueness. I’m acknowledging my privileges and striving for connection, as regardless of how we are different, we’re all still human.

Additionally, there is power in understanding who you are and where you come from. We are all biased; what’s important is to understand how and what effects that has on the world around us. Then, ask if that is a world humanity will remember as “progressive.” Another question you can ask yourself is, would it make the world a better place if everyone were doing it, or if everyone would have the same effect on the world? The danger with the latter question over the first is I doubt that the likes of Hitler thought what they were doing to the Jews wouldn’t make the world a better place (without a doubt, it didn’t make the world a better place).

Mitigating bias is often warranted based on long-lasting historical injustice, but sometimes, it’s justified. When not, I’d be careful to say bias is warranted and use the word “intuition” instead, to avoid being misinterpreted as someone who inherently has privileges in the country of residence, mainly subject to positive societal biases.

Nostalgia and Leadership

I recently visited the Slush office to drop off a copy of my book. At the bookshelf, I found a piece of Nostalgia—a note I wrote many years ago. I posted about it on LinkedIn here. In the post I reference, I don’t feel any smarter for being older, and I keep coming back to my younger self, only to discover I had better thoughts than I have today.

I refer to a recent interview with my former colleague, Marianne Vikkula. Most recently, when she had a chance to do so, she introduced me as her right-hand man at Slush.

She discusses how operators should give the company energy and organizational decision-making. She also discusses a cadence your organization should have and putting organizational investments into buckets following the 70-20-10 rule. All the while diligently referencing who she’s learned these lessons from.

While listening, you can’t help but think that she’s been able to surround herself with many brilliant people, some of who seem to be from Amazon. That’s not a fluke, as she’s spent a lot of time going on “coffees” aiming to recruit people. I state this mainly because the decision-making philosophy is straight out of Jeff Bezos's playbook, and Wolt strives from the customer-obsessive culture Amazon initially built. Even if you’d argue that it is their direct competitor, like Marianne, Bezos discusses the decision-making framework in the interview featured below. You can find the discussion about decision-making at about 58 minutes in.

Secondly, Marianne discusses the 70-20-10 rule in organizational investments. You can trace that back to the framework described in the book Crossing the Chasm, also referenced in McKinsey's work. Here’s a personal blog that seems to have this well covered. I can’t recall, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Crossing the Chasm has Amazon references.

However, what is uniquely Marianne? You won’t hear other leaders say Leadership is about showing up without an ego and saying you’re there to help. You may not have all the answers, and you may not be the one to solve the problem ultimately, but you wholeheartedly want to be there to help. That type of character cannot be thought, but as an essence, it’s the true spirit of Finnish culture that incarnated the Finnish startup scene.

Leadership is about showing up without an ego and saying you’re there to help.

- Marianne Vikkula

Finally, we learned how to think about and construct an organization cadence, as you can find in my previous writing, Just Thoughts #3, here, which gives an example of how we built it at Slush and a model for replicating it. The last point I would like to emphasize is how she consistently mentions energy as something leaders bring to the organization. That is not necessary for all types of leaders but may be required for the leaders you label “operators.”

To explain why this matters, I’ll share that I took part in a leadership assessment by Complete Coherence, using their development model based on spiral dynamics. Their model says there are different types of leaders, and “energy” is generally associated with those who strive for speed of execution—the “doers,” if you will—associated with the color Red.

I’m strong on the other end of the spectrum, associated with innovation and game-changing (yellow), system balance (torque), and inclusivity (green).

Unsurprisingly, having reds around in the team makes me more efficient.

So does writing. Although I may sound aloof when you listen to me, writing makes me a better thinker and forces me to elaborate. Sharing ideas with those who also strive for system balance makes me more effective, and I get more energy from them.

All frameworks are flawed; you should always use critical thinking in any data you see. Knowing that the spiral dynamics model is not widely accepted in the organizational science community would be good. Additionally, the data displayed is seven years old. If I’d do the test today, it’s likely to have changed, but I don’t think so. It would be more evenly distributed, and I likely wouldn’t have such a blind spot for “Orange.” - Leaders showing up to succeed, beating the competition, and delivering profits. It is likely the singular factor that explains why I’m on the verge of personal bankruptcy and many others of my peers from along the days are not.

Regardless of the model used and its flaws, they function well as a “vocabulary” to describe how you’re different or similar to others and help build healthy team dynamics. You may also wonder how this framework is different from or better than what I’ve constructed. Mine doesn’t focus on who you are as a leader but on your actions. It makes leadership more attainable to all, making changes more actionable and delivering results faster.

Ultimately, the key is understanding what sort of leader you are, how that affects the team around you, and what you need from the team to be well-rounded and well-suited for the business domain and the organization's maturity. If Marianne labeled me her right-hand man, she would have been my left.

A Heart Beat Hustle Example - Linear

The usual suspects are that Startup Ministers recently interviewed Karri Saarinen, the CEO and founder of Linear.

I will not list what I learned from the episode; there was only one thing new to me: Jyri seems to have missed out badly on the opportunity to invest. Instead, I will put Karris’ operating structure into the Heart Beat Hustle framework, as promised. If you want a complete list of learnings in English, I suggest you listen and read the summaries of

Lenny Rachitsky

interviews Karri. He’s interviewed him twice. Here's a go with the previously mentioned content, linear webpage and their blog, and some personal public replies on Linkedin.

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Linear’s Heart

We are designers and engineers: problem solvers and storytellers. We are a diverse team of individuals, all makers at heart.

We are building the tools for the next generation of high-impact companies. The place where ambitious creators come to bring radical ideas to life.

Our mission is to empower the world's best product and engineering teams to do their best work.

Values

Disclaimer: remove the “you” and change it to a verb like “Be”, and you have a value statement. Linear doesn’t seem to have values as much as they have principles.

• You are clear, concise, and engaging.

• You care deeply about the quality of your work, down to the last pixel.

• You’re able to take a bird’s eye view and solve issues.

• You are a team player who loves to co-create.

• You are passionate about building truly great software.

• You are a self-starter who gets things done.

Principles

• Organize work into projects. A project requires multiple people and a few weeks to complete

• Decisions are made based on taste, not metrics

• Seek customer feedback for design decisions

• [insert more]

Linear’s Beat

The problem with calendar year planning is that there is a rush to complete things before the year ends, but you cannot launch or beta test features as customers are not paying attention…

…We plan in the spring and fall, creating summer and winter roadmaps. We have noticed that this works well because in Jan the team can pick up the projects they were already working in the and finish them in Q1, which is also a great time to release new things. Then we do our next planning in spring, followed by our company-wide offsite in May to discuss it. Afterward, we put our heads down and work on these things until Sep-Oct, which is again a good time for releases, and then we head off to plan for the winter. - Karri Saarinen on X

Gatherings

Meetings

• Projects can have meetings, 1-2week.

• Weekly team sync (like EU / US / Marketing / Sales).

• All hands every 2-3 weeks.

• All hands offsite once a year (May)

• Function offsites once a year.

• Roadmaps were created during spring and fall.

Async

• Linear project updates ~weekly

• Project channel in Slack for each project where you can discuss the project

• EOD people write a “wrap” in Slack of what they did or what happened.

Metrics

• [Insert metrics here]—Although Karris is known not to like or use metrics for company decision-making, at its size, it likely has a few around revenue and other essential business metrics that are shared.

Linear’s Hustle / Motion

Boards often ask, "What is your plan for 20XX?" My answer is what we are doing now and what comes next. - Karri Saarinen on X

[Insert an overview of Projects in Linear and semi-annual product roadmap]

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One could’ve gone through all of Karri’s interviews back to back for this one, but I didn’t have the patience, nor did I deem it necessary to convey the point. The only thing left was how to describe Linear “North Star”; some searches left me with the impression Karri had explicitly stated that somewhere. 🤔

The Vision of the Finnish Startup Community

Last week, the Finnish startup community launched its vision for 2040. The panel discussed our issues and how to develop the country's future in each sector. You can find the vision document here and the panel discussion below. Towards the end, Timo Ahopelto says he’s frustrated with the situation and not getting any answers. I feel compassion for the panelist whom Timo is grilling. The panelists need to come up with answers to seemingly very complex problems, with an approach that is too narrow as it’s not in their interest to deviate from their company’s domain of challenges. The only two who dare to venture outside of it (their companies domain of interests) is Miki and Ilkka.

Unfortunately, neither the document, nor the interviews were translated and are conducted in Finnish. This highlights the first major issue with the endeavors; they are constantly all in Finnish, so it must be hard for the local foreigners to identify with these efforts. Luckily, our president seems to get the point by visiting ICEYE’s offices the same week.

Even if all the majors have covered this topic, I'll discuss a few points in the paid content, Building Ecosystems Part II, and a couple of Movie Reviews.