Coventures - Our Story
Coventures - Our Story
The beginning of our story goes sometime back, to the year 2012 when our CEO, Marko Oksanen, was wrapping up his studies at Aalto University. While writing his master's thesis, he studied how entrepreneurship should be taught, and ended up diving deep into the topic of entrepreneurship as a skillset.
In this rabbit hole, Marko discovered a newfound passion—an eagerness to define the skills needed to become a successful entrepreneur and to find out how those skills could best be learned. It was evident that developing and harnessing them could create paramount value.
He figured that before he could start selling the skills as a service to others, he first needed to eat his own dog food, make sure he fully knew what he was talking about. He spent the next few years working in both startup and scaleup environments, where he nurtured his understanding of how companies are built, and the kind of entrepreneurial skills required. At the same time, he scouted the market, checking if there was indeed a demand for such a kind of consultancy.
Opportunity presented itself, and Marko seized it with gusto. He started a business as an independent consultant with a vision: a scalable platform for seasoned entrepreneurs to share their knowledge and help clients with the unique skillset they have.
While working with different clients, it became clear—the entrepreneurial skillset was much needed in many big companies; those with resources but lack the nuanced set of skills to capitalize on them. It seemed that his approach would be perfect for solving big and complex problems in big companies.
Marko, together with Juho Vehviläinen, an old friend from university, decided to take things further and co-founded Coventures. They contacted people from their networks, and found a group of people and partners who shared their mindset and vision and were more than ready to hop on board.
"We wanted Coventures to be a place where entrepreneurs and people who wanted to become entrepreneurs could practice their skills, develop themselves as professionals, and help clients who have an urgent need for our assistance." — Marko Oksanen
“We saw that there was a great opportunity for both entrepreneurs and big companies to create value and impact together. We wanted to bridge the gap between these two worlds and enable a better way to build new businesses.” - Juho Vehviläinen
In summer 2021, Coventures has now grown to a company of fifteen Entrepreneurs in Residence, who are all experts in venture design. Along with the support of its wide network of advisors from various business fields, Coventures continue to excel in helping our clients build new companies and consulting them throughout the venture building process.
