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Riku Kokkonen joins Coventures
Riku Kokkonen joins Coventures
Hey! Well, I’ve been involved in building ventures and products for the last 10 years. In around 2019, I started to step back from the biotec company I co-founded and started to focus more on angel investment and helping startups. I love building new businesses and new products, and that’s pretty much how I found Coventures and jumped on board.
I’m really focused on helping startups go from 0-1, maybe the most difficult part of building a new venture. Some 90% of young businesses fail, and I want to help make it more systematic and less of a guessing game. There are a lot of frameworks, methods and best practices that I’ve learned through the 10 years that I’ve been doing this. I’ve learned to apply them effectively, and push companies move towards growth. Helping startups make it to their first 100k, and avoiding some of the painful and expensive pivots is where I bring the most value. I also have experience helping startups in their funding rounds.
Working with companies to build new business and new products. Developing with them the best approaches and strategies to succeed. I’ve also helped in recruiting, looking more at the people side of business. When you’re building something entirely new and innovative, it’s more or less just a promise. That’s why, it’s so important to have the right people around to help build their product.
I’m staying in Portugal right now, which is really nice. I like to go surfing in the morning and run some 1,600 km every year. So, a lot of running and being active. I also like to go fishing with friends. Especially after moving on from Evogenom, I spend a lot of time thinking about business ideas and building great products. Before becoming a full-time entrepreneur, I was working as a music producer. That was fun and I still love music. I see a lot of overlap between building new ventures and making music. It is really just about creating something new and innovative out of essentially nothing.