Agileday was born from the idea of creating an operating platform that could connect all people in a professional services organization and provide every individual, team, and role what they need to succeed and feel engaged. The platform drives peak business performance, positively impacting key metrics such as utilization, win rate, and operational efficiency.

In 2002, at just 21 years old, Jaakko Hartikainen began his entrepreneurial journey by founding a company focused on developing e-commerce software. Back then, people weren’t even talking about “startups,” but this endeavor laid the groundwork for his career, and in retrospect, paved the way for Jaakko to found Agileday. After three years, his company was acquired by Smilehouse, which was later acquired by the Finnish IT consulting giant Tieto. Although a big corporation wasn’t necessarily an ideal environment for an entrepreneurial mind, Jaakko was lucky that the company’s strategy at the time emphasized in-house ventures to enhance the business. He led one of these ventures alongside his new co-pilot, Mikko Virtanen.

It isn’t easy to find a more versatile professional than Mikko. He has a background in software engineering but has also been involved in a wide range of activities within the IT industry, including managing teams, projects, customers, offerings, and sales locally and internationally. Mikko and Jaakko realized they shared a similar leadership philosophy and mindset for growing the business. By focusing on people-centricity, autonomy, radical transparency, participation, and coaching, they expanded their 200-person team to 700, and that’s when they would’ve needed a tool like Agileday.

Planting the seed for Agileday

It took a few years, both working in different companies and roles, for the stars to align so that both Mikko and Jaakko were in a situation where they could focus on building a product around the idea. During the two years, they kept monitoring whether something like that had already popped up in the market and figured out how Finland’s best-in-class professional service companies had sorted the problem. It, in fact, was by building their own solution around it, and that was the final validation they needed to kick things off.

Jaakko and Mikko share the same values for growing a business, a result-oriented mindset, and a needed level of competitiveness, both having backgrounds in competitive sports. They’re not each other’s copies, though. Mikko is an inspirational storyteller who gets people to follow his vision and enables teams to reach the next level. In contrast, Jaakko brings an analytical mind and the needed realism to figure out how to make the business side of things work. To support their skills, they strengthened their co-founding team with Jaakko Hallavo, who has a strong product management background, and Hannu Kärkkäinen, who has the deep technical skills to care for what’s under the hood – both having worked with Jaakko Hartikainen already at Smilehouse.

As is typical in the early stages of product development, the founding team created a prototype to sell the vision and story to early customers. Once they were confident they could start selling the idea and get the product into the customers’ use in 3-4 months, Mikko called three prospects in his network and closed them with a 100% hit rate. The team even worked on-site at the premises of these early customers during the project. Subsequently, the first version of Agileday was developed and publicly launched in early 2023.

Choosing the VC track

The company raised its pre-seed funding from Vendep Capital a few months later, in June 2023. They weren’t really out fundraising but had inbound discussions with a handful of VCs. The match with Vendep was so apparent that they decided not to use more time to look for other VCs but rather use the time and resources to improve the business.

Vendep Capital’s General Partner, Sami Ahvenniemi, recalls the initial stages: “Being somewhat army buddies with one of the founders, we first met the team when they had just officially established the company. The team members were experienced experts in their field, and their product vision was modern and distinct based on their hands-on experience. We eagerly kept track of their progress, and six months later, they approached us for advice on potential funding paths. In that short time, they had made significant progress, with the early product already in the hands of a few customers. At that moment, we knew we wanted to be part of their journey!”

Not all startups should go with the VC path, and the Agileday team was also pondering the decision and the consequences it brings. However, as they believed this company had the potential to go really big, not just in the home market but also globally, it was pretty apparent that the VC track was the best option. And they haven’t regretted the decision afterwards.

Growing the customer base

During the first year after the launch, Agileday continued improving the product, now used by 30+ organizations in Europe. A significant milestone was a strategic partnership with the Fusion ecosystem, the alliance accelerated by Reaktor comprising more than 30 digital service companies. This meant that Agileday became its primary partner for operating technology, and the biggest companies in the ecosystem started using the platform. There has been no churn, and the feedback has been great, which has fueled the fire among the team.

“The team has been performing exceptionally well since our investment – basically since the beginning of the company – and the customer base and ARR are growing rapidly. We are extremely excited to be on board!” says Sami Ahvenniemi from Vendep Capital.

Mikko and Jaakko are driven to develop a platform and company culture that sets high standards, empowers people to be hyperproductive, and harnesses their individual strengths, or superpowers, as they like to call them. The focus is on creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable using their strengths and admitting their weaknesses without fear of negative consequences. Achieving this requires a high level of psychological safety within the organization.

What are the three pieces of advice that Jaakko and Mikko would give to themselves if they were starting their venture?

1. You must be confident in your instincts and abilities to do the hands-on work. While you can delegate certain tasks, the responsibility should remain internal.
2. Keep your product vision crystal clear instead of benchmarking competitors or asking customers what they want. Request feedback only when you have something to show and ask your customers, “What’s wrong with this?”
3. Extreme transparency is crucial when dealing with a VC. It’s easy to be transparent when things go well, but trust is built through being open when times are tough.