Asmo Halinen

Back online? Yes. Active blogging again? Let’s see.

asmo — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:55:36 +0000

Finally got the time to get this old blog back online. I must admit I’m not sure whether I’m going to be updating this or not. My Finnish blog is quite silent too. I’m more active nowadays on Twitter (mostly about work/web stuff and usually in English) as well as on Facebook (more family/hobby stuff, in Finnish and for friends only).

At least this blog is now available as an archive. Memories, you know. :)

Magnifier

asmo — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:01:56 +0000

Magnifier has been launched this week. I’m happy & proud to be one of the founders of this Helsinki based startup accelator and seed fund. Our aim is to fill the gap in the local market for high potential ventures that are at too early stage for other investors or funds. There’ll be an article about us in tomorrow’s Kauppalehti. You can also follow us on Twitter.

Fabulous list of blogs to read

asmo — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:39:38 +0000

Interested in entrepreneurship, startups, social medias, online gaming and stuff like that? Jussi Laakkonen (CEO of Everyplay) has published a great list of blogs he’s following. The list is not only long and comprehensive but also well sorted under different categories and almost every blog is briefly described too. Check it out and I’m sure you’ll find a lot of interesting stuff to read. (Great stuff, Jussi! Thanks a lot!)

My own blogroll is currently missing from my blog – I guess I should update & publish it some day.

One did it – and other stuff

asmo — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:08:37 +0000

This is the startup I began managing at the start of this year: One did it. The current version of the One did it service is far from what’s to come but you can already calculate the size of your ecological backpack which is kind of the core of the whole thing. My personal backpack is a bit bigger than the EU average. What’s yours?

I actually just wrote a bigger post about the company and my thoughts about joining it on my Kirkkaan päivän vaikutukset blog – so if Finnish is not a problem for you check out the post here.

During January I also started as a Member of the Board in Brain Alliance, the largest PHP-specialized programming house in Finland. Taneli Tikka joined the board as well: you can check out his thoughts about this from his blog.

And one more thing: I’ve finally started twittering regulary! (As you can see from the right if you’re reading this straight from my web site.)

Eat.fi and Grey Area

asmo — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:01:22 +0000

Besides starting as a CEO in a new company in January, I’ve also joined / going to join some other companies as an advisor or a board member. The first two of these companies are Kokumi Oy, company behind Eat.fi, the #1 restaurant review service in Finland, and Oy Grey Area Ab. Grey Area defines its self as a “mash-up company exploring the grey area between agile software development and creative thought” – and that’s pretty much all I can reveal at this stage.

I’m really pleased and enthusiastic about working with these two companies and great people behind them. There’s something else in the pipeline on this area as well, but more about it later.

Slush Helsinki was a great event

asmo — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:43:45 +0000

Slush Helsinki was yesterday. I think the event was very good and I understood that many visitors thought the same. Huge thanks to Peter, Ville, Kai and Helene for setting up that all! Besides meeting a lot of friends and listening to interesting presentations and panels, I was also a speaker in the event and joined a panel discussion together with Sampo and Petteri, moderated by Matt Marshall.

If you missed this excellent event, check out Arctic Startup as I think they will soon have some summaries about the Slush.

Now I know what’s next

asmo — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:05:11 +0000

I already wrote about this in Jaiku and in my Finnish blog but here goes a quick summary over here as well.

My plans for the future are now clear as I signed some papers today. The decision wasn’t too easy since there were many very interesting alternatives. I’m going to start as a CEO in a Helsinki-based startup in the beginning of January. The company is going to make a press release about this, so I can’t say anything more detailed yet.

My original plan was to go through all the alternatives in October and finalize the things in November. That’s now done, and now it’s the time for the last step in my plan – taking it really easy in December: just charging my batteries, enjoying my break, the dark Finnish autumn days and peaceful time with the family & friends.

Looking for new challenges

asmo — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:07:58 +0000

After seven years in Apaja – the company I co-founded in 2001 – I’ve now decided to move forward, though I’ll naturally still be involved in the company on the background and as a co-owner.

The decision to take this step has been maturing for a long time already. The past 7 years in this company have been great, but I now just have an urge for something completely new!

I have already got numerous interesting contacts – it is great to see that 13 years of experience on internet businesses brings interest as much as one could expect. I’ll take my time now to really go through carefully all possible options and I’m eager & happy to hear about all intriguing challenges. You can reach me from email address asmoha at halinen dot net.

Taneli’s new blog

asmo — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:49:49 +0000

Taneli Tikka, Finnish serial entrepreneur whom I’ve had the privilege to know since 2002, has just started his own blog. I bet it’s one of the most interesting new blogs in the Finnish entrepreneur/startup scene in a while. You should definitely check it out at Tane.li!

Scrobble your Radio Paradise listening

asmo — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:53:55 +0000

Radio Paradise, despite its name, is still the best web radio I know. For a long time I’ve been wishing I could get its listening scrobbled on my Last.fm account. Today I found out that there is now an application for that. And it works! So if Radio Paradise happens to be your favourite music stream and you’re also using Last.fm – here’s what you need!

Later addition: Now that I started to use Spotify I came up with the same problem: no scrobbling support for Last.fm. But now there’s a solution for that as well: check out the Scrobblify!