Märt Ridala's thoughts

I have now been working with ICT service creation and development for over 10 years. I have been doing this in different telecom operators, in startups and IT companies. Here is my advice to investors and teams on how much money and time you should reserve for starting a new service creation project. I have seen too many times that you get into a new development with big enthusiasm and too little resources and the whole thing dies halfway through the MVP creation. A service is usually a technology provided by a vendor or open-source community that you then develop into a form suitable for your customers. It consists of: - "Backend technology" provided by a vendor or open-source community. (In many cases the vendors claim that their technology needs just "a little design and translations" for launching to the customers....well, it never is so.) - A user interface, web-page, mobile-app that your customers will use and that you usually need to develop yourself. - A...

Many nations in Europe are struggling with the economic growth and are wondering how to get the economy growing again. A tough challenge? I don´t think so. I have lived, worked and done business in different countries and I think it actually is just doing the obvious right things that will get you there: - It is getting all the small things to work and be as effective as possible. This means the public sector, eg. tax department, but also the private. For example in Estonia a bank account costs something like 2 eur/month for a company whereas in Finland it costs 50 eur/month. It seems a small issue, but it is one among many. In Estonia it takes 5min to register a company, in Finland you have to print and send an application on paper. - It is looking at the big picture and not only optimizing the current budget. The government should not just look at the current budget (like in Estonia), but take care also of the term development, like education or solving the declining demogra...