Posts Tagged ‘Tina Aspiala’

mg // 06.07.2009

The Five Most Promising Female Startups

These women want to do it their way. They started a company and run it the way they think a company should operate. In today’s „Top 5“ edition we introduce five bold female entrepreneurs and their promising internet startups: Kerstin Schilling with Intershop/AdiCash, Dania Gerhardt from Amazee, Danielle Grossi with smeepe, Marina Tognetti with Myngle and Tina Aspiala from eat.fi:

Kerstin Schilling - CEO of cash bonus program AdiCash and co-founder of Intershop Communications - says there are important style differences between male and female business leaders. She is convinced that women are „better in investments because they are more focussed on output“ and finds that „like in nature women are ‚the grey ones’, those who are doing the job behind it.“

Dania Gerhardt is co-founder and „operational and financial wonderkind“ of Social Collaboration platform Amazee.com. „Women really do talk more than men“ Dania says. „It is crucial that they use their inter-personal communication skills to get in contact with the right people and to approach them in a different way by using their female side.“

Danielle Grossi was a normal employee in IT for ten years before she co-founded online portal smeepe.net. She describes herself as somebody who has what it takes to be an entrepreneur and states that persistence more than anything else is responsible for success. „A woman should follow her dream and do what she feels is the best for her“ she says. „Whatever it is, if it’s starting a company or starting a family.“

„E-Learning Queen“ Marina Tognetti left the corporate executive track to become entrepreneur of global language e-learning marketplace Myngle.com. Marina is a passionate traveler, spent one year backpacking through Asia as well as traveling to many different countries around the world. She says she always tried to maintain a healthy balance between mind and heart, working with her mind, making choices with her heart.

„Women need to get over their fears of being not qualified enough. More men are willing to do things they aren’t ‚technically’ qualified for“ finds Tina Aspiala, founder of Finnish restaurant search and review site Eat.fi. She encourages women to feel the fear and do it anyway. Says Tina: „Those who say you can’t be doing it should get out of the way of those who are getting it done.“

Stay tuned! Next Monday we’ll be looking at „The Five Most Promising Grown-Up Startups“.
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mg // 23.01.2009

Tina Aspiala – Eat.fi: Food on a map @ SLUSH

Eat.fi is a Finnish restaurant search and review site, that opened in September 2008 and has been founded by Tina Aspiala. Eat.fi works with Google maps and time-based, dynamic features so users can see immediately if restaurants are open or closed at any given time. Eat.fi already has a very active community that updates restaurant information themselves using the site’s wiki-like tools to write reviews, adding photos and top ten lists. With 800 registered users and 1500 daily visitors, Tina finds that „Eat.fi’s page impressions aren’t enormous, but growth so far has been very organic, steadily rising all the time.“ She is „very confident that it’s going very well.“ The site currently covers only Finland, but Tina had discussions at the SLUSH event with regard to internationalization: „There are quite a few people interested in white-labeling our system.“ Tina points out that „Eat.fi’s system is ridiculously easy to use for all kinds of things. It could be used for anything that has an opening sign.“ Eat.fi is privately funded, but is still looking for government funding in Finland. Eat.fi’s owner Tina, who holds a BA from Yale University and had her now three-month-old daughter with her at the SLUSH event, finds it „kind of funny“ when people come to her start-up booth and ask her if she’s the „booth babe“. She encourages women to get over their fears of being not qualified enough: „More men are willing to do things they aren’t ‚technically’ qualified for. Get over it and just do it. Those who say you can’t be doing it should get out of the way of those who are getting it done.“ With regard to starting a company, she strongly advises that „if you are going to hire people, make damn sure you hire the right people! You need to listen to your gut very, very much. Even if someone is very qualified and you have this gut feeling that something is not quite clicking...if there is any nagging doubt – do not hire them. Wait, because it will be a waste of money in the long run.“
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