Today marks the national Entrepreneur's Day in Finland, celebrated annually on September 5th since 1997. The founders of Kaulo & Partners, Jani Kaulo and Maria Puronvarsi, shared their personal experiences as entrepreneurs – as encouragement for new entrepreneurs.

Finland's first law firm specializing in brand rights, KAULO & PARTNERS, celebrated its 4th anniversary this autumn. Jani Kaulo has experience in entrepreneurship and working with startup companies since 2010, and Maria Puronvarsi since 2021, from the founding of our law firm. They offer advice to future entrepreneurs and describe their own experiences and the best aspects of entrepreneurship as follows:

Value your own brand – and protect it

Entrepreneurs should take care to protect their own brand from the very beginning.

There is an old saying in Finland that the shoemaker’s child has no shoes. This is not the case with Kaulo & Partners – we protected our own business name and logo with trademark registrations soon after establishing the company.

"This is what we advise all startup companies to do as well. Brand protection is important from the perspective of business credibility. If an entrepreneur doesn't value their own brand, why would clients or potential investors do so?" Jani asks.

Enjoy the freedom and responsibility of being an entrepreneur

As an entrepreneur, you have the freedom to express yourself and do things as you see best. Entrepreneurship also enables a personally tailored and meaningful everyday life.

“A large part of daily life is spent working, so it is important that I can do meaningful work with good colleagues and clients who value their brands. In your own company, you can truly influence things. This has been the most fascinating and motivating aspect of entrepreneurship,” Maria describes.

"As an entrepreneur, you can think about and implement the ways you can best add value to your clients’ businesses by utilizing your own expertise and strengths. It's advisable to first gather expertise and learn business in the service of someone else – this often lays the foundation for successful entrepreneurship,” Jani adds with his over ten years of experience in entrepreneurship.

The Team is important

The significance of a good team is crucial when starting a business.

"Especially in the early stages, it's important that everyone knows each other and is aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Proper role allocation is essential from the perspective of efficiency and business operations,” Jani emphasizes.

Don’t be afraid of taking risks

When a company has a good business idea, strong intuition, and belief in what it does – it shows and is conveyed to clients as well. Then risk-taking shouldn't be feared, both Jani and Maria encourage.

They emphasize that expertise is not an intrinsic value for a company; the focus must be on the clients. Clients are the key to success.

“Strive for personal service – use time for what cannot be produced with digital services."

Is entrepreneurship right for you?

Entrepreneurship is also a matter of personality. Signs of natural inclination to act as entrepreneurs can be found in both Jani's and Maria's youth years.

Jani's career as an entrepreneur began when he was just 10 years old:

"The first company I founded was a summer petting zoo in the backyard at home. Revenue came from entrance fees and a kiosk where I sold candy to friends and family acquaintances."

The desire to understand business more deeply was later the motivation for making a bold decision in 2010 – he put his lawyer career on hold and went to study international business in Bolton University's MBA program, located in Vietnam. At the same time, he founded his first “real” company, whose business idea is to help Finnish companies enter the Vietnamese market and promote business between the two countries. Since then, he has been both a founder and legal advisor in two other startup companies before founding Kaulo & Partners.

Maria's leap into entrepreneurship and becoming a founding partner at Kaulo & Partners also happened naturally:

“A strong connection to entrepreneurship comes from childhood. My parents have been very supportive of entrepreneurship and made their living as agricultural entrepreneurs on a grain farm. My sibling is also an entrepreneur in the equine industry. I have seen the daily life of an entrepreneur up close and have followed my husband's business activities for over ten years, so it wasn't a leap into the completely unknown.”

Read more about Jani's and Maria's career paths and how they became entrepreneurs:

Jani Kaulo: How I became a lawyer and an entrepreneur
Maria Puronvarsi: How I became a lawyer and an entrepreneur