#2 Johanna Småros, Co-founder of RELEX Solutions - Trust as a value, Finnish social culture, and Finland as a closed society

Joy of Finland highlights Finland’s strengths and areas of improvement from the perspectives of tech entrepreneurs. Johanna Småros transitioned from supply chain researcher to SaaS unicorn Co-founder of RELEX Solutions. RELEX is one of Finland’s prominent startup success stories and most recently closed a €500M funding round led by Blackstone Growth at a €5B valuation.  In this episode, we discuss: (0:00) About me and introduction (3:12) Transitioning from researcher to SaaS Co-founder (11:46) Founder before the startup hype (14:31) Being shy, gaining confidence through research, and cold-calling (21:04) Finnish value of trust (25:20) Weather, seasons, and nature (30:50) Ease of starting a business and rules and regulations (35:37) Finnish social culture (41:19) Finland as a closed society and welcoming international talent (44:26) Starting RELEX as an international English-speaking company (50:33) Finnish language preservation and internationalization (54:16) Swedish as an official language of Finland (57:13) The value of learning languages (1:01:56) The challenge of international students finding employment Subscribe to Joy of Finland newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/71f82ff8e623/joy-of-finland Follow Matthews Joy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewsjoy/ Follow Johanna Småros on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannasmaros/ Follow Joy of Finland on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@joy_of_finland Follow Joy of Finland on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@joyoffinland Follow Joy of Finland on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joyoffinland/ Follow Joy of Finland on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joy-of-finland/