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A push towards entrepreneurship

| Entrepreneurial journey

Timur and Tao are starting a business that sells goods on Amazon, market being in the United States. Their entrepreneurial journey has started not so long ago, but they have already come a long way. Read how HUBS helped them in their goal towards entrepreneurship!

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Pauliina Waters

Pauliina has been a marketing intern at HUBS in autumn 2020.

Getting the idea

Timur Kahlun and Tao Daniel have known each other from the beginning of their studies at TAMK. They are both in their third year of International Business. The motivation towards being entrepreneurs came from Proakatemia where they did their entrepreneurship module. The final idea for their business came from Timur: “I was working as an intern in a company where they were talking about how you can be successful through Amazon. I started researching the topic a bit and thought why don’t I try it myself.” After Timur got the idea, he pitched it to Tao and Tao was immediately on board.

Motivation to move forward

“When we first started, we didn’t have a direction to go towards, and we were trying to rush everything”, Timur states. The young entrepreneurs have also had some doubts about are they going to succeed and are they good enough. They got the idea to go to HUBS (at the time known as Y-kampus) from their friend who worked there as an intern. From there, they started off by going to the Sparring Clinic, and to Ensimetri. From there on, they enrolled to two courses at Y-kampus and got a mentor to guide them through the practicalities that comes with being an entrepreneur, and just push them forward.

“After the sparring session, we got more of a concrete idea how to approach the launching of our business and completing our studies at the same time

Timur Kahlun, 3rd year International Business student

They have gotten motivation from other people too. Tao and Timur say that participating to the courses Y-portfolio and Startup Experience Pre-Incubator at HUBS has been very motivating and inspirational. “Working with other people, reflecting our own actions from the conversation and getting feedback has really opened our eyes. Because of these, we want to work even harder.” Also, in the Y-portfolio, they have been delighted by the fact that they can be very independent with their work and reflect their portfolio towards who they are and what they want to do.

What about the future?

They have officially started their limited company called D&K Nordic Oy. They are still finalizing their bank papers and funding, getting software for market research and just getting prepared to hit the US markets. When it comes to their entrepreneurial studies, they are currently completing their courses at HUBS. “We still need to complete our studies, and we are highly motivated. The HUBS courses allows us to work on our company but focus on our learnings like self-development and team building. The courses don’t slow us down at all, on the contrary; they are helping us move forward as a team and as individuals.”  They also have been thinking about participating in other courses, and maybe co-operate with HUBS in the future as a company.

Timur and Tao are really looking forward what the future has to offer them. They are thankful for the guidance and learnings they have gotten from HUBS. ”The moment we got the sparring session, and started the Pre-incubator, it went pretty fast and well, a month later we got the company. Before that, it was only prospect and nothing concrete. If we didn’t have HUBS behind us, we don’t think we would have gotten this far in a such short period of time”, they conclude.

Connect with Tao and Timur on LinkedIn!

Tao

Timur

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