Stories > Seeking for happiness in entrepreneurship

Seeking for happiness in entrepreneurship

16.4.2020 | Entrepreneurial journey

Esa, a graduate from entrepreneurship and team leadership decided to build up the happiest domestic program office.

Contact person

Susanna Leinonen

Visiting writer

Esa tells me that when he was still studying entrepreneurship and team leadership he didn’t have any specific vision about where he would continue. After his graduation he applied for many kinds of jobs and ended up working as a project manager for Tampere Pallo-Veikot in Särkänniemi Cup. Esa thinks that it was fun and challenging because he had to learn many new things in a short period of time. His job in Tampere Pallo-Veikot lasted for six months and after that he had to come up with something new.

Experiening collective writing

Esa founded a book company, Roisto ltd., with four of his friends. Roisto was specialized in collective writing. “I really don’t count Roisto as a start of my entrepreneurship. It was more like extra time for Proakatemia studies. We didn’t even have proper business logic and our business plan was drawn only for getting start-up grants. I worked in Roisto for a year, but despite the hard work it didn’t show that kind of signals that it would be my future. It was so project-based and we needed to apply funding for each project. It was kind of exhausting in the long run” Esa tells me.

Expanding network with entrepreneurship

With the help of Roisto Esa’s network expanded and he got a chance to show his creative potential. Esa got two job offers at the same time. “First I was offered a job in the publishing field. It would have meant participating in different kinds of book projects. Tiketti was one of our partners in one project and they offered me a job as well. I ended up in Tiketti in the autumn of 2012”, Esa says.

Esa was the head of sales in Tiketti from 2012 to 2015 and after that he got promoted to CEO. At that time the company was growing fast and this was seen also at the growth of personnel. “When I started at Tiketti I was the twelfth employee, as I can recall, and when I transferred to CEO in the autumn of 2015, we had already 40 employees. At that time I worked hard and round the clock.

I remember visiting TAMK in the autumn of 2015 lecturing about my own career path. I recommended the students to consider carefully if they had planned to become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship isn’t an intrinsic value and the world needs good employees. Being the CEO of Tiketti felt like a definitive decision and I said back then that I wasn’t going to be an entrepreneur. At six months time, because of the sum of many things, I had my own company All Day”, Esa recalls amused.

The happiest domestic program office

Esa says that resigning from Tiketti felt hard, but afterwards he was satisfied in his decision. “At that time I learned a lot about leadership and about work in general and I believe it will continue to bear fruit. All Day was planned very well from the start with a business plan and values. Now we have gained a very skilled and good team around us with whom it is a pleasure to create a common future. Our vision is to be the most prestigious and happiest domestic program office by the end of the year 2020”, Esa says.

Pressure testing ideas while studying Master’s degree

Just over a year ago Esa graduated from the master’s degree programme in entrepreneurship and did his thesis about “Developing a happiness strategy for a Finnish music program agency”. “Master’s degree programme was really my first degree, during which I knew why I was doing it and what I wanted to achieve with it. So now, in my thirties!

It was nice to learn about my own company too and it was great to notice how committed our own team was to implement our company’s strategy. I got to test many things that ended up in my thesis. All Day had been running about a year when I applied for a Master’s Degree and our company developed a lot along my studies” Esa tells me.

Esa says that he became an entrepreneur because he knew that there was a need and room for a company like All Day. It seemed the right time to set up the company. “I’m not a dreamer. We had a strong hunch that we had the skills that were needed and the network to succeed. Now afterwards it’s easy to say that our hunch was right.”

Entrepreneurship means mainly work but also freedom

Esa says that entrepreneurship means mainly work to him. “I associate work to friends and community at our workplace. Entrepreneurship has created a professional community (colleagues, artists, customers, partners) that I got to be very happy about. It feels good to see that I have been surrounded by people with good and healthy values. Entrepreneurship means also freedom in a certain sense. Freedom in knowing that you can do anything “in principle” because all the little things are in your own hands when needed.”

“While studying in Proakatemia, Esa has learned that entrepreneurship isn’t an absolute value. Different roles are needed and it’s not everybody’s role to be an entrepreneur. I’m not saying that not everyone has what it takes to be an entrepreneur, if there are good conditions for things to do. Unfortunately, not everything is always up to you. It is good to leave room for coincidents, too”, Esa says.