Mari Luukkainen

Founder, Chair, CEO
2022
Herizon is a non-profit with a mission to make the tech world more diverse by linking international talent with jobs in the Nordics. 2023 results: - 133 employed individuals (233 total since the beginning) - 501 learning community members - 1000+ Discord members (extended community) - A total of 71 nationalities in the community - 137 events for highly educated immigrants to help them integrate and land a job - Partnerships with the City of Helsinki, KONE, Slush, Solita, and several others - Lean 2-person team with experience from Nordic growth companies Freska and Supermetrics The ROI of sponsoring Herizon <€1000 / employed immigrant. Calculated by the average salary of the employed person (€3K) the impact is €400K /month in new salaries paid for formerly unemployed people during 2023.

2018

Keynote Speaker, Writer & Creator, Growth & Marketing
2018
I'm a - Writer of the first Finnish book about growth hacking "Kasvuhakkeroi tai kuole" and several others. - Active creator of digital coaching materials (ebooks, courses, templates). - Coach the boards, CEOs, growth teams and people, and the whole company in growth and marketing activities in several accelerators and as a keynote speaker. As a keynote speaker for startups and startup events, I bring a unique perspective and wealth of knowledge to the stage. With a focus on innovation, growth, and entrepreneurial spirit, my speeches inspire and educate audiences on what it takes to launch and grow a successful startup. I've held keynotes for over 1000+ different startups and scaleups mainly from Nordics and Baltics, bigger companies, startup accelerators, and other organizations such as Kiuas, TechChill, Nordic ScaleUp Academy, Boardman Grow, and Founder Institute. My style is to draw the story on a whiteboard. 🎨 The usual structure is 45 minutes of whiteboard presentation and 30 minutes for discussion for €2500+VAT. English & Finnish.

2017

Shareholder
2019
I own a bit of a home-cleaning company. Freska is the biggest and fastest-growing home-cleaning player in Nordics with excellent cleaner retention and customer satisfaction. (Enjoy my referral code for a 50 eur discount: EESU5O.)
Head of Growth
2017 - 2018
I ordered the service for 6 months before ending up being Head of Growth for the reason that my cleaner Ria was the first cleaner in 10 years who smiled and was genuinely happy to clean at my place. As a cross-functional solo growth team Head of Growth I did data iterative customer acquisition, cleaner acquisition, and retention optimization for both. The company grew from €175K to €13M annual recurring revenue in 2 years 15% MoM with happy customers and cleaners averaging an industry-leading 4.7/5 satisfaction rating. We hired over 800 cleaners and acquired over 200K clients from Finland, Norway, and Sweden. I left my operational role to do 20x Freskas. (Enjoy my referral code for 50 eur discount: EESU5O.)

2019

Advisor
2024
Advisor for my portfolio companies.
Principal
2022 - 2024
My investments: Shook Digital, Vested, Starstuff, Theymes, Clock&Cloud Intelligence. Portfolio development of a portfolio of 100+ companies in Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A and Series B. €150K-€800K investments in idea-stage technology startups in Finland, Sweden, and Estonia.
Head of Growth
2020 - 2022
I trained 100 growth operators and built growth teams in the portfolio companies. Fund II of €100M invests €150k-800k tickets in early-stage (idea/pre-seed) Nordic and Baltic tech companies.
Head of Marketing
2019 - 2020
I wanted to find a place to do 20 Freskas so I joined an early-stage VC firm. I found out that the best marketing for a VC is the growth of portfolio companies and their funding rounds, so I started to build growth teams in our companies. Then I found out there weren't really experienced growth people in the Nordics and Baltics so I started to train them. I trained growth operators and built growth teams in our portfolio companies in the €20M B2B SaaS fund.

2020

2019

2018 - 2024

Partner
2018 - 2024
At Freska I struggled to find outsourcing opportunities fast enough for a VC-backed startup. A common bottleneck is that most agencies are just way too slow and focus on the wrong things. So I bought a piece of Truly Agency in 2018 since the founders seemed to share similar thoughts. We started to scale but it wasn't that easy. 2018 Iteration from the 2017 company to something else. 2019 Product/market fit was missing and we struggled to find decent hires. 2020 We doubled our revenue, turned pretty profitable, and hired 10+ people. I sold €100K MRR of services through my network. 2024 Exit

2017 - 2018

ICO/STO Fundraising Advisor
2017 - 2018
It was fun as long it lasted. During the infamous ICO spree of 2017-2018 I was a token sales advisor in token sales raising almost $100M SeaHeal STO, Dealjoy ICO, Sentigraph ICO, Agrello ICO, Everex ICO, eByte ICO, Menlo.one ICO, ETHlend ICO, Nuvus.io ICO, Lamden ICO.

2017 - 2017

Growth Marketing Advisor
2017 - 2017
Growth marketing with my friend Jan. Including Paxful SEO, SEM and social media PPC. Agrello and Everex ICOs which raised almost $50M. Several eBay, Amazon, AliExpress, Shopify, Instagram etc. dropshipping projects including $20k/month revenue eBay store. Perheblogit.fi family blog media in Finland which was decently running for 2 years, concept and processes were later sold.