Home market in Europe, home in an old Lahti fire station

Paavo Beckman, the son of a working-class family, had been playing air guitar with household objects since he was little. When his family moved to Hollola in the Lahti region and his father built a sound-proof room for drumming in their house, the boy's dreams of becoming a musician became more concrete. When he started studying social pedagogy in Tampere University, Beckman had studied in music class throughout basic education and in a music academy – in addition to numerous attempts at forming a band.

"At the university, I met another failed rock star, and almost by accident, we ended up starting a record label and management company, Merceedees Tuotanto, even though neither of us had any idea whatsoever about running a business. We bought a computer with student loans and set up our office in my friend Jussi's bedroom. I did the talking, while Jussi took care of practical matters."

Crash course in business in Silicon Valley

In a short time, the company became a noteworthy operator in the field. Beckman counter­balanced his poor language skills with fearlessness, and he managed to export Finnish bands abroad early on. The lack of money helped innovation flourish. The business partners started testing how to achieve results without major financial investments.

"Again, with zero experience, we spent 80 euros to raise a band of nobodies to the top of the Finnish charts, by rallying the fans behind the band. At the same time, we created the Mobile Backstage phone app for fan communities. So we became app developers – again, with zero expertise, as you might have guessed."

Placing among the top ten finalists in an inter­national app competition held in the United States, and winning the whole competition in the end, right in front of the big corpo­rations that also participated, opened the doors to Silicon Valley. The business started receiving platinum-selling artists and global record labels as its clients.

"While the other participants had these amazing presen­tations, we had an illustrator make a rock-themed comic strip for 50 euros, and I bought the most expensive shoes I've ever worn for the pitch," Beckman recounts, laughing.

After operating out of Finland for a while, Beckman decided to move to California. When he faced trouble with getting a visa, he directly approached the managers of companies like Sony and Warner Records and asked them to write letters of invitation for him to attach to his application. He describes his experience in Silicon Valley as 'mind-blowing.' The way of working was light-years away from the Finnish way of doing things, and Beckman soon saw that he had to change his entire way of thinking if he wanted to make it.

"We encountered the CEO of our competitor at a house party, and I asked how often they released a new version of their app. I was quite happy with our monthly pace, but I wanted to know how others were doing it. The answer was '64 times a month.'"

Beckman immediately got rid of the old notion that well planned is well done, and adopted the idea that 'well planned' is entirely unfinished. Since then, he has managed his companies with the aim of learning something new every day and changing the plans accordingly. Beckman says that this leads to rapid action.

"It's simple, in a way, but it's still difficult for many, and it requires a total change of culture in a company. Avoiding failure is in our DNA. I've read the book The Lean Startup about a dozen times already, and I recommend it to everyone. It explains how you can achieve significant results with little resources."

His company, Mobile Backstage, gathered capital financing from the market and hired IBM's Big Data manager as its CEO. Not that the company had the money for it.

"The wages in Silicon Valley are enormous, and naturally we couldn't afford the sums that IBM was paying. I asked what the manager was ready to pay us to get to work with us. We reached an agreement," Beckman says, grinning.

However, even though Beckman had specialised in contracts and agreements in the Merceedees Tuotanto company, there was one agreement he did not read carefully enough – the investment agreement. When it was time to move the Finland-based company to the United States, as specified in the original agreement, one of the investors did not agree, and the move never happened. The operations were paralysed. Even though the pulse of Silicon Valley was thrilling, Beckman returned to Finland for his children.

I'm never going back to Lahti – except for the rest of my life

Beckman, named the Main Brainshaker in Tampere, started coaching companies in a business accelerator, founded the startup Catapult for knowledge-based management, and finally acquired ownership of said startup. The team that focused on market analysis started developing the innopipe.ai app as their internal tool, but soon, major customer companies like Mercedes Benz, Continental and Renault became interested in using the app. After meticulous development, the decision was made to productise the app, and the Catapult team moved to a new company founded in Lahti in 2024.

"Before this, I lived in Spain for a year with my family, and when we came back, two things were clear: We wanted to live close to the railway so that traveling to the Helsinki region would be smooth, and we would absolutely not move to Lahti. Then, we visited the Lahti region to see my mother for Christmas, and my wife noticed an announcement about the old Möysä fire station being converted to apartments. Suddenly, everything clicked into place. But honestly, actually moving to Lahti was a shock for me at first."

However, Beckman soon became a walking and talking adver­tisement for Lahti. He found an office in the laboratory facilities of the former Mallasjuoma brewing company, and once the new premises on the site were completed, it was clear that he would stay there. At first, Beckman was the only one who was enthusiastic about the idea to have the headquarters of Innopipe Global in Lahti, but he was stubborn.

Paavo Beckman's first office in Lahti was in the premises of the Mallasjuoma brewing company at the time, in an original and authentic laboratory environment. The industrial surroundings felt comfortable, and his company has used the Malski co-working spaces in the premises since their completion.

"For a company's narrative, being located in Lahti is a distin­guishing factor, compared to Helsinki where there's a startup at every corner. But above all, I wanted to give something back to Lahti by creating new business in the city."

Beckman states that Lahti Region Development, LADEC, was ready to help from day one. Launched in late 2024, his company has received help for building local networks, commu­nication, recruitment and other colla­boration, in particular. According to Beckman, the fact that Lahti has more family businesses than any other Finnish city speaks for the excellence of its business environment.

But what is his best memory of Lahti? Was that in childhood, is it related to business, or is it still on its way? Beckman, who is known for fast moves and throwing himself to new things without fear, answers without hesitation:

"It's a feeling I got soon after we moved to Lahti. A very atypical feeling for me: the feeling that I don't want to leave anymore. It's hard to imagine moving somewhere else. We have everything here."

Innopipe.ai in Brief

Innopipe.ai is a Lahti-based company that offers a platform for charting the global innovation field. In addition to looking for innovative solutions, the platform can be used to get both an overview of the innovation field and an extensive picture of the competition. Innopipe.ai uses data from almost four million growing inter­national companies, and its customers include Mercedes-Benz, Continental, Konecranes, Wärtsilä and Fortum.