I am Mikael Lauharanta, co-founder & COO of Smarp. I am a BScBA 9 – so started my studies in 2009 – and we founded Smarp in 2011 with two classmates Roope Heinilä and Tommi Huovinen while still studying International Business at the Aalto University Mikkeli Campus. As a safety valve we applied for Master’s programs and I was accepted to the MSc Program in Marketing at Aalto, but I never started my studies there. At times I second guessed the decision a lot, as there are a lot of ups and downs in the startup world, but in hindsight it’s easy to see it was the right thing to stick with Smarp.
I did not have a clear conviction after high school, so after I unsuccessfully applied to law school and went to the army, I decided to apply for a business school. It would leave my options open and give me a good general understanding of the various skills needed to be successful in the business world.
The Programme is intensive, but effective, and it creates a very close knit community that is as likely to produce friends for life as it is business professionals.
To this date the Summer of 2010 is one of the warmest ever recorded in Finland. I just remember this care-free episode in my life when we would study and go to the beach and swim and have fun for days – it seemed like it would never end, and we felt invincible!
Mikael Lauharanta, co-founder & COO of SmarpEven if you know everything in the world, it is not enough if you don’t know the people who can help you along the way.
We were a bunch of like-minded and entrepreneurial people who wanted to do something meaningful and when the opportunity presented itself we ran away with it and never looked back.
You could always be wiser, richer, and more experienced, so you might as well give it a shot now that you don’t have a mortgage and you’re used to eating microwave dinners anyway.
It’s one of our greatest strengths as it enriches our thinking, grants more perspective, and enables us to hire talented individuals from all over the world who could potentially struggle to get hired and fit in a more homogeneous working environment.
I had a summer job at a bank, which taught me a lot, including that I don’t want to work in a bank. Get an internship at a startup and embrace the chaos or get ready to climb the corporate ladder.
It’s a fast-paced program that prepares you well for the working life and all the challenges it might throw at you. I especially think the frequent presentations help BScBA Mikkeli students stand out from the crowd in a positive light. Last but not least the program is not too big, which really helps create an amazing team spirit among the students.
Get to know Mikael’s career at !
The Bachelor’s Programme in International Business provides students with a comprehensive range of skills and knowledge to build, develop and lead companies on a global scale. A bachelor’s degree in business with an international focus opens up a wide variety of career opportunities across all industries and continents.
