Musician and founder Reigo Ahven: Estonia is the best place to build a startup

Musician Reigo Ahven decided to enter the world of startups in autumn of 2020. His startup Fairmus is building an Estonian equivalent to music streaming platforms that treats the musicians in a fair way. What does Reigo recommend to those who have thought about starting a startup but haven’t made a move just yet?

Reigo admits that founding a startup is not easy – it requires a lot of time, money, attention, love, energy, faith. Really, a lot.

“But if you have a good idea and you know that you’d be willing to work on it for the next ten years, then I recommend to give it a try and first validate your idea among friends and family. If you have the feedback from about 100 people and 90 of them say that you should do it, then my advice is to at least consider the idea of building a startup,” he says.

“To me, the last year and a half have been extremely exciting, I have learned so much. And there is no better environment, more knowledge and means to begin with it than in Estonia. Our network of incubators create an excellent environment to build a startup,” says Reigo.

So what are his recommendations to those who have thought about founding a startup?

Put together a good team

According to Reigo, and this has also been said to him by several investors, the most important thing is to put together a good team. “When building a startup, you need to create like a clockwork where each gearwheel is of different size and shape, yet the machine works well together and the pieces complement each other,” says Reigo.

Fairmus’ team was assembled in a very quick way: one of the founders is Kristjan Ulst, who is also the founder of Fanvestory and has spent years building a music mobile app. Another founder is Juko-Mart Kõlar, former music counsellor at the Ministry of Culture and the current head of Viljandi Culture Academy. He has a lot of experience from the field of startups and creative entrepreneurship. The third founder is Tõnis Kivisild who is currently studying product design at TalTech. Tõnis is very detail-oriented and balances perfectly Reigo’s larger-than-life ideas.

Find a trustworthy legal support

The second recommendation is to secure your background in a legal manner. “My advice is to contact a law firm that has a global reach. This might seem like a remarkable cost, but in reality it’s a lot cheaper than having to deal with consequences without the legal aid,” says Reigo. “Luckily, we managed to make a deal with law firm Sorainen, and Mirell Prosa has already become like a true member of our team.”

One of the first things that Fairmus did was to protect their trademark in those foreign markets where they are planning to expand one day.

Don’t forget the intellectual property questions

Reigo’s third recommendation is to very clearly and in a firm manner solve all questions concerning intellectual property. “This is one thing that was a hard lesson for me to learn. The easiest thing you can do before buying a service or hiring someone, is to exchange e-mails in a very simple manner and describe your vision of the deal,” says Reigo.

If you are thinking about building a startup and want to take the next step, learn more about Tehnopol Startup Incubator and what we can offer you: startupincubator.ee/en.