It's been more than five years since the first post on ArcticStartup. We've published thousands of blog posts promoting news important to the Nordic and Baltic European startup ecosystem.
We set about in 2007 as a blog to promote this region as the best and most interesting place to run a startup. In 2009 we founded a company around this to make it more efficient to handle money and be responsible for the actions we took. Things grew nicely and this year we have employed three full time people to run this show.
It has been almost four years since we begun running ArcticStartup as a business. But today, we are changing courses on this path. Despite the big change - we want to take steps to make ArcticStartup a more integrated part of the Northern European startup community.
We are ceasing commercial operations and opening up a transition period to find out how to sustain the site as a community operated non-profit.
ArcticStartup is going to cease its operations as a company, but we realize there is a lot of value in the news source for the community. In the next three months (by the 1st of February), it will be disclosed on this site in what non-profit entity ArcticStartup will continue its operations.
During the transition period, we are going to accept more guest posts and articles by the community in an effort to keep this community news source together. Our team will try and continue to ensure ArcticStartup?s high standards, but purely on a voluntary basis.
Until then, we are accepting suggestions and ideas on how you would like to help ArcticStartup forward. We are looking for suggestions on how ArcticStartup could be setup, organised and perhaps even funded in the future. Please e-mail your thoughts and ideas to editor@arcticstartup.com. We will evaluate all the suggestions and pick the most potential one for the ecosystem to continue with the brand. The new setup will of course determine the team and how it will run the concept, all we are looking for is long term sustainability.
We will try to continue publishing news as we can as we realise this is immensely valuable to the ecosystem, but please realise this is all voluntary from this day forwards and therefore we cannot guarantee any specific pace. If you would like to help in contributing, please get in touch with us at editor@arcticstartup.com. We will however follow through with our sponsored blog posts, which have been paid for, as we value the support our sponsors have given throughout the times. Before we begin with the new, we want to go out with the old. This means we will take a break from publishing for a few days.
This transition of course means that we will be shutting down the company, meaning our media sales, events and the ability to pay for writing. This isn't an easy thing to do, nor was it easy to decide. However, there is a time for everything and we believe the best opportunity for the future for ArcticStartup in the current situation, regardless of shutting down the business, is to keep the brand alive for the community - through the community.
Our mission from the early days was to create a radically optimistic startup culture in Northern Europe. This goal has, in our five years of operations, come a lot closer. It has not been reached yet, but we believe the community as a whole can achieve a lot more in the future than what we ever could have by running the site as a business in a tightening and more competitive space.
The saddest part of shutting down the business is having to let go of our two wonderful employees: Greg Anderson, our editor, and Dmitri Sarle, our sales guy extraordinaire.
Just like in the cases of previous companies whom we have reported on shutting down, we too are promoting Greg and Dmitri to help find them jobs. And yes, this is very personal for me as the CEO of the company - please contact them directly if you feel you have something to offer.
Greg Anderson, Editor 
I hired Greg within 24 hours of receiving his first e-mail querying for work. I have not regretted this one bit, he is a brilliant guy who is able to work under serious pressure, but also excel in those conditions. He has built up an extensive knowledge of the Nordic and Baltic startup ecosystem with all its players and he wishes to use this in the future as well.
In addition to working with us, Greg has worked with a crowdfunding company and has a background in Finance and Economics. He has also no visa problems in Finland nor the US, so he might be a good member to a team looking to expand to the US. He also has ambitions in venture capital.
Greg has a brilliant future ahead of him and if you believe your company would like to be part of that future, contact him at greg@arcticstartup.com for suggestions.
Greg Anderson on LinkedIn - Twitter.
Dmitri Sarle, Sales Guy Extraordinaire 
If I?ve been good at something in this startup, it is hiring great people. Dmitri is a great example of this. He breathes startups, especially IT and gaming companies. We hired him to work with all kinds of marketing, sales and business development activities and he has delivered! He sold out all sponsorship packages and demo stands to Arctic15 in just a couple of months (he started 1st of August).
Not only does Dmitri excel at what he does, but he also speaks four languages fluently having lived in five different countries. He has background in Management studies from the University of Manchester. He is your ideal in-house entrepreneur. Please contact him quickly at dmitri@arcticstartup.com if you feel you could use some help with marketing, sales or business development in general - someone will pick him up fast.
Dmitri Sarle on LinkedIn - Twitter - Unstoppable Entrepreneur (Dmitri?s Blog)
***
I too will be on the job market in the near future. I will take the rest of the year to work on the transition period for ArcticStartup as well as shutting down the company (but most importantly perhaps, spend some quality time with my son and wife). Please contact me at my ArcticStartup e-mail address if you'd like to discuss job opportunities.
We are proud to have been able to report on so many great new companies before anyone else, helped some of you raise funding rounds and also been a help to find new talent through our job board. However, there is a time for everything and today we are switching gears here at ArcticStartup.
Please get in touch with Greg and Dmitri directly if you feel you would have work for them and also, please e-mail editor@arcticstartup.com if you have suggestions on how we should organise things in the future or if you would like to contribute stories.
Before signing off, I'd like to personally thank all our sponsors along the years who have made enabled our operations this far. Some of the most important to us has been the support of the following organisation: Microsoft Finland, Tekes, PayPal, Amazon Web Services and Hammarstr?m Puhakka Partners.
Also, huge thanks to all our readers along the years and those who have supplied us with news tips as well as given advice on how to take things forward.
This truly has been an amazing journey so far, but in many ways - we are making way for something new. Something new that can reach new goals again with the help of the community.
On behalf of all the ArcticStartup founders (Miikka, Ville & Karri); thank you all very, very much.
-Antti Vilpponen
ps. You can reach me at @vilpponen, LinkedIn or my blog.
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