Here are the questions I asked from the entrepreneurs:

What is your background and what made you become an entrepreneur? What did you study?

• What problem did you see in the world that made you start your company?

• How is your solution different from what others are already doing?

• What’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learned from your customers so far?

• What’s the hardest part about growing your company right now?

• Where do you see your company in the next 5–10 years?

• How has Helsinki Think Company assisted you on your journey?

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Kashif, CEO / Co-founder of Sustafe and Agrionix.ai

I interviewed Kashif, founder of Sustafe and Agrionix.ai, whose background in agricultural sciences and forestry led him from academia into entrepreneurship. Sustafe focuses on safety and sustainability in risky workplaces, mainly in labs, a gap he noticed during his own research work. He highlighted the challenge of building trust in Finland as a young company and noted that sustainability and sustainable use of resources, more than safety, has helped open doors.

His second startup, Agrionix.ai, uses IoT sensors, weather data, and imagery to monitor crop and soil health, starting with indoor farming and expanding to agriculture lands and forests. The idea is rooted in his family’s farming background in Pakistan and his research in Finland.Kashif values networks, feedback, and sees entrepreneurship as a growing path for researchers, especially as there are cuts in academia research funding. He believes that much more support from the state is needed for the startups to thrive.

Winning the Think Company Fund competition last year helped Sustafe prosper, develop, and launch its digital product (MVP) in April 2025. The generous workspace provided by Helsinki Think Company is also helping both startups reach collaborators around the world.

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Andreea/Sleep Story Therapy

I interviewed Andreea, the founder of Sleep Story Therapy. She studied psychology and human resources and decided to become an entrepreneur because she couldn’t find a company in her field that matched her vision and wanted the freedom to represent herself.

She started her company to tackle sleep problems, something she struggled with personally and couldn’t find help for. What sets her solution apart is the unique connection and trust she builds with each customer. Her company values and adapts individually to different people, which she says makes it unlike any other business in the field.

From her customers, she’s learned that every person is unique with different needs, so connecting and listening carefully is essential. Right now, the biggest challenges in growing her company are finding reliable support and collaborators, building her social media presence, securing funding, and earning trust, especially in a world where many people make promises but don’t follow through.

In five years, Andreea hopes Sleep Story Therapy will be well-known, especially in the Romanian market, where people will recognize that help for sleep issues is available through her company. In ten years, she plans to expand into B2B partnerships with companies.

Helsinki Think Company has been a huge help by providing free office space, a great workspace with everything she needs, a business mailing address, and guidance and support early on, helping her feel less alone during the startup phase, which is the hardest phase of building a company.