Virheelli­nen helps to learn lan­guages for every­day sit­u­a­tions

Michael Demid­off’s idea of estab­lish­ing a start­up start­ed from his per­son­al inter­est of help­ing peo­ple to learn lan­guages. Through­out his pro­fes­sion­al career, he used to teach Eng­lish even at uni­ver­si­ty lev­el, which sparked his inter­est in design­ing cus­tom-made tools for his stu­dents to help them learn. His expe­ri­ence of learn­ing Finnish as an adult helped him to relate to his stu­dents’ strug­gles. Even­tu­al­ly his idea grew into a the­sis, and based on that he took it a step fur­ther, this time com­ing up with a pro­to­type for a web-based tool.

Michael got into con­tact with the experts at Start­up Sta­tion who then invit­ed him to par­tic­i­pate in the Start­up Express pro­gramme.

Errors make learn­ing pos­si­ble

The sto­ry behind the name Virheelli­nen (flawed) is based on learn­ing from one’s mis­takes.

- I had no pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence of learn­ing a for­eign lan­guage as an adult, so when learn­ing Finnish, I start­ed post­ing about errors I did because I want­ed to share the process with some­one. Lat­er I was think­ing of ideas on how to mar­ket my start­up and let peo­ple know about it, and so I came up with the name Virheelli­nen.

Recent­ly Virheelli­nen was reg­is­tered as a trade name. It is a con­cept that is root­ed in self-aware­ness and self-obser­va­tion to over­come psy­cho­log­i­cal bar­ri­ers, for exam­ple caused by indi­vid­ual learn­ing needs. Cur­rent­ly, there are sev­er­al train­ing ses­sions in the pipeline, aimed at inter­na­tion­al peo­ple try­ing to learn Finnish, with a strong empha­sis on kinaes­thet­ic learn­ing. Lim­it­ed lan­guage coun­selling and cus­tom-made con­tent are also avail­able. Now, Virheelli­nen focus­es sole­ly on ear­ly-stage Finnish, but Michael has been plan­ning to involve oth­er Euro­pean lan­guages in the future, as well.

Start­up Express cre­at­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties to devel­op the process fur­ther

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gramme was an eye-open­ing expe­ri­ence for Michael.

- I think it sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed the whole course of this project. I have learned mar­ket­ing and pro­duc­ti­za­tion, which used to be my weak­ness­es. The pro­gramme helped me to phys­i­cal­ly val­i­date my con­cept and gave me this oppor­tu­ni­ty that allowed me to go from the­o­ry to prac­tice.

Start­up Express was also a plat­form that facil­i­tat­ed flex­i­ble and adapt­able peer-to-peer coop­er­a­tion, which is a rare com­mod­i­ty.  For exam­ple, Michael got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring in his for­mer group­mate from Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, Thomas Vel­lis­saris, who works on a kinaes­thet­ic project of his own. Togeth­er they have val­i­dat­ed their prod­uct. Michael tends to the lin­guis­tic part, where­as Thomas deliv­ers the kinaes­thet­ic ses­sions. This way, the expe­ri­ence in teach­ing lan­guages and the strong back­ground in the­atre ped­a­gogy blend togeth­er to offer an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion.

Future plans

At the moment, Michael and Thomas are in the mid­dle of offer­ing the prod­uct online. They have just com­plet­ed an online ver­sion of Finnish in Emo­tion, which teach­es lan­guage learn­ers through emo­tion­al expres­sions. For the future, Michael is con­sid­er­ing of reg­is­ter­ing Virheelli­nen as a start­up. After that it is like­ly that he will con­tin­ue reshap­ing the con­cept into a com­pa­ny.

- We are plan­ning to organ­ise anoth­er online event and gain more pay­ing cus­tomers. We are also plan­ning to start sell­ing a text­book. I assume we will not have mil­lion-euro sales overnight, and we will still have to see how much sales we need to have every­thing bal­anced. Per­son­al­ly, I think that pre­cise cal­cu­la­tions are very dis­cour­ag­ing, because one would need huge sales before this busi­ness can thrive. My approach is to do things through tri­al and error, and I think this should be taught more wide­ly at start­up lev­el.

In the fol­low­ing months, Michael is going to observe how the busi­ness works, what could be improved, and if the idea is going to car­ry them fur­ther. He is not afraid of fail­ing.

- I think I am a doer kind of indi­vid­ual. I want to try, and this way of doing works for me. As far as I know, there is also the Prob­lem Solvers for­mat at Start­up Express, which is dif­fer­ent from how my cohort was run. I think it could have helped me even more. But in gen­er­al, the envi­ron­ment of Start­up Express was very pos­i­tive. I was very shy to present my idea to peo­ple, but they specif­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed it. I would have not reached this point of sell­ing with­out this expe­ri­ence with Start­up Express.

Third cohort of Start­up Express will start next autumn

Next Start­up Express pro­gramme to start in Sep­tem­ber 2024

The coach­ing lasts 100 days, includ­ing 10 coach­ing ses­sions

The coach­ing is organ­ised by Business­Oulu and deliv­ered by Crazy Town

You can par­tic­i­pate with your own busi­ness idea or with the enthu­si­asm to join a new start­up team

The pro­gramme is free and open to all those inter­est­ed in start­up entre­pre­neur­ship

Apply, if you are

• Start­up team with an idea (pre-y-tun­nus) seek­ing con­fi­dence, skills, and men­tor­ing: If you have a start­up idea and need sup­port to build your con­fi­dence, skills, and access men­tor­ing, we’re here to help.

• Indi­vid­ual inter­est­ed in join­ing a start­up: If you want to be part of a start­up team and have a can-do atti­tude, we can con­nect you with teams active­ly look­ing for enthu­si­as­tic indi­vid­u­als like you.

For more infor­ma­tion: jan.schmidt@crazytown.fi