Introduction of the case companies

Company A is a Finnish company that sells wooden and leather accessories through their own e-commerce and through about 50 resellers around Finland. Company A was founded in 2015 by three friends that share the same interest in nature, forest and wooden materials. One of the founders had seen a wooden accessory during his student exchange in Canada and the idea was born. Company’s website and e-commerce were launched already during the same year as the company was established, in summer 2015. (Entrepreneur A) At the same time, Company A introduced their brand on Facebook and Instagram and has been able to gain followers with an impressive rate to almost 13 400 on Facebook and 13 200 on Instagram (Facebook 2019b; Instagram 2019b).

Company A is still a small company and employs five people including the three founders.

Almost all the operations like warehousing, e-commerce order management and marketing are run from their Helsinki headquarters. Everything is mainly in the hands of the company, done in-house. (Entrepreneur A)

Even though, Company A’s brand and products have been able to gain great amount of awareness in Finland and sales have been doubled every year, their goal is to grow even more in their home market and expand their business abroad. International sales have been small so far and founders see an opportunity to grow awareness and thus sales especially in Europe and in the United States. Apart from a pop-up store in Japan and few

retailers in Belgium, Company A does not have any retailers abroad. However their biggest sales channel is their own e-commerce, which offers a way to sell abroad without any additional retailers. Company A’s target market is pretty wide as consumers tend to buy their products as gifts to people at all ages and regardless where they live or what gender they represent. However the most typical user of their products is 25 to 45 years old person who lives in the city but is closely connected to nature and likes natural materials. Their customers like to stand out with their accessory choice that is not the most expensive one but special and distinctive. (Entrepreneur A)

The values of Company A are formed around nature and natural materials. As the company uses wood and elk leather to produce its products, materials are from nature and more ecological. Nature aspect is closely related to everything what they do. In addition, responsibility and naturalness are durable values in their business. Their aim is to make nature a part of people’s day in a stylish way and remind people of their relationship with nature. Stimulating feelings with their products to remind people about their memories from playing in the forest as a child, or relaxing in nature as an adult, is their bigger mission. (Entrepreneur A)

Company B is a Finnish skincare company that is developing and selling their own natural skincare products. The company was founded already in 2015 but their first products and own web shop were launched just in January 2018. The first product line has been available for only about a year as products were released gradually. (Entrepreneur B) However the brand became visible to consumers in early 2017 when it was introduced through Facebook and Instagram (Facebook 2019c; Instagram 2019c). After less than two years of active social media presence, the brand’s pages have gained more than 3 000 followers on Facebook (Facebook 2019c), and 3 400 followers on Instagram (Instagram 2019c). Company B is a small company with a startup mentality and is aiming for strong growth. It has currently four employees, the founder and CEO, operative director, head of research and development, and an employee who is responsible of communications and marketing. Manufacturing has been outsourced to two to three factories that are located in Finland and in Sweden. The company is in a fast growth phase and the goal is to grow sales even more and expand in order to have customers around the whole European Union area that is their market area currently. Internationalization and increasing customers more than twofold are targets in the short term. (Entrepreneur B)

Most of Company B’s clientele are women but as the product line is unisex, men have been interested in the products as well. The majority of the customers are 25 to 45 year

olds living in both bigger and smaller cities. Three main clientele groups can be defined.

One clientele group consists of consumers that are looking for natural and/or vegan products. People who have a problematic or sensitive skin and appreciate the fact that the products include just few ingredients and no fragrances form the second group. Finally, consumers that are paying attention to responsibility and acknowledge that the packaging is environmental friendly and recyclable compose the last group. (Entrepreneur B)

Inspiration to establish the company is closely related to the founder’s own experiences as a consumer. She had problems with her skin and she could not find any products that suited for herself, which led to developing her own products at home as a hobby. After creating products to her own and friends’ use for 15 years, an idea to start her own company and product line had evolved. The objective behind founding the company was to bring products that the founder had always wanted to use but was unable to find to the market and in that way help others that are struggling with their skin. The founding story is carefully connected to the company’s values, realness, passion and honesty, that are present in all of their operations. (Entrepreneur B)