Curiosity leads an entrepreneurial path

Mikaela Nyman, the CEO and co-founder of Nieve, a software consultancy based in Malaga, believes both can be true simultaneously. Entrepreneurship is partly a combination of various personality traits, which can be nurtured by the environment people grow and work in. On the other hand, it can be a fulfilment for passions that arise from a person’s personality and environment.

Mikaela has been marinated in an entrepreneurial environment since she was young. Her father drove a company importing various electronic components for manufacturing and later the music industry. From very young, she got to see the freedom and responsibility of driving a business. Being a helping pair of hands for her father at work taught a diligent work attitude and risk taking.

“I think entrepreneurship is a part of my personality or maybe it’s in my blood to want to work for myself. Of course, my father has had an influence on me as a role model. I prefer not to be in a too controlled environment, where I can only influence a small part of the whole,” Mikaela thinks.

In her adult years, Mikaela has almost always been an entrepreneur. She founded her first company, a creative agency, in 2002 with a couple fellow students. The company was later integrated into a bigger company, after which Mikaela got hired in a global cosmetics company. There she gained experience in customer account management and marketing communications.

“It was a good experience. Business management and being responsible for a certain business felt like me. It required a holistic understanding of how the different areas in business such as logistics, sales and marketing link to each other to make the customer happy and business successful. In that sense, the role had many entrepreneurial elements,” she says.

After a couple of years Mikaela felt she was missing something career-wise. She started looking for the next entrepreneur case. It was a combination of luck and search for something new, when she ended up joining a modern digital marketing agency. In a year she became a partner in the company and for seven years she contributed to growing the company from some ten experts to almost 130 people.

“It was an exciting growth ride for sure. And then, I started feeling my job in the company had been done, I had given what I got to give. And I think it is important to remain curious. What is the next thing that takes us forward? It was time for me to think about the question for myself,” Mikaela ponders.

Now, a year later Mikaela sits on a comfy coach in an office in the city centre of Malaga. She has left the digital agency to start and run a new digital company Nieve in the city. This time the company’s specialty is software development. She talks smiling about entrepreneurial curiosity. The force that drives one to always searching for the next thing.

There are many new elements in Nieve that tickles entrepreneurial curiosity in Mikaela. Firstly, software development is a business for her. While she has been involved in leveraging digital opportunities, she has not been involved in software business. Secondly, the company is founded abroad. Mikaela moved to Spain with her family, and now while they build their new life in the South, she is deep-diving in the local technology scene.

Some might say Mikaela did a rather bold move, and sure she did. However, Mikaela knows it requires a team to build a successful business. Especially in Nieve’s case, it became clear that local tech expertise could be an essential leverage. Luckily, CTO and co-founder Daniel Arroyo was found in Malaga.

“I love the excitement of building success stories independently but with a team of course. No one can be an entrepreneur alone. You need a team around you. I was lucky to find Daniel as my co-founder because we have a similar mindset and we complement each other’s competencies,” Mikaela says delightedly.

Mikaela and Daniel are not alone on their journey. Nieve is part of Fusion Ecosystem, meaning they have tens of international digital growth companies and entrepreneurs as their supportive peer community.

“Most people I have met through Fusion are dynamic, smart and the achiever type of persons. They think about the bigger picture and even beyond. It’s easy to feel like-mindedness, desire to cooperate and trust. For me trust is more than black on white, and that is what I value in the community,” she explains.

As a piece of advice Mikaela recommends finding balance between starting and completing to move forward. The biggest struggles and failures often come when companies stop making progress. She says if business stops, it stops and that indicates trouble sooner or later. Mikaela sees it is beneficial for an entrepreneur to have unlimited curiosity. But to balance that, she advises to learn complete.

“It is typical for entrepreneurs to start off things, and I have that in me as well. Luckily, I’m also good at completing because without that curiosity could easily backfire. It is good for every entrepreneurial team to find that balance,“ Mikaela summarises.

Explore the full series for more co-founder stories:

1. Finding meaningfulness in entrepreneurship – Jani Kallio
2. Curiosity leads an entrepreneurial path – Mikaela Nyman
3. Courage, smart risk-taking and a club – Vesa Härkönen
4. The story an entrepreneur would tell – Emma Grönlund
5. Building a company is a journey worth experiencing – Jaakko Karhumaa
6. If you can do it for someone else’s account, why not make it your own business – Ilkka-Cristian Niemi
7. On a mission to transform learning through a purpose-driven business – Marjut Sadeharju
8. From corporate world to GenAI pioneer – Daniel Arroyo
9. The converge of art, people and data – Kira Sjöberg