Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaana Simula.
Jaana, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have always loved a challenge. The bigger, the better! The love of challenges has led me to travel abroad alone for the first time at the age of 16, an interesting career in technology, move from my home country Finland to the US, complete a triathlon after taking a year worth of swim lessons to be able to swim nearly a mile in open water, and to race up the stairs of the highest buildings in Dallas.
End of the year 2017, I embarked on my biggest challenge yet, I became co-founder of Enterprise BlockChain Solutions together with my business partner Chris Miller. It feels like my whole career had led to the point where I had to try my own wings, or I would forever regret. Technology is somewhat clear career choice for me. I had graduated with a Masters in Logistics and understood that in order to move goods from one place to another or to make processes more efficient, IT systems are needed. So I became an expert on them.
Through my career, I’ve held every role in an IT/system development project, from developing software to managing projects, products, and releases. Over two years ago, I read an article about blockchain that changed my life. Before reading the article, I thought that blockchain is something to do with cryptocurrencies, dark web, and criminals. The article opened my eyes to the potential of the technology beyond cryptocurrencies, and to how many inefficiencies in companies can be solved with blockchain.
I kept reading and studying further and further, and finally understood what it means to have a passion for something. With a passion, your job does not feel like working. You do things just out of pure pleasure, to see everything move forward. Chris had gone through similar kind of a thought process in his end, and one day we talked, came up with a few ideas and got started. We are a happy company! That’s actually our slogan. With the slogan, we want to express the fact that we do this because we’re passionate about what we’re doing, and we love being part of the technology revolution.
We have been happy to see our business grow and to help our customers. What happiness also means for us is to be able to work from where ever we want. At this day and age in the field that we’re in, our work is not tied to an office. The teams that we work with are often located in different states and even in different countries. Technology provides tools and means to communicate and work together with these teams. This has allowed Chris and his wife to follow their dreams and move to Belize.
I, on the other hand, want to spend part of the summer in my home country Finland when my two children are out from school. We believe that happy people create happy companies who create happy customers. We intend to keep Enterprise BlockChain Solutions as a happy company in the future, and to bring more happiness to our customers through our products and services!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Let’s just say that everything is going according to plans, but MUCH slower than we initially thought! When you’re a startup, you do everything in your company by yourself, from developing the product to engaging with customers, social media, running to the post office and everything in between.
The time it takes is to run to the post office or tweet your accomplishments is time away from your core tasks that bring the bread to the table. And speaking about social media, it’s also been quite interesting and surprising to notice how much time and effort marketing takes.
Even if you would have a great product or service to sell, it doesn’t help if nobody knows about it. There are so many great companies, services, and products out there that it is a challenge to get your voice heard. Luckily, I love challenges!
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Enterprise BlockChain Solutions a blockchain development, consulting and training company. Here is where it gets a little technical. We use a blockchain platform called Corda as the basis of our development. A platform is like an engine for the blockchain; it holds smart contracts, the logic for transaction recording and verification and cryptography to secure the transactions.
Corda is a platform intended for companies to use, access is restricted participants only, and you will not see any crypto kitties there! Banking, finance, and insurance companies are active Corda users. Mid-September 2018, we presented the prototype for our first product called Abiko. Abiko is a tool that Finance and Treasury organizations in large corporations can use to process intercompany transactions.
Abiko as a name is a reference to the abacus, representing in a piece of history bundled together with modern technology to help our target users in their everyday work. We take pride in being the first in blockchain industry in so many things! We are the first company to join R3’s, the company who created Corda, partnership network, the #1 R3 Authorized Corda Training Company in the world, and the only authorized company to provide Corda training in DFW area.
We also provide blockchain training for Project Managers and Project Teams. It’s important for every member of the project to understand what the team needs to take into account during a blockchain project, as the technology is so new, and many things are different from your typical software development project. Our trainings are not limited to DFW area only, the next exciting place our training will run it is going to be Egypt!
What were you like growing up?
If there was one song that I would pick to represent me, it would be ‘Imagine’ by The Beatles. I’ve always been a dreamer and an idealist, an activist and proponent of healthy living. On 5th grade, I wrote an essay about world peace and clean nature.
My mom found the essay a couple of years ago and sent it over to me. I was surprised how little I had changed from those days! Protecting nature, consuming minimally, healthy eating and exercise are closely integrated into my life nowadays. I still believe that we can make this world a better place if we try.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://enterpriseblockchainsolutions.com
- Email: info@enterpriseblockchainsolutions.com
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/blocksolved
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