The flap of a butterfly's wings over Turku can lead to great effects


    The butterfly feeder designed by Belightful can transform your garden into a scene from Disney movie

    Something that I really love about working in the startup ecosystem, is that you never really know what your day will look like, and what you are going to learn.

    If i make a short resume of my yesterday, I learnt about all kind of butterflies, the way to stop the youth unemployment, and how to escape hungry zombies: The demo day of Boost Turku was certainly, one of the best startups event of these last months.

    At ArcticStartup, we take part in a massive number of events, but I have to admit that I was impressed by the energy and the smile of the hosts, and by the quality of the9 startups that were demoing after an intensive 10 weeks program: The startups journey, “a program for teams with kick-ass attitude who want to make their idea reality. “, as it is defined by Erika Halonen the Community Manager of the program, where they benefit coaching on various topics such as marketing, legal issues, pitching and sales, bootcamps, mentorship.

    To end this program, a pitching competition with a 10 000EUR prize was hold with not one, but two winners: identio and belightful, a design butterfly feeder.

    Yes, a butterfly feeder! I must confess that before yesterday, I knew nothing (like a certain Jon Snow) about butterflies. They were flying nice things, with a short lifespan (well I learnt yesterday that it isn’t always true). But there is a real community of passionate and a market for this. The first launch will be in the UK, where gardening is a popular activity and a huge business. Caring just the birds is estimated to be a £200 million business per year. This is one of the main target groups which could move from bird feeding to butterfly feeding.

    When I asked to Taina Tallala, CMO of the company, where this idea was born, she explained me that “There has been a 50 % decline in the European butterfly population in the past 25 years. In the worst case scenario our future grandchildren will see butterflies only in pictures.” Belightful is then “an easy way to support butterflies, and to enjoy a nature experience.” The product have been designed to feed only butterflies with holes adapted to their trump and the prototype is 3D printed in Finland.

    The butterfly effect says that small steps can have big effects, correlated to a company, a simple idea can lead to nature preservation and a commercial success. Boost turku opened its arms to 9 startups, and let them fly right now!