01
Kletta
2022-2024
The idea for Kletta started during a sauna session in Helsinki with my old business partner Tomi-Pekka. Between löyly throws, he mentioned how Finnish sole traders were still drowning in overly complex accounting systems or no accounting at all while their businesses happened entirely on the go. "What if we built something that actually worked the way these people do?" he wondered.
As a Finn living in Barcelona, I understood both the Finnish market needs and the potential for a solution that could eventually scale beyond Nordic borders. Tomi-Pekka had the vision and the local network, and I had the technical team that could bring it to life. It was the perfect match for a new venture.
02
Process
The Lightbulb Moment
During our first discovery sessions with the Finnish founders, it became obvious that the prototype forced desktop habits onto a phone. Navigation was cramped, key actions sat three taps deep, and the flow broke the minute you tried to work one‑handed.
What impressed us was the groundwork already done. Their market research showed that most accounting software still assumes a desk and a laptop, even though sole traders spend their day on the move. Entrepreneurs were piling up receipts in glove boxes because real‑time entry was impossible, and Finnish tax rules demanded formats foreign tools could not handle. On top of that, more than a hundred local beta testers were lined up, desperate for something that could break the desktop shackles.
The path forward was clear: build a mobile‑native app where users snap a receipt, log mileage, send an invoice, and generate a compliant tax report before their coffee order is ready. Precision for regulators, simplicity for users, all from a phone.
Building Their Engineering Team
Tomi-Pekka had entrepreneurial vision but needed a technical team to make Kletta a reality. Rather than building an in-house team in expensive Helsinki, we explored more cost-effective options and landed on Vietnam as the ideal location for development talent.
I helped Tomi-Pekka define the roles, conduct technical interviews, and most importantly, establish clear communication processes that would work across significant time zone and cultural differences. We created detailed documentation with Finnish business logic explained in English technical specifications that would translate seamlessly to Vietnamese developers.
The remote hiring process taught us valuable lessons about building distributed fintech teams. The Vietnamese engineers impressed us with their technical skills and attention to detail, particularly in implementing the complex tax calculations needed for Finnish sole traders. We established regular video standups and created visual development workflows that minimized language barriers.
03
Future
Kletta filled the gap we saw on day one. Finland’s sole traders had only clunky desktop suites or stripped‑down apps that ignored local tax rules, so we built the phone‑first alternative we wished existed: snap a receipt, log mileage, send an invoice, and stay compliant without ever opening a laptop.
That same promise resonated abroad. UK freelancers, different regulations and all, grabbed the chance to run their books between jobs. Two years on, Kletta is the clear market leader for mobile accounting among Finnish sole traders and is rolling into new euro markets.
Our role has shifted from builders to stewards. We hired and onboarded a Vietnamese engineering team that now owns the codebase, shipping features straight from user feedback. Because we stressed sustainable practices over quick hand‑offs, Kletta keeps evolving without us on the front line, and that continuity is the win I am proudest of.
04
