Incubator Blogs — Coach Minna Mustapää: I’m very impact-driven. If I can help someone, that gives me energy."

Minna’s story begins in Luxembourg, where she spent her early years after moving from Finland at six. “Growing up there definitely shaped my mindset,” she says. “But in my late teens and early twenties, I had a bit of an identity crisis. In Finland, I wasn’t considered Finnish enough. My Finnish sounded different, and people would ask, ‘Where are your parents from?’ I’d say, ‘From Finland,’ but then they’d insist I had an accent. Abroad, though, when I went to France or London, I was always ‘the Finn.’ It created this feeling of not fully belonging anywhere. For a while, it felt like no country would fully have me.”

Eventually, that feeling turned into a strength. “I realized it was actually a superpower,” she reflects. “I could embrace being European, detached from a single national identity, and able to love and adapt to different cultures.”

That openness carried Minna to San Francisco, where she immersed herself in both the startup world and personal development. “The biggest takeaway was a deep dive into authentic communication, self-awareness, and how we construct our own reality,” she says. “It was a beautiful time. I miss it a lot.”

From there, London beckoned. Freelancing as a graphic designer paid the bills, but Minna’s entrepreneurial instincts soon found their outlet: food. “My first real business idea was a cauliflower pizzeria in London,” she recalls, laughing. She quickly learned to adapt, though, after seeking advice from Firezza founder Edin Basic. “He told me: don’t start a pizzeria, make the bases instead and sell them to existing pizzerias. That way, you can be in multiple locations immediately. It was brilliant advice.”

Her return to Finland was some sort of unplanned, and what began as a short trip to attend a Startup Weekend turned into something more permanent. “I realized Finland was different. There was so much less hierarchy,” she says. “In London, when big supermarket buyers came to startup events, we weren’t even allowed to ask them questions. In Helsinki, the Senior VP of a large food group spent two full days with us, asking me questions, joining our team discussions. I thought, This is where I want to be.”

The cauliflower pizza base venture gained traction with the help of mentors, interest from the industry, and investors, but the pandemic brought everything to a halt. “The investor relationship broke down, and I wasn’t allowed to continue with the food business,” Minna shares. “So, I pivoted to my other passion: personal development.” She opened Breathe, a workshop space, in autumn 2020, only to pivot again as the pandemic pushed her toward pop-ups and online sessions.

If setbacks left their mark, they also honed her resilience. “I’ve learned that nothing is wasted,” she says. “Even when something ends, like when my food business collapsed during Covid, it still becomes part of the story. I took those lessons into my work with the founders. I can tell them, honestly: yes, failure hurts, but it teaches you things you couldn’t learn otherwise.”

Alongside her ventures, Minna has been a steady presence in Helsinki’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, helping build the Shortcut’s Spark Academy’s current format and coaching in our University of Helsinki’s Pathways programme. What keeps her giving so much of her time to early-stage founders? “It’s deeply fulfilling to help someone crystallize their idea, to see another possibility, another opportunity,” she says. “I’m very impact-driven. If I can help someone pitch better, find a partnership, get funding, or overcome internal fears, that gives me energy.”

In her workshops, Minna often combines entrepreneurship with personal development. One favorite exercise, adapted from sales training, is the “paper clip challenge.” She sends participants into the city with a paper clip and asks them to trade it for something. “At first, everyone is scared,” she says. “They believe: ‘Finnish people won’t talk to me, they won’t help me, they’ll be annoyed.’ But when they try, they come back amazed: ‘They smiled at me. They didn’t have anything to exchange, but they tried. They spoke English. They were friendly.’ Suddenly they realize: it’s OK to approach people here. They do want to help.”

For Minna, these small shifts in perspective are as important as any pitch deck or financing plan. “Often, when we change how we look at something, the thing itself changes,” she says. “That empowers us.”

Today, she continues to straddle both worlds: developing her food business (her latest cauliflower-based crusts now come with rosemary, tomato risotto filling, even apple pie versions) and guiding entrepreneurs at the very start of their journeys. “I don’t see them as separate anymore,” she says. “It’s the same mission, supporting healthier, more sustainable ways of living. Sometimes that means what we put on our plates, sometimes it’s how we approach building a company.” 

As our conversation gets to an end, Minna leans back, thoughtful. “Know your worth and set boundaries,” she repeats, her voice steady. “That’s something I’d tell any young entrepreneur, the sooner we realize it, the better.”

For her, entrepreneurship is as much about patience as it is about risk. “Allow things to take time. All the clichés, ‘slow and steady wins the race,’ the turtle, they’re true. One of the most common questions Pathways participants ask me is: Do you think this is a good idea? Do you think it will work? And the truth is: nobody knows.”

She smiles. “The point isn’t whether your first idea is the perfect one. The point is to start. If I had overthought whether opening a cauliflower pizzeria in London was a ‘good idea,’ I would have never begun. But I did start, and that journey led me to where I am today.”

Her advice to a young entrepreneur, perhaps a student hesitating to take the first step? “Start. Don’t wait until you know if it’s a ‘good idea.’ You won’t know until you begin. And don’t fall in love with the solution. Fall in love with the problem. If you care deeply about the problem you’re solving, the right solution will reveal itself over time,” she says. “Talk to people, test, adapt, that’s how it comes.”

It’s a philosophy that feels very much her own: rooted in resilience, open to change, and always carried by impact. “Work feels meaningful when it’s aligned with impact,” she had told us earlier. “That’s what keeps me going.”