I recently stumbled upon an article (in Estonian) shared in the Estonian Women Investors group’s Facebook page — where a tech entrepreneur in his 30s is complaining about the ‘abnormally long’ parental leave offered to mothers in Estonia. Of course, he completely ignored the fact that it’s not only meant for mothers, but for fathers too.

For those who don’t know anything about the parental leave system in Estonia, here’s a brief overview:

Expecting Estonian mothers are entitled to 140 days of fully paid pregnancy and maternity leave, which can be used starting from 70 days before their estimated due date. …

I just recently went to the cinema to see a movie — ‘A Star is Born’. It was emotional, heartbreaking, inspiring. And it ended with a dialogue, which was so beautiful that I knew it was going to be the intro for my blog post as soon as I heard it:

“Jack talked about how music is essentially 12 notes between any octave.
Twelve notes, and the octave repeats.
It’s the same story, told over and over, forever.
All any artist can offer the world is how they see those 12 notes.
That’s it.”

Entrepreneurship to me is a form of art. Like in the world of music, you have notes, each one representing a unique sound. Great songs compile all this, together with the different instruments’ dynamics, tempo, volume, voice, lyrics and more. Besides creating a great tune, in order for a song to be a success, the artists have to be able to share it with a wide audience. That yet again adds an extra layer of complexity to the equation. …

Before my son was born, I thought for sure that I would be the type of mom that can’t wait to get back to work. I wanted to plan 2018 so that the office wouldn’t even notice I’d be away. But I was lucky that my diverse group of colleagues ignored my enthusiasm and constantly reminded me to see how things would evolve once the baby was born. It was all the support a mom-to-be could want and I really thank them for that.

We welcomed a healthy baby into our family on one of the coldest weeks of February. And the plan I had projected in my head went completely out of the window. …

When I founded my company Testlio I didn’t think it’d be possible to run a business and have a family at the same time.

Back then I was just a 23 year old girl, with only a couple of years of work experience under my belt. As a newbie entrepreneur I was immediately blinded by the hustle culture — 7-day work weeks, sleepless nights, no holidays, a massive dedication to the company with room for nothing else. I couldn’t see the world beyond that.

For me, this triggered a twisted view of the entrepreneurial world — if you really want to be successful, your company should be your one and only focus, that’s it. To become extremely successful you have to sacrifice everything for the benefit of the company — especially your personal life, because you just can’t have everything. I believed that work-life harmony was not possible. The thing is that as a young entrepreneur you just can take more risks and be okay with losing everything. Luckily for me, I had Marko by my side to help bear the burden, and I couldn’t imagine doing it with anybody else. …

I was in 5th grade and I remember when we had to write down our biggest fears. After giving this a couple of minutes of thought, I realized that I was afraid of unexpected situations. I discussed this with my best friend and it became clear that I was just terrified of what tomorrow could bring. By that time my parents had already divorced and I was more uncertain and insecure about myself and my future than ever.

Through this brainstorming session with my friend I found out that I was never comfortable in situations where I had to be creative or where I couldn’t prepare myself few days in advance. What fueled into this fear was a fear of failing and what everyone thought of me. …

One of my favorite questions that I like to ask people is: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced to getting where you are today? Most of the time the their answer is the same — there are always challenges, but what matters the most is getting through them, keeping your head up high and not giving up. I couldn’t agree more.

“You are unstoppable, not because you don’t have failures or doubts, but because you continue despite them.”

When Marko and I went to Angelhack at the end of November in 2012, we just had a big dream and that dream has helped us to persevere through every setback and obstacle since the beginning. …

My passion for software testing turned into a business at the end of 2012. Testlio’s first year was just my co-founder (and husband) Marko and I figuring out how to make our idea work — from building the platform and our tester network to pleasing our very first customers. Without any experience in sales, marketing or recruiting we learned a lot of things on our own by pushing our limits and not giving in to any obstacles.

From 2013–2015 we lived day-to-day, unsure of what the next day, week or month might bring. We learned to go with the flow and tackle problems as soon as they arose. …

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with writing. Sharing my thoughts publicly hasn’t been the easiest — I’ve always thought I could do so much better. Opening up about some of my challenges sometimes makes me worry about how I will be perceived.

I have days where I feel so inspired by everything that surrounds me and I can’t stop myself from writing about it. And then I have days where I have to write and I can’t find any inspiration at all. It frustrates me when I have to prepare for my presentations and I can’t find a way to summarize my thoughts clearly. …