Entry 14 - Playing the European Game

Hey there,

This week took me back to Tallinn for an accelerator day. Solo travel this time, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. There's something about being alone in transit that creates the perfect conditions for things to become clear. And clarity is what arrived, in abundance.

The Journey Inward

Travelling alone strips away the usual noise. No conversations to navigate, no coordination, just you and whatever wants to surface. The flight back especially became a concentrated journaling session where several threads I'd been holding finally wove themselves together.

The trip itself was rich with synchronicities and new connections. But more than individual moments, what crystallised was a deeper understanding of what it actually means to build a company in Europe. Not the theory, but the felt sense of how this game is played.

The Synchronicity Web

One evening captured it perfectly.

I attended a Cyber MeetUp where a postdoc presented her research on human behaviour in cybersecurity. Earlier that same day, we'd had our first real-life use of the Cybersecurity Agent we've been building: an actual incident reported and handled through our system.

During her presentation, I could see exactly how our practical experience demonstrated points she was making theoretically. We got talking afterwards, and by the end of the evening we were discussing a potential partnership to apply for a subsidy together from the Estonian Cybersecurity Innovation Fund. A fund that had also been presented at that same meetup.

Three threads, one evening, converging into possibility.

This is how the European game works. Not through aggressive pitching or manufactured urgency, but through showing up, building genuine relationships, and letting opportunities emerge organically. The subsidy route rewards this. It optimises for synchronicity rather than speed.

The European Game

There's a version of startup culture, dominant in the US, that runs entirely on VC logic. Raise money, grow fast, raise more money, grow faster. The pressure to hit metrics can compromise quality, burn out teams, and force you into decisions that serve investors more than customers or mission.

The European path offers something different. Through subsidies, grants, and programmes like our accelerator, you can build network and capability without that forced growth pressure. You can take time to do things well. You can actually enjoy the process.

What strikes me most is how this approach respects the cultural differences across EU countries. Business happens differently in Estonia than in the Netherlands, differently again in France or Germany. The subsidy ecosystem acknowledges this. It creates space for relationships to develop at their natural pace, across borders, without homogenising everything into Silicon Valley templates.

And here's something I didn't fully grasp until recently: you don't have to play the national game first. The conventional wisdom says build locally, prove yourself in your home market, then expand into Europe. But that's not the only path. You can simply choose to operate on a European level from day one. The infrastructure exists. The programmes are there. The connections are waiting.

This understanding has completely shifted how I see Askara's trajectory. We're not a Dutch company hoping to grow into Europe. We're a European company that happens to have Dutch founders.

Shared Altitude

All of this grew from a single decision: founding Askara in Estonia. That was Simon's find. He sourced the opportunity, navigated the setup, and made it happen.

From that foundation, everything else followed. The accelerator programme. The Toulouse trade mission. The relationships across borders. Each step deepening my understanding of how the European game is actually played.

A year ago, I barely understood this landscape. Now I've experienced firsthand how synchronicity compounds when you're not desperately chasing the next funding round. How showing up and building genuine relationships opens doors that no pitch deck ever could.

Simon created the conditions for Askara to flourish in this first stage. I'm deeply grateful for that. And I'm confident that once he's through his current growth phase, he'll do the same for our next stage, shaping the conditions for the team to flourish again as we scale.

Flying home, that gratitude settled in fully. Not just for the opportunities ahead, but for the path we're on. A path that lets us build something meaningful without sacrificing quality for speed, or authenticity for metrics.

This is the game we're choosing to play.

With care,

Ben