My namesake Petteri (Koponen) of Jaiku fame, has returned to his blog. His obvious intention is to promote his current business as an early stage seed investor in start-up companies.
What is interesting about Petteri’s blog is that already his second entry addresses the very essence of my project. He places his words rather ambitiously:
… a startup trying to change the World is as likely to succeed as another one going for a smaller, “more realistic” goal.
I couldn’t agree more. If you put your target sky-high, even a failure could be worth a fortune.
But what are the realistic goals? Most people in Finland live rather frugal lives. If you make 5,000 €/month, you are in the richest 5 % of the population! Now this makes you think.
Let’s do a small calculation
So a filthy rich person in Finland makes 5,000 €/month. That is 30 €/hour and that’s before tax. After the tax of let’s say 35 %, that person will end up with 0.32 €/minute. Yes, you heard correctly, that’s what the rich people make.
Now, the aluminum can refund in Finland is 0.15 €. If you spend less than an average of 28 seconds picking up and returning an empty can, you’re making more money than the 95 % of your fellow Finns. Remember this the next time when you look down on someone collecting empty cans for refund.
How to Make a Million Before 30 
Love your point. I think you’ve got your argument the other way around though:
It’s not great that poor people who collect cans can make as good money as the richer people, it’sbut it is alarming that success in Finland is unrewarded.
Thank you for your comment Ramine. It is absolutely true that success is unrewarded. But because success is always relative to the surroundings, people are destined to keep living their semi-satisfied lives.
I do like this perspective!
“money doesn’t grow in trees”
It grows in street
yeap, there is money everywhere when we just open our eyes.
True enough, Iiro.
There is indeed money to be made from anywhere if we accept making it as a casual thing to do. In our current society, people are afraid of money. People are outright scared of the other people that have money and keep dreaming of making their own fortune in a lottery.