SaunaScape

Download with Vixy | YouTube Converter Most of the time, Startup Sauna has little to do with a real sauna — It is an early-stage accelerator program for technology start-ups based in Russia and Northern Europe. I’m sure it is so named because their six-week intensive program to transform your fledgling company into the next Rovio makes you sweat like you were in a sauna.

Successful companies then get to move to silicon valley in the US for three more months to try to secure funding. That must make you sweat like you are in the former Sauna World Championships sauna.

This week on The Next Web, interviewer Hermione Way visited with four of the Startup Sauna crew members Palo Alto, CA to discuss Startup Sauna and some of the companies that have participated in the program. Naturally, they held the interview in the sauna in the Finnish way: Naked, save for their laptops.

Ms. Way offers that the next interview will be even more popular, because she will only allow iPhones.

If you are visiting Silicon Valley, there are many public saunas in the greater Bay Area. However, unless you are really concerned about preserving your modesty (or passing the YouTube content filters) we don’t recommend taking your MacBook or iPhone into the sauna as heat and humidity are not kind to electronics.

Most of the time, Startup Sauna has little to do with a real sauna — It is an early-stage accelerator program for technology start-ups based in Russia and Northern Europe. I’m...