Hi, I’m Rolf. Let me share a bit about my journey in technology.
Growing up, I was surrounded by the fascinating world of computers. My mom was a pioneer in the 1960s, working with those massive, room-sized machines. By the 1980s, she was teaching others the emerging language of coding. At just 9 years old, she taught me to code, and I was not only playing games but also diving into their inner workings. Having a computer expert as a parent was a fortunate beginning to a lifelong journey in technology.
My relationship with technology became quite serious quite fast. I started my first programming job during my first year of studies of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. The courses were interesting yes, but real world problems were calling. So at age of 20, when most are still deciding what to do with life, me and a friend started a games development company and eventually moved to another country to work on an MMORPG. Perhaps we were bit too optimistic about our capabilities, but that’s beauty of being young - you don’t know what’s impossible, so you just do it anyway.
Since those early days of making games, I have worked in many different fields of technology. From startups where everyone does everything, to big corporations where nobody knows what anyone else is doing. Always searching for difficult problems - not because they are difficult, but because solving them makes life easier for others.
This drive to build things and to create solutions never went away. Over the years, I have started several companies, led many teams, written rouhgly a million lines of code, and learned many lessons - some more expensive than others. But each experience taught me something valuable about turning good ideas into working solutions. And most important lesson? Technology is the easy part - understanding what people actually need, that’s the real challenge.
Through the years in technology, I kept seeing same problems again and again. Brilliant people with great ideas but not able to make them real. Business leaders who understand exactly what needs to be built, but get stuck in complexity of software development. It was like watching people with perfect recipe but no access to kitchen. And I thought - this needs to change.
That’s how the idea for Gadlet was born. We live in interesting times now - through LLM’s AI has become powerful enough to understand what people want and translate it into working software. But it’s not just about making programming faster or easier. It’s about completely changing how we interact with technology. Making it speak human language instead of forcing humans to speak machine language.
When not working on Gadlet, I spend time exploring latest developments in technology and AI. It’s bit like being professional chef who also loves trying new restaurants - you get both inspiration and ideas for improvement. And sometimes, you find completely new ways of doing things that you didn’t think about before.
Technology world moves very fast now, faster than ever before. And this speed creates opportunities. With Gadlet, we’re not just making another development tool - we’re creating a way for everyone to participate in digital creation. When we remove barriers between ideas and implementation, we open a door to innovations we cannot even imagine yet.
If you’re interested in future where technology serves people instead of the other way around, I would love to hear your thoughts. Whether you make software, use software, or just think about software - let’s have conversation about making technology work better for everyone.
I still enjoy playing computer games. We can call it “market research.”