This blog post is part of The Founder Files series, exploring the human side of entrepreneurship, where the distinction between success and failure is often a fine line. From founding and scaling, all the way to the exit, we reveal the unfiltered, authentic stories behind entrepreneurial journeys. Ready to hear the truth?

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Lukiolaisten Kirjakauppa, a book agency that Riku Asikainen started as a high school hustle in 1992, quickly grew to a million-mark business. The business flourished during its early years,  hitting the one-million-mark milestone in the first year, followed by two, eight, 13, 16, 20, and finally 24 million marks – until it plateaued. For Asikainen, the main challenge became to try to sustain the momentum. 

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“The crazy growth at the beginning was pretty damn great. And there were so many positive problems: Where to get a bigger warehouse? How can we hire more people?”, Asikainen recalls. “Things just fell into place, and we made a profit right away, starting from day one.”

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Soon, the team had managed to secure a strong presence in the domestic market, and they realized that there were no more growth opportunities in Finland – it was time to plan for growth on a global scale. In the 90s, they eventually made a breakthrough into the French markets as well.

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“We had found a strong product-market-fit that genuinely resonated with the demand – it was as simple as that”, Asikainen summarizes.

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“What happened with Otava, one of the most prominent publishers in Finland, was one of the most dramatic things that ever happened to us as a company.”

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However, as the company continued to grow and solidified its market position, it started to attract attention from major players in the market, leading to some trouble in paradise. Referring to the events that started to unfold in 1994, Asikainen states: “What happened with Otava, one of the most prominent publishers in Finland, was one of the most dramatic things that ever happened to us as a company.”

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The way Lukiolaisten Kirjakauppa operated was that they purchased the schoolbooks straight from the publisher, based on each school’s book lists, and delivered them to the schools on the first day of the school year, so that students could easily collect their pre-ordered books and get them at a better price, too. 

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Traditionally, the schoolbook business had been a great and secure source of revenue for bookstores, particularly in smaller towns. Including schoolbooks in their selection provided bookstores with a convenient avenue to promote additional literature to schools and students, ensuring survival in the market. Asikainen’s business aimed to make schoolbooks more affordable, which irked established players in the market. Otava's decision to withhold the discounts extended to other bookstores sparked a conflict with Lukiolaisten Kirjakauppa.

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“We were hands down the best buyer in the market. We made a bulk purchase of books at once, knew exactly what we wanted, and paid with cash. There is no way our buying model could’ve caused any extra costs to them, which would’ve justified the higher prices that they offered to us”, Asikainen asserts.

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For Asikainen, it ultimately boiled down to questioning the fairness of funding the survival of bookstores in small towns with money from high school students. Motivated by a commitment to fair business practices, Lukiolaisten Kirjakauppa chose to take legal action against Otava – a big and bold move, considering the age and size of its enterprise in comparison to the century-old publishing giant. 

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A decade-long legal battle started when Asikainen wrote Otava a letter, which, in his own words, was "exactly the kind of letter a smartass business student would write after taking one economics class at a university”.

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“Everybody told me it would be a suicide mission. But if I hadn't taken action, other publishers would likely have done the same."

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“What carried me through was my unwavering faith that I was in the right.”

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Despite warnings of insanity, Asikainen's determination to fight for fair prices resulted in a ten-year legal wrangle that cost hundreds of thousands of euros and reached even the Supreme Court. But against all expectations, Lukiolaisten Kirjakauppa ended up winning the case, marking one of the initial instances in Finland where competition law addressed the abuse of a dominant position in the market.

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Recalling the challenging period, Asikainen acknowledges that the legal battle was certainly one of the toughest moments during his entrepreneurial career.

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“What carried me through was my unwavering faith that I was in the right – maybe it was naivety or simply the mindset of an entrepreneur. But luckily, I had enough money to play with.”

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In the next part of the series, we will delve deeper into the challenges Asikainen encountered while attempting to sell his company, and how his personal life changed after the exit.

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