EP #133 - Thomas Dübendorfer: Leaving Google For The Startup World

Timestamps

0:57 - Academia or entrepreneurship?

2:17 - Working at Google

4:38 - What does Google do differently?

26:40 - Beating out the competition

41:55 - Creating a business angel club

About Thomas Dübendorfer

Thomas Dübendorfer is the president and co-founder of Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC), the most influential angel investing association in Switzerland, with a scope of work deeply focused on technology start-ups in their earliest developmental stages.

Thomas holds a doctoral degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, his alma-mater. In January 2006, he started his career as a tech lead and software engineer at Google Zürich, where he worked in fraud-prevention projects for advertisement systems.

After 7 years, he left the company and devoted his life’s work to entrepreneurship and angel investment in seed-stage ICT start-ups, currently numbering more than 20 entrepreneurial endeavours in his portfolio. Beyond his accomplishments in industry and investment, Dübendorfer has ample experience in academic settings, having worked as a researcher and lecturer in institutions as the University of Zürich and ETH Zürich, where he co-lectured a module on Network Security for 10 years.

Memorable Quotes

"If you're in a market where there's no competition, something is wrong."

"People nowadays want to measure everything in their lives. We at Contavista realized that that obviously extends to a person's financial insights."

Resources Mentioned

Google Docs

Google Sheets

If you would like to listen to more episodes on business angels, check out our conversation with Carole Ackermann and Daniel Gutenberg.

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