Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 6:39 - Are startups the future of investing? 13:22 - Defining your investment strategy 22:04 - The art and science of valuation 27:44 - Glossary of investment terms 37:04 - Access to good deal flow About Philippe Teissonniere: Philippe Teissonniere is a co-founder and COO at Leva, the tech stack for the venture capital industry. He holds a MA in Law & Economics from HSG and previously worked at companies like db-Legal and Bleuer & Kleger, before starting Leva in 2019. Leva offers a full range product suite to launch and run your syndicate easily from your laptop, allowing you to set up and manage investment vehicles to pool co-investors in a few clicks, fully digitally, and at a fraction of the cost. From his time spent at Leva, Philippe has gained insight into the world of startup investing, and kindly shared some tips with us.  How much of your investment portfolio should consist of startups? For European investors, Philippe recommends that 5-20% of their portfolio consist in alternative asset classes (including, but not limited to, startups). How much money should you invest in startups? The golden rule is to never invest more than you can afford to lose. Philippe recommends you start with CHF 5K distributed among several startups (preferably from different industries). You need to keep in mind that 90% of startups fail, so a good way to increase your chances of seeing a return on your investments is to invest in at least 10 startups. How should you define your investment strategy?  Your strategy should be defined according to your risk tolerance and your personal financial situation.  You should invest in startups you’re genuinely interested in, and whose products you understand.  Geography-wise, you should pay attention to the regulations of different countries. When in doubt, ask for help from your peers! How can you get access to a good deal flow? Go to startup events, accelerator events, and in general networking events. Browse crowdfunding platforms. Join syndicates or investment clubs, and, once again, connect with your peers! Good luck. To listen to the other episode in our startup days 2023 bonus series, check out our conversations with Christoph Bertschi, Arman Anatürk and Fajer Mushtaq. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 6:42 - The freight industry 13:41 - The true cost of every vehicle 18:46 - From VP of Customer Success to CEO 27:00 - Operating system of a high growth company 39:13 - CEOs being hands-on with finance About Francine Gervazio: ⁠Francine Gervazio⁠ is the CEO at ⁠Avrios⁠, an innovative fleet management software. She holds an MBA from the Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, Massachusetts, and previously worked at companies like Aquila Institute and Rocket Internet SE. She founded her first and only venture, cargo32, back in 2015, but an incohesive founder team resulted in the failure of the company. She joined Avrios’ ranks as VP of Customer Success in 2018.  Founded in 2015 in Zurich by a team of serial entrepreneurs, Avrios currently manages the fleet of more than 1.000 customers in Europe and is one of the fastest growing companies in the SaaS space. They make the lives of fleet managers much easier by using AI to automate all the data management which before was done manually. They also help companies calculate the “true cost” of each of their vehicles: this means not only fuel, maintenance, repairs, and etc, but also the environmental cost. They then provide companies with webinars, ebooks and even an academy in order to help them go green. They service companies with fleets as small as 20 vehicles and as big as 78’000. In 2021 Francine became CEO of Avrios, which altered her life quite a bit: a lot more traveling, a lot more responsibility, and many more sleepless nights. Avrios’ operational system is divided into 7 “departments” (finance & operations, people & culture, sales, marketing, customer success, product, and engineering), all kept on track through the use of OKRs.  They credit their great company culture to the following factors: They hire in an unbiased way, which organically resulted in a quite diverse team; They’re adamant on their “no drama” policy. This means: speak openly, instead of gossiping; be humble and curious; and let go of “being right”; They take pains to make employees feel like they are cared about, but also challenged. In late 2022 Avrios was acquired by Battery Ventures to form an integrated company with Vimcar. M&A processes are extremely common in the freight industry, because it’s a hard-to-define, highly fragmented market (i.e., each company does something different), where growth happens slowly. This means M&A is a quick way for freight industry companies to grow and which also benefits their customers, because of the complementarity between the services of these companies. Memorable Quotes: "I’m fully against going fully remote, but I like giving employees the flexibility to stay home a few days out of the week." "When you fundraise, you don’t want to have just 1 term sheet. You’ll want to have 5, because you need to negotiate." If you would like to listen to more conversations with external CEOs, check out our episode with smallpdf's ⁠Dennis Just⁠. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our ⁠Twitter⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Facebook⁠ and ⁠Linkedin⁠ accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 9:02 - The problem of water contamination 15:29 - Nanotechnology and micro-pollutants 17:09 - Remediation vs tackling the source 19:52 - Oxyle’s customers 33:42 - Attracting talent as a cleantech startup About Fajer Mushtaq: Fajer Mushtaq is the co-founder and CEO at Oxyle, a cleantech startup with a    game-changing water remediation technology. She holds a PhD in Micro- and Nanotechnology for Environmental Remediation from ETH and previously worked there as a BRIDGE Proof-of-Concept Fellow, before starting Oxyle in 2020. When we usually think of water pollution, we think of things like cigarette butts, plastic bags, or perhaps even bacteria or viruses. But what most of us fail to consider are micropollutants (like hormones, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, industrial waste, etc…), so called not because they’re found in small amounts, but because a small amount is enough to have a carcinogenic effect, or cause infertility or birth defects. 1 nanogram per liter (which is the equivalent of 1 drop in 20 Olympic-sized pools) is concentration enough to cause humans and their ecosystems harm. What’s more, these micro-pollutants are bioaccumulative (meaning if you keep drinking them, they keep increasing in concentration in your blood), and stay in bodies of water for decades on end unless treated appropriately. That’s where the ETH spin-off Oxyle comes in. Oxyle works at the last stage of water treatment to remove these micro-pollutants through their innovative nanotechnology. They do so in a sustainable, scalable manner by getting in touch with big companies looking to remediate the harm they’ve caused and prevent any more harm from being done. This is equally as important in Switzerland as it is in other places: the water Swiss people drink has 17x the amount of carcinogenic pesticides that is safe to consume.  Fajer strongly believes that  fighting climate change is done not only through innovative startups like Oxyle, but also through regulation. We need to hold polluters responsible, and nowadays, due to the growing sophistication of water analysis techniques, we definitely can. This way we can both remediate the harm that’s already been done, and stop future pollution at its source.  "Having the ‘ETH spin-off’ label gives you credibility and opens up access to crucial infrastructure." Resources Mentioned: https://foreverpollution.eu/ (to learn about PFAS chemicals) To listen to the other episode in our startup days 2023 bonus series, check out our conversations with Christoph Bertschi and Arman Anatürk. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 1:47 - From the US to Switzerland 10:37 - Teaching girls to code 25:43 - Non-profit & a day job 32:45 - How to spot burnout 50:51 - Rapid fire questions About Lara Riparip: Lara Riparip is the co-founder of and an instructor at GirlsCodeToo, a coding academy for girls striving to breach the gender gap in STEM. She holds an MSc in Neural Systems and Computation from ETH and previously worked as a Staff Research Associate at the University of California. She currently works as a Frontend Software Engineer at Avaloq, a global leader in digital banking solutions. Back in 2020, she co-founded an association called Girls Can Code, but unfortunately due to a lack of strict guidelines the founding team ran into disagreements which led to a separation, and out of this breach the GirlsCodeToo project was born in 2021. They’re a non-profit with the goal of motivating young girls across Switzerland to use coding as a way of expressing their creativity, and to inspire more girls to study computer science at a university level. They target 8-18yo and their workshops are held in English, German and/or French and/or Italian. They provide both introductory coding workshops as well as in-depth workshops in specific coding languages or technologies. They also provide workshops to boost confidence and interpersonal skills. The prices they charge, together with donations, crowdfunding and corporate sponsorships allow them to cover their costs. Lara is no stranger to the hardships of running a project on top of your day job, and she has learned how this can lead to burnout. She warns listeners to watch out for telltale signs, like no longer drawing any enjoyment from the activities which used to make you happy. She encourages listeners to schedule time for themselves and time for boredom, as well as quality time with friends and family. Memorable Quotes: "If I could talk to an 8 year old me, I’d tell her to try as many things as possible, even if you suck at first." Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 16:47 - The idea for Worldcoin 21:49 - Proof of personhood 26:01 - People without access to smartphones 27:56 - What you can do with Worldcoin 37:50 - When Worldcoin will launch About Alex Blania: Alex Blania is the co-founder and CEO at Worldcoin, a startup issuing a new, decentralized global currency that will be distributed fairly to as many people as possible. He holds a BSc with a double major in Physics and Mechanical Engineering from the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and was previously a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. In 2020 he co-founded Worldcoin together with Max Novendstern and Sam Altman, with the goal of connecting everyone to the global economy as fast as possible. Worldcoin plans to issue every single person on Earth one free share, which you keep in a non-custodial crypto wallet purely based on smart contracts. With it, you will be able to buy other tokens/stablecoin, buy more Worldcoin, send coins to your friends, and pay for goods and services. When building Worldcoin, the first problem the founders had to face was that of identity: How do you issue everyone an equal identity that is pseudonymous and privacy-preserving? The answer was biometrics, which allow you to prove that you’re an unique human without actually revealing who you are. The Worldcoin co-founders have built their own biometrics device. Without having solved this issue, Worldcoin might have possibly been able to operate in regions like Europe and North America, but the incentive to attack the system would be very high. Another issue that they will have to tackle in the pursuit of their vision is the lack of access to smartphones in certain parts of the world. For this, they draw inspiration from Safaricom, in Kenya, which has through their digital banking platform Mpesa allowed an entire country to gradually switch to digital payments, which can also be made via SMS – i.e., without a smartphone. Worldcoin does not, however, plan to charge Safaricom’s high fees of 8%. They have yet to undergo their global launch and are currently running field tests in many locations around the world. Memorable Quotes: "If I could stop time and just do what I enjoy the most, I would do research." Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 11:40 - Where great ideas come from 15:07 - Founders should have a sales role 18:25 - Raising funds 21:22 - Making the first hires 30:15 - Physical and mental health About Christoph Bertschi: Christoph Bertschi is the co-founder and CEO at SmartBreed, a startup developing a decentralized upcycling technology to fully exploit the potential of insects. He holds a MSc in Banking and International Finance from Cass Business School, London and previously worked as a consultant at Simon-Kucher & Partners. Christoph co-founded SmartBreed in 2019. SmartBreed’s vision is to harmoniously blend nature with technology to sustainably improve our food chain. They enable zoos, farms and food manufacturers to breed their own protein-rich grasshoppers using their patented and automated grasshopper breeding boxes. Christoph’s time as a founder has taught him a few lessons which he has very kindly shared with us in this episode, and which we have summarized below. How do you find the right co-founder? There’s always the possibility of picking someone you’ve known a long time, like a family member. If you choose this, keep in mind that though shared values may seem like a given, they should still be discussed. Pick someone from a different area. Complementary skill sets are a plus. Pick someone who is always curious to learn more. Building a startup is one hell of a learning journey! Pick someone who’s willing to go out and talk to people, to get to know them and inspire them. They’ve gotta be ready to improve their selling game. Being a solo founder is of course an option, but know that the inevitable downturns building a startup involves will be harder to face on your own. Look for co-founders in universities, in impact hubs, or in your own industry. Regarding business ideas, Christoph warns that though building a product based on research has the advantage of making it harder for competitors to imitate you, it also adds a lot more complexity to your operations. He is a proponent of the idea that execution is far more important than the specific idea you come up with. Part of an excellent execution is to be curious about the nos you get from the people you pitch to: why was your sales strategy not effective? What are you not understanding about your customer’s problem? What about your product could be better? When it comes to raising funds, Christoph suggests starting with grants, then moving on to smart money from business angels, and finally, at a later stage, going for VC money. Hiring at SmartBreed is made easier by the fact that the founders’ research background comes with strong ties to universities. Because of this, they have yet to need a professional recruiter. Christoph recommends sharing your company vision with potential hires and showing them how they could fit into the big picture. He thinks the cultural fit is more important than skills, because it’s rather hard to find someone with the perfect skill set anyway. How can you stay healthy as a founder? Accept that you don’t need to do everything perfectly. Strive for “good enough.” Love what you do. It’ll be more bearable to work through weekends and weather tough storms if you’re passionate about what you’re doing. Don’t neglect spending time with friends and family. Block time out for them in your calendar and don’t cancel on them. This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.

Timestamps: 9:54 - Preparing for an M&A 16:58 - The right time to sell 27:46 - Drafting a list of potential buyers 43:55 - Disagreeing on the purchase price 1:05:25 - What to do yourself vs delegate About Jonathan Roberts: Jonathan Roberts is the director and co-founder of Menalto Advisors, an IT-focused M&A advisory firm headquartered in Silicon Valley and with a strong presence in Europe. He holds a BSc in Accountancy & Management from Miami University and worked as a consultant for Deloitte before starting his own firm, Menalto Advisors, in 2016. Menalto decided to open up an office in Zurich partially because of its great startup ecosystem (high number of startups funded, large amounts of capital, high number of uni spin offs, but not that many exits) and partially because the city seemed like the ideal place for Jonathan and his wife to raise their first child. Jonathan has been working in M&A for over a decade, and during his episode with us he shared some valuable insights for companies looking for a trade sale exit. How should you prepare for an M&A? Build a valuable business with key differentiators. What are you the world’s first, only or best at? Make some noise! Revenue and team are important, but you need to understand your buyer landscape. Potential buyers can’t buy you if they don’t know you exist. But there is such a thing as reaching out too early, so make sure you have something to show first. When is it the right time to sell? // What type of trade sales are there? Promise Value Sale: this is what happens when a company sells quite early, on account of the strategic value it provides to the buyer. They’ve built and validated tech, the buyer sees how they could plug this tech into their product/ecosystem, and opts to pay a strategic premium. Valley of Death: this middle stage consists of having unique tech but choosing to raise money instead of selling. Raising money naturally raises expectations regarding the company: sales teams, marketing teams, HR, finance, and regulatory teams are all expected to grow. At this stage you’re deploying a lot of capital to build up infrastructure, but it takes time for this infrastructure to support the revenue generation that will get you to that Financial Value Sale stage, so you’re not really sellable yet. Financial Value Sale: this type of sale comes usually at a later stage, and is based on financial multiples like ARR, revenue, etc. Which KPIs are important to convince buyers? It depends! The bare minimum will probably be something like product-market fit, a couple million in revenue, and some operating history. Some buyers may demand at least CHF 10M ARR and a growth rate of 50%; Others may demand that your business be profitable. What if you disagree on the purchase price? If the proposals are too far apart, it makes no sense to continue the discussion. Example: 1M vs 1B. How much leverage do you have? Are there other buyers interested? Do you have other funding options? If so, you’re free to say no, and this might allow you to raise the purchase price. There’s a lot more to a company than a buyer initially realizes: they don’t necessarily understand the bigger story, or the other assets that that company has that can benefit the buyer in the long term. You have to make sure the buyer knows all of this. If you would like to listen to more conversations on M&A, check out our episode with Heiner Grüter.

Timestamps: 5:48 - Carbon should cost you 9:27 - Convincing Innosuisse 17:39 - How much you pay with PayGreen 25:02 - Why you can’t greenwash PayGreen 31:50 - Fundraising through daura About Roman Odermatt: Roman Odermatt is the co-founder and CEO at PayGreen, a startup developing an ecological payment method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Roman holds an MSc in Entrepreneurship from the University of Bern and previously helped build the pharma startup InnoMedica Holding. He created PayGreen in 2019. PayGreen is a payment method which calculates transaction fees for online shops based on the shop’s carbon footprint, which they assess themselves. Fees start at 2.5% (compared to 2.75% AMEX and 3% Paypal) and get higher or lower depending on the company’s progress. Customers incur no additional costs, and PayGreen serves as a sort of green checkmark for those looking to buy sustainably. This means the more popular PayGreen becomes, the more the reputation of the shops who don’t have the label will suffer, thereby creating an incentive for shops to commit to reducing their carbon footprint. PayGreen also has no incentive to help companies greenwash, since the less green these companies (actually) are, the more PayGreen earns. The Paris Agreement has predicted that the sustainability market will grow to USD 12t by 2030, which means it’ll become one of the biggest sectors worldwide. Research also shows that nowadays ⅓ of customers simply refuse to buy products which aren’t sustainable, so the future is looking bright for PayGreen. In the next few years, they’re looking to expand beyond carbon footprint emissions by running survey-based supplier checks. PayGreen digitized their shares with daura and are currently raising money through the platform. Memorable Quotes: "The Paris Agreement predicted that the sustainability market will grow to USD 12t by 2030. That means it’ll become one of the biggest sectors worldwide." If you would like to listen to more episodes on cleantech, check out our conversations with Mark Essam and Mikhail Kokorich.  Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 3:36 - Lead generating strategies 10:09 - Cultivating a relationship with your leads 12:29 - Creating a sense of urgency 18:58 - Special offers and free trials 26:44 - Favorite tools About Lars Mangelsdorf: Lars Mangelsdorf is the co-founder and CCO at Yokoy, a spending management software company which enables companies to automate their expense and credit card processes using artificial intelligence. He previously worked as Senior Account Executive at Beekeeper. Back in Spring 2022, Yokoy raised a $80m series B round from Sequoia, and since then it seems like they can’t grow their team fast enough. They’ve also recently launched a prepaid Yokoy Mastercard. Lars currently leads his own sales team, and has over a decade of sales experience, during which he accumulated valuable insights. He shared some of these insights with us in this episode, and we’ve summarized them below. How can you generate leads? If your company is already of a certain size, of course it helps to have your marketing team generates leads for you; Otherwise, Lars recommends a multiple channel approach: calling, email, LinkedIn, you name it. Calls and email still work well in Switzerland. All of this can of course be automated with the right tool, so that it doesn’t become a huge time-suck. When contacting your prospect, mentioning other channels you tried to reach them through is a good conversation starter: “Hey, I sent you an email a few days ago, not sure if you saw it…” Don’t reach out to a company when they have just raised funds. That’s when they’ll be at their busiest and most “popular”. Once you have your lead, make sure to do proper lead qualification. You’ll want to have a checklist of things that need to happen for you to be willing to do a 1h demo call with them. How can you create a sense of urgency? If you know the solution your prospect has in place will be discontinued, that’s like hitting the jackpot — but this is very rare; Start your pitch by showing your prospect that if they continue using their current solution, they’re gonna run into problems. Show them stats about talent retention, for instance, and urge them regarding the importance of attracting Gen Z talent; Ask them about timelines. It makes no sense to be talking to a prospect now if they only plan on closing the deal in 2024. What are a buyer’s main motivations? Money: they want a solution that will make them more money, or that will save them money; Recognition: your prospect wants to be the greatest Chief HR Officer of all time; they want to change how their company works for the better. If you can prove to your prospect that your solution will make them save money and gain recognition from their peers, it’s a done deal. Resources Mentioned: GDPR-compliant lead lists on Fiverr Prospecting tools: Salesloft, Interseller LinkedIn Sales Navigator If you would like to listen to our previous conversations with Lars, check out episode 77 and 237.

Timestamps: 01:55 - Getting into entrepreneurship 09:16 -  IFJ, Venturelab and Venture Kick 17:34 - Where the name "Venture Kick" comes from 33:05 - The importance of foundations 45:12 - Where the Swiss ecosystem is headed  About Jordi Montserrat and Beat Schillig: Jordi Montserrat and Beat Schillig are the co-founders of Venturelab, a set of flagship startup programs to support the best entrepreneurial talents in Switzerland, including Venture Kick, Venture Leaders, the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award, and Innosuisse Startup Trainings. Jordi holds a MSc in Rural Engineering/Geomatics from EPFL and previously worked at companies like ITV Geomatik and PSE Parc Scientifique. Beat holds a BA in Marketing from HSG, is the Founder and President of IFJ - Startup Support, and has been investing privately in startups since 2001. Venturelab was created by Jordi and Beat back in 2004. It began as the National Entrepreneurial Training initiative, which was mandated by the Swiss Innovation Agency to IFJ, the Institute for Young Entrepreneurs, based in St. Gallen. Today, Venturelab operates as an independent spin-off of IFJ. It arose out of a basic problem: Swiss startups would highly benefit from business training, but as they are startups, they cannot afford it. Jordi and Beat decided to create a startup program which would get funds from generous third parties interested in working with startups, and thus be able to train startups “for free”. They receive funding from big corporations, like Swisscom and Post Finance, but also from philanthropic foundations like Gebert Rüf. Different branches of the Venture family focus on different things: Venturelab serves to develop the startup’s pre-seed idea, IFJ helps startups with incorporation and other legal issues, and Venture Kick “kicks” them out onto the big bad world of investors, customers and competitors. They receive over 700 applications every year, and look at aspects like founder background, founder values and the viability of the business idea itself in order to select the startups they would like to work with. For the time being they have no ambitions of going beyond Switzerland. First they feel they must encourage a higher percentage of Swiss PhD graduates to go into entrepreneurship. But their results so far are by no means unimpressive: out of the CHF 4b raised in Switzerland raised by startups, CHF 1.6b was raised by Venture Kick alumni, and 90% of all Swiss startups have somehow participated in Venturelab initiatives. Memorable Quotes: "Foundations are much quicker in their decision making process than the state, and they’re free to make much bolder investments." "The money raised in Switzerland by startups has risen to CHF 4b. CHF 1.6b of that amount was raised by Venture Kick alumni." If you would like to check out our previous Gebert Rüf bonus episodes, check out our conversation with Tobias Kistler and Igor Fisch. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly giveaways or founders' dinners!