Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 7:21 - The right time for scaling up 26:36 - Why hire in Belgrade 32:02 - Scaling while bootstrapped 42:42 - Growth engines 53:15 - Growing towards an exit About Dennis Just and Mathis Büchi: Dennis Just is the current CEO at Smallpdf, a company offering a suite of clever document management tools for everyone. He holds a BSc in Economics and Engineering from Technische Universität Berlin and previously founded companies like Numbrs and Knip. Mathis Büchi is co-founder and chairman at Smallpdf and Taxfix, a digital tax accountant. He studied International Business and Global Management at the University of Hong Kong and previously founded Encounter Korea, a company organizing tours to North Korea. Dennis and Mathis recommend that you only scale once the following conditions are met: You’ve achieved product-market fit, meaning you found a problem that’s big enough and that you solve well enough for people to have recognized the value in your solution. There’s room to scale: either the market for the problem you’re solving is big enough or you’re able to solve different problems closely connected to the original one. You have either the money or the profitability to scale. You’ve hired the right people to scale. Do you always need to raise funds in order to scale up? Not always, no, but if you’re solving a problem that is too big or too complicated to make money from right away, then you need to raise funds. Or if, for instance, you need to beat your competition in a winner-takes-all market by outspending everyone, then you need to raise funds. Memorable Quotes: "Even if a problem seems boring, like PDFs or taxes, it’s still engaging to solve it, and you still get to help a lot of people’s lives." (Mathis) "You need to define your entrepreneurial identity: why are you doing what you’re doing? What’s your goal?" (Dennis) If you would like to listen to our previous conversations with Dennis Just, check out episodes 85 and 87. For Mathis Büchi, listen to episode 208. 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: 1:44 - Falling in love with machine learning 15:03 - Developing a prototype at HackZurich 23:05 - Podcasts as the world’s largest knowledge base 40:43 - Doing B2C in Switzerland 49:15 - Benefiting from the Swiss startup mafia About Kevin Smith: Kevin Smith is the co-founder and CEO at Snipd, an AI-powered podcast player built to unlock the knowledge in the podcasts you listen to. Originally from England and Germany, Kevin came to Zurich to get his MA from ETH in Quantitative Finance. After a time working for banks like Julius Baier and UBS, Kevin decided to join the startup Contovista, where he worked up to becoming head of analytics and AI. In 2020, he decided to put his love for machine learning to good use and participated in Hackzurich together with his ETH friend Ferdinand Langnickel, at a time when a breakthrough in self-supervised learning had just happened. Having originally planned to create a prototype around the topic of meeting notes, they eventually pivoted to podcasts, and ended up winning that year’s Hackzurich. In 2021, Kevin, Ferdinand and third co-founder Mikel Corcuera Lejarreta created Snipd. The problem Snipd solves is pretty intuitive: the audio medium is great for both consuming and producing content, but not so much for interacting with it, i.e., for storing it and consulting it. It’s pretty hard to skim through a 2h podcast episode to find what you’re looking for. Through its AI algorithm, Snipd allows you to do just that: when you’re using their podcast player, whenever you listen to something which particularly interests you, you press a button in the app or you triple click your headphones, and then AI will analyze the content you just selected to determine the appropriate start and end point, provide a transcript, a summary and a title. Snipd also provides you with automatic chapters (with titles and summaries) for each podcast episode. By providing this service, Snipd is able to collect data about which podcast moments are interesting to each user, and this data will soon allow them to make predictions on what each specific user may be interested in listening to. Memorable Quotes: "I’ve come to the realization that creating things is something which fundamentally makes humans happy." "Something you should ask yourself before you start a startup is: Can you see yourself working on this for 10 years?" 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: 2:01 - How consulting makes you a better entrepreneur 7:27 - Spending your sabbatical in Rheinfeld 31:18 - Staying healthy as a founder 42:18 - Complex and non-complex system 47:35 - Getting acquired by Zoom Info About Roy Raanani: Roy Raanani is the co-founder, former CEO and current president of Chorus.ai, a B2B SaaS platform that helps sales teams improve the quality of their conversations and sales processes by analyzing how top performers engage with customers in calls and video meetings. He holds a BA in Engineering Science from UoT and an MBA from Stanford, and previously worked for companies like Bain & Company and Innovation Endeavors. After quitting his consultancy job and spending a sabbatical in Rheinfeld thinking about business ideas, Roy developed an interest in undervalued data sets in business, specifically conversations – he wanted to use machine learning to discover what makes a conversation end badly and what makes it end well. He founded Chorus.ai in 2015 and has since grown it to millions in revenue and over 100 employees, and raised over $65M in capital from Emergence Capital, Redpoint and Georgian Partners. But the sailing wasn’t always this smooth. Thinking back to when they were first building the product, Roy recounts an interesting cycle he observed: When you’re building a product, the feedback you get from your first customers will be mostly negative, which decreases both your motivation and your customer’s excitement level about the product. However, simultaneously to this, your product’s quality level is slowly going up. At some point these first customers might lose their patience and stop using your product. But then you acquire new customers whose excitement level is just as high as your first customers’ once was, and this time your product is starting off from a slightly better position. Rinse and repeat. Finally you reach a point when your new customer doesn’t have a bad experience! And the only thing that kept you going through this entire process was the fact that, flaws and all, people were still using your product, so you must be answering a real need. In conclusion, so long as you don’t run out of hope or cash, perseverance will get you to product-market fit. In Chorus.ai’s case, it also got them to a tradesale. They were acquired by Zoom Info in 2021 for $575M and have since seen their yearly growth rate double from 100% to 200%. Memorable Quotes: "A lot of investors are too comfortable giving entrepreneurs advice having never been in their shoes." "We’re always focused on older, experienced people, but I think it’s just as important to get to know the amazing people that are maybe a couple years behind you." If you would like to listen to more conversations with expats living in Switzerland, check out our episode with Ross Mason. 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: 3:52 - Breaking up and getting back together with McKinsey 9:36 - Gathering the Oviva team 12:01 - Certified dieticians vs nutritionists 16:52 - Working with health insurers 34:59 - Keeping in touch with your investors About Kai Eberhardt: Kai Eberhardt is the co-founder and CEO at Oviva, an app which provides personalized advice and individual support for targeted dietary changes. He holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry from ETH and previously worked for McKinsey and Groupon. Kai left McKinsey to get a taste of the startup life at the rapidly growing Group, but ended up having a mixed experience. Due to its IPO goal, Groupon cultivated unsustainable company growth, which often came at the expense of employees and customers, and was, in Kai’s experience, a “ruthless” environment – which explains the crash they suffered right after going public. Kai nonetheless considers his time there a valuable personal growth opportunity. In 2014 he founded Oviva together with co-founders Manuel and Mark, and the inspiration actually came from his past: during his time as a student, Kai suffered from cancer (which fortunately was treatable), and this motivated him to help people live healthier and happier lives. Kai and his co-founders saw that dieticians weren’t meeting often enough with their patients, and hypothesized that a much better way to reach these patients would be through their phone, which they already used for copious amounts of time anyway. Oviva offers not only one-to-one nutritional assessment, advice and continual support, but also nutritional tracking, through pictures that patients take of their meals with their phones, and which dieticians review. Oviva employs these dieticians and tries their best to have users be reimbursed by their health insurance providers. They mainly acquire users through their doctors, and to both doctors and health insurers Oviva shows metrics like program completion, weight loss (when relevant), a calculation of the hospital visit reduction, and also how many patients were able to go off (expensive) medications by following their dietary protocol. This proves to doctors and insurers that Oviva saves hospitals their resources and insurers their money. Memorable Quotes: "I didn’t want to stay at McKinsey forever because there you never get to own anything you work on." "Nowadays integrated medicine only happens in specialist clinics, despite the fact that obesity and type 2 diabetes are absolute epidemics." If you would like to listen to more conversations on medtech apps, check out our episode with Bettina Hein. 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: 12:50 - Alcohol-free drinks for the new decade 18:17 - Choosing Switzerland as a production site 21:40 - Who’s buying alcohol-free drinks? 22:53 - Reaching a crowdfunding goal in 11 hours 28:37 - Selling B2C and B2B About Christof Tremp: Christof Tremp is the co-founder and CEO at Rebels 0.0%, a startup producing alcohol-free spirits. He holds an MA in Business Administration from HSG and has previously worked at Kraft Foods Group, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Lindt & Sprüngli. Rebels 0.0% currently produces alternatives to gin, rum and aperitif, aiming to capitalize on the current trend of declining alcohol consumption, especially prevalent among younger generations. However, they take good care not to position themselves as anti-alcohol: they are merely providing an alternative. These concoctions, which taste incredibly like the real thing, are the result of double distillation using organic botanicals. Their production site is Switzerland, since the company cares deeply about sustainability. Since their production process is more complicated than regular alcohol and obeys a series of ethical standards, the finished product is not cheaper than its alcoholic counterpart. Rebels 0.0% recently met a crowdfunding goal in just 11h, which gave them an extraordinary proof of concept. Despite having gone the bootstrapped way early on, they have now also begun to raise funds in equity rounds (recently 1M ) in order to really accelerate their marketing. Memorable Quotes: "I never really looked at entrepreneurship as a risk. If I failed, I could just go back to my old life." "Switzerland will always be our home, but it’s too small a market." Resources mentioned: Foodtech_network Crowdfoods If you would like to listen to more episodes on selling spirits, check out our conversation with Alexander Curiger. 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: 5:02 - Picking the right co-founder 14:14 - Going B2B 18:07 - Getting better at sales 21:42 - Fundraising as a spin-off 31:59 - Getting inspiration as an entrepreneur About Patrik Deuss: Patrik Deuss is the co-founder and CEO at LEDCity, a cleantech startup specializing in smart lighting solutions. Patrik holds a BS in Energy and Environmental Engineering from ZHAW and previously worked at m-way agm and blitzzcar GmbH. With LEDCity’s solution, AI-trained algorithms control the light autonomously and dynamically. This means that rooms are only lit when it actually makes sense to do so. The duration and intensity of light can thus be adapted to actual lighting needs, and energy spending is cut by about 90%. This is an incredible win considering that lighting makes up 12% of Swiss energy consumption. LEDCity initially relied only on research grants money and otherwise bootstrapped their operations, which turned them into a very efficient team. They later raised an equity round (CHF 2M), and this capital combined with their efficiency has given them a great growth rate. Memorable Quotes: "In the beginning our sales person was calling people way too much. It’s never good to come across as desperate." "If your startup doesn’t have an impactful mission, your motivation will suffer." 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: 5:00 - The ideal human future 7:27 - Reversing aging vs curing common diseases 10:22 - Longevity tips 13:11 - Societal costs to longevity 20:22 - Recs for 20 year olds About Alexander Schueller & Tobias Reichmuth: Alexander Schueller is the founder and CEO at cellvie, a seed-stage venture developing mitochondria-based therapies. Tobias Reichmuth is a founding partner at maximoon, a venture studio company builder which has already built 2 longevity startups, with 3 more to follow this year. Nowadays we know that there are 9 reasons for human aging, all cell-based: - Genomic instability; - Telomere attrition; - Epigenetic alterations; - Loss of proteostasis; - Deregulated nutrient sensing; - Mitochondrial dysfunction; - Cellular senescence; - Stem cell exhaustion; - Altered inter-cellular comms. Nowadays average life expectancy is at 83. Alexander’s and Tobias’ companies aim not to extend life indefinitely, but significantly, and insure quality of life right up until the very end. Longevity companies typically have a hard time raising money because their research results require several decades; funds looking to focus on health topics usually go for companies whose products treat diseases, and which can therefore return the investment max. 14 years after it was made. However nowadays the World Health Organization already recognizes aging as a sickness – it’s therefore time for venture funds, research granters and healthcare insurers to start doing so as well. Alexander’s & Tobias’ general tips to improve longevity: - Eat less and do intermittent fasting; - Do HIIT training or some other form of exercise; - Quit bad habits like smoking or drinking; - Cultivate a good social life; - Take both hot and cold showers; - Take certain supplements (this will depend on each individual’s case). Greater longevity will naturally result in societal changes such as: - People putting up with poor labor conditions for much shorter, since their working life will be longer; - Co-living solutions for active seniors; - Changes to the pension system: if labor conditions are good, people will not want to retire so early, even if they no longer continue to work 100%. A good life requires purpose, and a good job can serve as that; - Employers may begin to offer benefits such as a sabbatical semester every 10 years, plus an educational stipend, so that every 10 years you may reinvent your career if you so choose. Memorable quotes: "The ideal human future is one in which you are free from disease and have a strong purpose up until the very end of your life." "Our goal is for people to die as late as possible, with a body as young as possible." If you would like to listen to more episodes about healthtech, check out our conversation with Tanja Dowe. 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: 1:08 - From ETH to Carnegie Mellon 5:28 - Not going to Silicon Valley 8:03 - Freemium and philanthropy 10:22 - A/B testing at Duolingo 18:23 - The Duolingo IPO About Severin Hacker: Severin Hacker is the co-founder and CTO of Duolingo, the world’s most popular language learning app. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and previously worked as a research intern at Microsoft. It was during his time at Carnegie Mellon that he met his co-founder, Luis von Ahn, with whom he soon began to work on a research project which would later become Duolingo. The project aimed to identify what the hardest part of language learning was and how to make it easier — they soon discovered the power of gamification in this respect and ran hundreds of A/B tests in order to make the Duolingo experience as fun as possible, resulting in a much higher retention rate than other language learning apps. In fact, Severin identifies A/B testing as Duolingo’s “secret sauce”, and says these tests focus on assessing 3 things: how well the new feature teaches, how engaging the new feature is (i.e., retention) and how it contributes to monetization. Duolingo’s mission is to make great education universally accessible, which is why it uses a freemium model that allows free users to access all of the content under certain conditions, and paying users to access this same content with much less restriction. In order to maintain their independence and keep working towards their mission, Duolingo did not aim for a trade sale but instead went public on NASDAQ in 2021, with a market capitalization of $3.5B. Their IPO behind them, they hope to expand the Duolingo offer to first language acquisition and math learning. Memorable Quotes: "You should only pursue a PhD if you want to become a professor. It’s not necessary for entrepreneurship." "By this point, Duolingo is too expensive to be acquired." If you would like to listen to a conversation with the founder of Duolingo's main competitor, Babbel, check out our episode with Markus Witte. 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: 6:26 - MBAs aren’t just for managers 12:22 - Covering any distance in less than 2h 15:43 - When hydrogen will become cheaper 24:34 - Building a hyperplane prototype in 4 months 29:33 - Dealing with aviation regulation About Mikhail Kokorich: Mikhail Kokorich is the founder and CEO of Destinus, an aerospace company building hyperplanes to provide the fastest transportation on earth. He studied business administration back in Russia and also went on to complete executive programs at Stanford, and co-founded several companies such as Astro Digital, Exact Farming and Momentus. Founded in 2021, Destinus is developing an extremely fast aircraft capable of moving cargo between continents in 1-2 hours. This vehicle will be a hybrid between an airplane and a rocket— they call it a hyperplane. It runs on hydrogen, which allows you not only to build incredibly powerful engines but also to cool them, so that overheating does not become an issue at that type of speed. Hydrogen-fueled hyperplanes are also carbon neutral. Hydrogen is not yet affordable, but from his talks with hydrogen producers Mikhail estimates that within 3-5 years, some selected airports will have it available at a reasonably low price; in 5-10 years, almost any airport will have it; and after 10 years it will hopefully become one of the primary fuels for aviation. After having built their first prototype in just 4 months, Destinus estimates that within 3 years a hyperplane MVP will be available for testing, but not yet for commercial use — for that they require certification. In the meantime their MVP will allow them to start generating some revenue and prove customer interest. Memorable Quotes: "With Hyperplanes, you will be able to fly to Tokyo to have dinner with your friends, fly back afterwards and sleep in your own bed." "In ten years’ time hydrogen will hopefully become one of the main fuels for aviation." Resources Mentioned: Y Combinator If you would like to listen to more episodes about aviation, check out our conversations with André Borschberg and Patrick Thevoz. 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: 1:07 - From Canada to Denmark 7:32 - Convincing your parents about entrepreneurship 16:20 - The 3 ways to do payroll in Switzerland 21:57 - Convincing Swiss SMEs 30:32 - Preparing to acquire a company About Bassil Eid: Bassil Eid is a co-founder of Earny, a startup providing simple automated payroll in 10 mins or less for startups & SMEs. Bassil’s family moved from Lebanon to Canada when he was young, and it was in Canada that he studied Business Administration and Economics and  began working as a project manager in the freight industry. He then moved to Denmark after his masters to work at eMagCreator, a startup selling online magazines — this was his first entrepreneurial experience. When it came time for him and his wife to settle down, and his wife got a job at UBS, they chose to settle in Switzerland. In Switzerland, Bassil noticed that despite there being some momentum in the cap table space, for instance, no one was tackling payroll yet. By talking to accountants he discovered that Swiss SME payroll got done in one of 3 ways: People do it themselves using one of the available softwares. This requires some previous payroll experience, and even then, you’re bound to make your fair share of errors. People hire an accountant at a rate of 30-60 francs per employee per month, on average. This still means you have to gather all the documentation yourself to email to the accountant. People hire internally, if they can afford it, which they often can’t. And often the person they hire ends up having to speak to an accountant anyway. With Earny, anyone can run payroll with no experience needed, since most of the process is automated. It is also still possible to work with an accountant. In fact, earny has 3 interfaces: one for companies, one for employees, and one for accountants. Charging 10 francs per employee per month, Earny comes at about a third of the price of regular accountants. Memorable Quotes:  "A lot of successful entrepreneurs are immigrants. They have a strong drive to surpass the status quo." "In the startup world you don’t wanna assume anything too fast. But you also want to be agile enough to fill the demand once it comes in." Resources Mentioned: All In podcast Gary V NFT content 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!