Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 3:43 - What makes ETH special 8:13 - Commercializing research at ETH 13:03 - Switzerland sells itself short 15:31 - Making Switzerland more startup 19:17 - Where our ecosystem is going About Roland Siegwart Roland Siegwart is a professor of Autonomous Systems at ETH Zurich and board member for Sevensense Robotics, NZZ, Komax and Evatec. He has been a visiting scientist at both EPFL and Stanford, and holds a PhD in Mechatronics from ETH Zurich. Roland’s original ambition was to become an entrepreneur; however, he does not regret having become a professor instead, since teaching at ETH Zurich has allowed him to help and watch grow a vast number of startups. Roland attributes ETH Zurich’s prominent role in the Swiss startup scene to the very clever students that it successfully attracts, and he suggests that if we want to further motivate students to become entrepreneurs, we should first and foremost offer them role models. He also would like to see ETH Zurich collaborate more with business-focused schools like HSG, so that the expertise of tech and business leads can be brought together. Roland is not of the opinion that every Swiss startup needs to scale massively. However, if scaling massively is the goal, then two things are needed: Founders must change their Swiss mentality and relinquish the desire of staying in control. Switzerland shouldn’t necessarily mimic Silicon Valley, but it needs to be faster to get bigger, and there is a lot of outstanding tech for us to do this. More financial support is naturally required. Memorable Quotes: "If you want to build a perfect product, you’ll never be on the market." "In order to motivate students to become entrepreneurs, we need to give them role models.  And we have to create a stronger link between established companies and startups." If you would like to listen to the first three episodes in our Startup Days co-production, check out our conversations with Laura Matter, Olivier Laplace and Lars Mangelsdorf. 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: 6:00 - What makes a co-founder “the one” 9:47 - Solving your own problem 15:51 - Pricing strategy 27:29 - Technical challenges 34:41 - Getting acquired by Norstat group About Oliver Ganz: Oliver Ganz is the co-founder and CTO at Testing Time, a UX test and market research recruiter founded in 2015. Oliver has a Masters in Computer Science and previously worked at Amazee Labs and Doodle, at the latter of which he met Reto Lämmler. Testing Time was acquired by the Norstat Group in 2021. Reto and Oliver’s goal was to create the “uber” of UX testing. Market research is a rather old business which has, in many ways, missed the digitization wave: many companies still keep an excel sheet of test users whom they have to manually call and screen — Reto found this to be a huge pain at Doodle. Testing Time, on the other hand, allows UX departments to get a direct contact with their target audience and test their products and services in an early stage, saving them not only time but also money. Testing Time’s target customers are UX teams and project managers across several industries, from banks to B2Cs. They have several ways of finding test users: - Organically: test users google how to create an additional income stream and find Testing time. - Through campaigns: LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, and sometimes even paper flyers. - Through referrals: good test users can refer their friends and have them join the platform. Testing Time pays users in real cash (through Paypal or eBank transactions) and the pricing for companies is based on the target group (how difficult the profiles are to find). For more info on their pricing, check out our episode with Reto Lämmler. In order to prevent future technical challenges, Oliver recommends: - To pick well-known programming languages and frameworks. The tech you pick should outlive your startup, otherwise you risk having to migrate stuff and incur huge costs. - Not to fall into the trap of trying to do everything yourself. Don’t build your own CRM software or your own call center — use cloud services for all they’re worth. They may be pricey at times, but it’ll pay off in the end. Memorable Quotes: "Building a startup means proving your idea at every level. First you solve your own problem, then you find the first paying customers, and then you start scaling." Resources Mentioned: Robot vacuum cleaner NZZ Akzent  Alles gesagt  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: 1:01 - Starting Yokoy 5:08 - Scaling from 40 to 200 employees 12:14 - Monthly company updates 16:42 - Asking for help 19:42 - Making Switzerland more startup About Lars Mangelsdorf: Lars Mangelsdorf is co-founder and CCO at Yokoy, the all-in-one spending management solution automating the expenses, invoice & credit card processes of medium and large firms. He previously worked as a Senior Account Executive at Beekeeper. After successfully raising over $100M in less than a year, Yokoy is now focusing on expanding its team, and has grown from 40 to 200 employees in the past few months. Lars is no longer down in the sales trenches nowadays but more so focusing on Yokoy’s international expansion and scaling up the team. In order to scale up their team, Yokoy works with both an internal recruiting team and external recruiters (for foreign markets).They’ve also begun having monthly company-wide updates, where things like strategy and funding updates are discussed. A new communication strategy has been put in place to make sure processes go through the right people and not everyone is stuck in meetings all day long. Memorable Quotes: "Sometimes when a company grows very fast, you try to include everyone in every meeting, and end up with your whole team in meetings all day long. That’s not good." If you would like to listen to the first two episodes in our Startup Days co-production, check out our conversations with Laura Matter and Olivier Laplace. 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: 1:41 - The internet in the 90s 9:53 - Companies should digitize their shares 19:44 - Why you should use the blockchain 23:24 - Educating the market on the blockchain 35:25 - Deploying 1 feature per week About Peter Schnürer: Peter Schnürer is the CEO at daura, a digital equity platform which helps companies keep a digital share registry. Peter has a background in Business Administration and has worked for several banks and IT companies. 60% of Swiss companies aren’t sure their share register is correct — with daura, not only can you avoid this issue, but you can in fact manage the whole company lifecycle, from founding, to fundraising (which necessitates printing shares to sell them to people), to shareholder assemblies (which are significantly facilitated by having shares printed as tokens) to an exit scenario (where shares will of course be sold). Listeners should note, however, that daura is not like a stock exchange: a stock exchange is a secondary market, where shares that have already been printed may be traded; daura, on the other hand, focuses on printing the shares and distributing them to shareholders, who may then decide to sell these in a secondary market or transfer them to another person. daura’s business model consists of charging issuing companies a yearly fee for their share register, an additional fee for running a capital increase, and an additional fee for doing a general assembly. Memorable Quotes: "The blockchain empowers people to be responsible for their own assets and not rely on 3rd parties." Resources Mentioned: Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari Principles For Dealing With A Changing World Order, by Ray Dalio From The Earth To The Moon, Jules Verne Astronomical Telescope If you would like to listen to more blockchain-related episodes, check out our conversation with Julian Liniger. 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: 1:22 - Wanting to be a VC 5:08 - Investing in B2B SaaS 8:32 - Getting more Swiss VC money 15:42 - Making Switzerland more startup-friendly 20:28 - Where the Swiss ecosystem is going About Olivier Laplace: Olivier Laplace has been a partner at the VC fund VI Partners since early 2022. He previously worked as head of corporate VC at Swiss Post and founded a company called Balumpa, which provided users a geo-localized social network. Throughout the years, his investor portfolio has included companies like TestingTime, Beekeeper and guuruu. At VI partners Olivier mostly invests in B2B SaaS. His typical day as a VC includes: - 2-3 phone calls with new potential companies - 2-3 calls with potential co-investors - A few random calls, like helping portfolio companies with day-to-day issues A common complaint within the Swiss ecosystem is that there isn’t enough gross capital. Olivier thinks this should be solved in two ways: - Swiss pension funds need to start investing in VC. There’s 1 trillion CHF in the Swiss pension fund system. Nowadays 1% of that (10B) goes into private equity, but very international private equity, and mostly into the buyouts. - Building innovation in-house might not be the best way to do it anymore, so Swiss corporations need to buy out more startups. Despite popular perception, IPOs are very rare ends to the startup journey — it’s mostly tradesales. Memorable Quotes: "In 15 years of work experience, I changed careers about 5 times — these changes were always based on opportunities." Resources Mentioned: Deep Tech Nation, Dominique Mégret The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby If you would like to listen to the first episode in our Startup Days co-production, check out our conversation with Laura Matter. 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: 1:38 - Journalism during the dot com crisis 20:40 - Fostering female financial independence 24:13 - Sexist backlash 37:28 - Building media leverage 42:30 - Raising a family on a startup salary About Patrizia Laeri: Patrizia Laeri is a business journalist and the co-founder and CEO of elleXX, an independent money media platform for women. She studied business administration and then went on to start her journalism career in 2003 at SRF. During her time in Swiss television she reported on a number of subjects, like the World Economic Forum, Nobel Prize winners, and countries like Iran and North Korea. In 2020 she joined CNN Switzerland as editor in chief, only to see it declare bankruptcy soon after. In that same year, she decided to launch her own company, elleXX. Being well aware of the dire financial situation of Swiss women (56% of which are not able to support themselves independently), Patrizia was tired of simply raising alarm on the issue and wanted instead to become a part of the solution. Besides the financial independence issue, it is also a fact that Swiss women invest much less money than men, are very rarely targeted by wealth management companies (with 86% of them addressing men), and receive less than 1% of Swiss venture capital. During the pandemic, Swiss women also quit their jobs in larger numbers than men. elleXX has a few ideas on how to foster female financial independence: Offering financial literacy courses: to fix a problem, you first must understand it. elleXX regularly offers “money hacks” courses. Raising awareness about the importance of the 3a pillar: lots of Swiss women don’t have 3a insurance. Together with Vontobel, elleXX offers you a 3a pension solution to help you make sensible provisions. Offering legal protection against gender-based work discrimination: if you’re a Swiss woman in the workplace, chances are you’ll need a lawyer at some point throughout your career. Together with CAP, elleXX offers you legal advice and representation in court. Memorable Quotes: "25 years ago I didn’t know any founders personally, let alone female founders." "35 years ago Swiss women couldn’t open a bank account without the signature of their husbands." Resources Mentioned: The Double X Economy, by Linda Scott Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini Bloomberg Equality Reporter Financial Times The Economist If you'd like to listen to more conversations about female Swiss entrepreneurship, check out our second episode with Estefanía Tapias.

Timestamps: 0:57 - Why start a dating platform in Switzerland 5:45 - Rising up to the fundraising challenge 12:23 - Getting money from FFFs 15:12 - Transparency in the Swiss ecosystem 19:32 - Upcoming startup trends About Laura Matter and noii: Laura Matter is the co-founder and CEO of noii, a video chat-based dating app. noii combines sophisticated algorithms with psychological know-how to find suitable partners and then allows you to join them on a video chat speed dating round. You are then free to follow-up with the people you click with. Laura has a background in marketing and created noii out of a personal dissatisfaction with the available dating apps. From her recent experience fundraising for noii, Laura recommends raising money from people who already know you, because then you don’t have to convince them of your virtues as much — they already know you’re a hard worker with integrity. She also recommends focusing on landing a lead investor, since it exponentially smoothes things along. Despite the difficulties, Laura is of the opinion that compared to building a product, fundraising is nothing. Laura praises the amount of info available on the internet about starting a company in Switzerland, but she wishes there were more transparency between older and younger founders. She can also speak to the Swiss female entrepreneur experience — check out her recent article for the elleXX blog here. Memorable Quotes: "B2C is difficult in Switzerland. There’s not a lot of Swiss investors who invested in B2C success stories." 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: 1:24 - The UNIC mafia 3:08 - Right and wrong reasons to sell your company 10:16 - M&A KPI threshold 26:15 - Sending out one-pagers 48:42 - What to share with a potential buyer About Heiner Grüter: Heiner Grüter is the CEO at Meridium Partners, a strategy and M&A consultancy company. He was previously the CEO at UNIC, one of Switzerland’s first digital agencies and one of the Swiss Startup Mafia’s “mother” companies, having given rise to major players like Rentouch, Students.ch, Fashion Days and Qmram. But why was UNIC so special? Timing: UNIC employees were weathering the boom and bust storms of that era, and this gave them a clear picture of what works and what doesn’t. Hiring: UNIC made a point of hiring only very talented people. Founding team: the UNIC founders were very entrepreneurial themselves, and cultivated that sort of environment. Why should you sell your company? - You should sell your company if you believe somebody else would be a better owner for it than its current shareholders. - You should not sell your company simply because you’re tired and want somebody to take your job. This results in a fire sale, usually with very mediocre results. What’s the right time to sell your company? You need to wait long enough for your company to build a track record: KPIs and other metrics which show the strength of your business and support your projection of its future. It’s okay to go into a financing round without a track record, but never an M&A process. Don’t wait so long that you run out of cash half-way through the M&A process. Time pressure to finish the deal is something you want to avoid at all costs, or you’ll risk ending up with a pretty crappy deal. Memorable Quotes: "Selling your company means you believe someone out there is a better owner for it than your current shareholders." "Being successful in Switzerland doesn’t say a lot about your expansion potential." Listen to the full episode for more info on M&A outreach, due diligence and conclusion. And if you’d like to hear more conversations on this topic, check out our episodes with experts Thomas Hofer & Vito Gigante and Jürg Tauss, and real life case 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: 1:50 - Bridging the gap between different ecosystems 11:40 - How the pandemic changed the VC world 24:35 - Building an eye-catching pitch deck 31:06 - Dealing with investors who don’t follow through 40:40 - Hitting inflection points About Sophie Lamparter: As founder and managing partner at DART labs, Sophie is a Silicon Valley VC with Swiss roots. She and her team focus on finding the best European technology startups and turning them into global players. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, she worked in media relations. In a livestream with Swisspreneur host Silvan, she answered some of the most common fundraising questions, like: Is your company VC-backable? First things first: if you can scale your startup by bootstrapping it, don’t take investors in. How scalable is your company? And how scalable would you like it to be? VC money only goes to the most scalable companies. The goal of every VC is to have an investment be an entire fund returner — that’s how they look at startups. Should you choose a VC fund or a business angel? Both can work: it really depends on your case. Look for the person with the most insider knowledge/network in your industry. If that person happens to be a business angel, great. If it’s a VC fund, that’s great too. How many investors should you talk to? As many as you can handle. Your goal as a fundraising startup is to create FOMO (fear of missing out) in investors. If you’re only talking to one, he or she will feel perfectly at ease to drag things out, but if you’re talking to several investors simultaneously, each of them will be afraid that you’ll close a deal with someone else. Doing this in a condensed timeframe will allow you to really build up momentum. What’s an inflection point? An inflection point is anything that validates your business in the eyes of an investor. Examples: Entering a new market, launching the next version of your product, acquiring a big customer, reaching time milestones, sheer growth, etc. Memorable Quotes: "The goal of every VC is to have an investment be an entire fund returner. That’s how they look at startups." "Getting into Y Combinator can mean the difference between being valued at 6 million or 15 million." 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: 4:54 - Das erste Meme in einer schlaflosen Nacht 12:23 - Erster Umsatz als Personal Brand 19:44 - Umgang mit Bekanntheit 30:11 - Typischer Tagesablauf von Zeki 40:07 - Was motiviert dich am morgen aufzustehen? Bio: Zeki Bulgurcu ist der Gründer von Swissmeme und Zekisworld. Aufgewachsen in Basel, startet Zeki seine berufliche Laufbahn mit einer Berufslehre als Detailhandelsfachmann. Seine ersten Memes veröffentlicht er 2013 - schnell entwickelt sich sein Instagram Kanal "Swissmeme" zu einer festen Grösse in der Schweizer Social Media Szene. Neben Instagram ist der Meme-König persönlich, aber auch mit weiteren Comedy Profilen auf Facebook, Youtube und TikTok unterwegs. Nicht selten zählen diese Accounts mehrere 100'000 Follower und so ist der Baselbieter einer, wenn nicht der erfolgreichste "Social Media Typ" der Schweiz. Dank des starken Personal Brands, welchen er sich in den letzten Jahren aufgebaut hat, ist er immer wieder als Werbegesicht in Online aber auch Offline Medien zu sehen. Neben über zehn erfolgreichen Social Media Accounts hat Zeki Bulgurcu eine eigene Sucuk Wurst, welche in vielen Migros Filialen zu finden ist. Zudem plant er aktuell einen eignen Kino-Film. Memorable Quotes: "Hör auf dein Bauchgefühl. Wenn du eine Leidenschaft hast, welcher du in deiner Freizeit gerne nachgehst - bleib dran! Vielleicht explodiert es und du kannst ein Business daraus aufbauen." "Als ich kündete und auf Social Media setzte, sagten alle 'Du spinnst doch'. Doch das machen einige heute immer noch." Folge uns auf Twitter, Instagram, Facebook und Linkedin um auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben. Wir posten regelmässig über Live Shows, Give-Aways und unsere Founders Dinner Events.