Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 1:26 - The birth of a startup mafia 9:36 - The blue card in Germany 20:05 - Will there be a dot com bubble for AI? 33:48 - Financing an startup fund 46:49 - Launching a fund from a legal perspective About Adrian Locher Adrian Locher is the co-founder and former COO at the Swiss shopping platform DeinDeal, which was bought by Ringier in 2011. Adrian stayed at DeinDeal until 2015, after which he took a 1 year sabbatical to explore internet hotspots acorss the world. In 2016 he settled in Berlin, where he co-founded the Merantix venture studio. Adrian chose Berlin as his new home due to the presence of great schools for his kids and also because he enjoys Berlin's cosmopolitanism and diversity, not only from a lifestyle point of view, but also in times of finding talent. While he finds Zurich one of the most beautiful places to live, he thinks people there are noticeably less ambitious, as is the trend in Europe overall. In order to compete with America and China, Adrian thinks Europe should start putting aside nationalistic fervor and thinking at a continent-wide scale. Adrian chose to build a venture studio because this allows him to both be an investor and remain involved on the operating side as well. He thoroughly enjoys the "0 to 1" phase, where ideas are iterated and validated in the market, and step by step something gets built. Merantix is an AI-focused venture studio because Adrian and his co-founder Rasmus think AI will transform our industries as radically as the internet did decades ago. AI essentially automates and optimizes complex decision making based on a lot of experience — any process which involves this will sooner or later be revolutionized by AI. When asked if AI would ever see its own bubble burst like the internet did in the early 2000s, Adrian replied that that has already happened at a more discrete level, with industries such as autonomous driving: the initial hype turned into disillusionment when our expectations for rapid progress came crashing down. Business ideas at Merantix go through 3 stages: - Ideation: Here the team considers how the industry may be transformed and what role AI would play in that. If it looks like there's a strong shift ahead, the team starts evaluating different business models. Their ultimate goal is not to become an AI SaaS company, but a value chain integrator. - Incubation: If clients show interest, the product starts getting built. Here it should be noted that Merantix only starts hiring team members once they know exactly in which direction they want to go. - Scaling: Here Merantix takes a step back and starts looking for outside investors, remaining more as an active board member. However if more help is needed for things like financing rounds, team building efforts or pivoting, Merantix gets its hands dirty again. Memorable quotes: "Think about how the internet has changed a great number of industries. That's how much AI is gonna change them, as well." If you'd like to listen to more episodes on venture builders, check out our conversation with Nicolas Bürer.

Timestamps: 10:44 - Wefox's boring origin story 28:32 - Distinguishing between good and bad risks 36:20 - Not having a full calendar 37:22 - Working through stress with a coach 42:53 - Raising $650m in 4 years About Julian Teicke Julian Teicke is the founder and CEO at wefox, Europe's largest digital insurer. Having studied Business Administration at the University of St Gallen, Julian joined Groupon in 2009 as an intern, only to be handed much more responsibility than originally predicted, due to his boss having had a burnout. In 2010 he co-founded DeinDeal, and became its COO. After having left the company in 2015, he started wefox. When he was originally approached by his would-be co-founder with the idea for wefox, Julian rejected it outright, because his own father was in the insurance business and he did not wish to follow in his father's footsteps. Eventually, though, he was won over by the idea's potential and decided to give it a fair shot. The biggest insurance companies, despite their size, are nowhere near as big as the tech giants — their growth is too slow. Wefox wanted to become the exception to the rule and grow 100% per year. Here are some of the challenges they've faced: - Margins in the insurance business are typically extremely low. This wasn't a problem in the past, because insurance companies had a second income stream: capital returns. Meaning, they invested the money they got from customers into capital markets and made capital returns. But in the 0 interest environment we're currently in, there are no more capital returns, so the focus needs to be on risk returns. This demands 3 things: using tech and data to reduce the loss ratio (= claims payout), decreasing administrative costs, and boosting sales. - Capital efficiency: Julian's time at wefox has made him aware of the need for capital light models, where all the money they have is put to use in innovation and growth. - Innovation: Big insurance companies have always been in a catch 22 situation. Over decades they attracted the most risk averse investors that request yearly dividends, meaning the money spent on these dividends did not get invested into innovation. But if they stop paying dividends, investors drop out. This is a complicated problem to puzzle out. In just over 4 years, wefox's success won them $650m in a series C and a $3bn valuation. According to Julian, they'll be using the money to fuel further international expansion, and to transform their insurance products from reactive to proactive, in order to make a real impact in harm-prevention. Memorable Quotes: "The ultimate success for any startup is motivating people to do it themselves." Resources Mentioned: Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux If you would like to listen to another episode with a DeinDeal co-founder, check out our episode with Adrian Locher.

Timestamps: 0:55 - Do Europeans take way too long to launch? 7:00 - Always start from a problem 12:08 - What changes from MVP to the growth stage? 23:18 - The constant cycle of product development 30:59 - What's nearshoring? About Laurent Decrue Laurent Decrue is the co-founder of the moving company MOVU and the software company Holycode, and is currently also the CEO at Bexio. At Holycode, Laurent turns people's product dreams into reality, so there's no process he knows more intimately than product development. The company headquarters are in Serbia — this is called nearshoring: outsourcing your operations to another country, but one that is nearby and usually even in the same time-zone. Is there a set framework for product development? No: it depends on the stage. But if there's something Laurent can recommend, it's that before you start developing, you should create a business canvas. Think about what a prototype could look like, especially a UX prototype that is clickable. Next you should figure out the smallest possible version of it  — something that can be cooked up in 3 weeks. Even if it works, you'll inevitably end up throwing it away because you need to build a bigger version, but having built it in the first place allows you to decide whether a bigger version is worth it. Similarly, it's best not to invest in a crazily complex back-end architecture right away. Build something that works and have your customers test it and give you feedback — even if they do so in a simple spreadsheet. Taking inspiration from The Lean Startup, Laurent talked about the 2 hypothesis you need to prove: - Value hypothesis: are people willing to spend money/time interacting with your tool? - Growth hypothesis: is it scalable? It's possible that a very good product is not actually scalable. At this stage,  marketing, sales and process optimization become cruzial. The age-old debate: Scrum or Kanban? Laurent recommends Kanban for really creative solutions. This tool is all about making sure you don't have more than one or two tasks in each phase of the process, and it also really helps you keep focus. On the other hand, Laurent sees the utility of Scrum for good quality, fast results. Memorable Quotes:  "Don't invest in a crazily complex backend architecture before you've actually verified that this is the right architecture to build." If you'd like to listen to our previous episode with Laurent, click here. 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: 5:10 - The DeinDeal mafia 18:53 - The biggest mistakes at MOVU 23:40 - Going bankrupt 28:07 - Saying no to a lot of money 42:34 - Why stay at MOVU About Laurent Decrue Laurent Decrue is the co-founder of the moving company MOVU and the software company Holycode, and is currently also the CEO at Bexio. He grew up with a headstrong grandfather who pressured him to take a corporate job at UBS. Despite getting along well with the people there, his problem with authority made UBS too stifling an environment for his entrepreneurial spirit. When he got layed off due to the financial crisis, he decided to join DeinDeal. Laurent thinks there were two main reasons for DeinDeal's "mafia status": - It was an unprecedentedly fast growing company, which attracted a certain type of personality; - It was a very big company overall, which, statistically, means spin-offs are bound to happen. Unfortunately he suffered a small burnout during his time at DeinDeal, which motivated him to take a break from working before starting his own ventures. During this break he got his masters' degree. He never received any professional help to overcome the effects of his burnout, which in hindsight seems to him like poor decision making. He also feels a certain resentment towards the people he'd been working for, for not having helped him spot the warning signs. Laurent feels guilty himself about not having been able to do this either with two of his own employees later on. The idea for MOVU came from his own frustration at the slowness of the existing moving services. Despite the company's success, they also underwent a series of challenges: - From the beginning they knew they wanted to develop a subscription model around a cleaning service, but it took them so long to get to it that by the time that they did, another company had already jumped on the bandwagon and was having great success; - Their original CTO left, and it was difficult to make sure he got fair compensation: they ended up assigning some of his shares to the new CTO and buying out some of his shares as well; - More than once they neared bankruptcy, as investment rounds often hinged on a few yes's and no's. This was particularly nerve-wrecking considering some of the people in the MOVU team were parents; - They received a very generous offer for MOVU early on but declined it, because it did not make strategic sense. They risked a lot to play the long game, but it ended up paying off. In 2016 Helvetia acquired Moneypark. This let Laurent know that other insurance companies would soon start making investments, and so he made sure to get in contact with the lot of them. MOVU eventually got sold to Baloise. Simultaneously to creating MOVU, he also founded Holycode, which provides nearshoring services. He remains there as a board member, and has also since 2020 been active as the CEO of Bexio, after Jeremias Meier stepped down from the job. Resources Mentioned: Startup CEO, by Matt Blumberg The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries Zero To One, by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters

Timestamps: 1:03 - Young founders and taxes 9:39 - Cantons and tax advantages 24:00 - The wealth tax burden 32:19 - Employee participation plans 40:33 - Tax pitfalls in structuring a sale About Peter Kempin and Patrick Arnold Peter Kempin is a Team Head of Executives & Entrepreneurs at UBS, where he has been working for the past 15 years. Patrick Arnold is a tax expert at UBS and certified financial planner. Decades in the industry have taught Peter and Patrick that young founders don't think much about taxes. They're heavily focused on their business idea, and taxes aren't a very sexy topic to begin with. But they are nonetheless a crucial step of every business journey. The first thing you should concern yourself with is the business plan: - Take into consideration the liquidity needs of the company. This is the basis for your financial requirements: is it possible for you to bootstrap the business and "keep a large portion of the cake" or if there is a need to bring on investors in order to grow the company? - If you have a business plan for your company, you need one for your personal life as well. How much money can you contribute to your own business? Is it possible to draw pension assets? Do you want to? Should you have a private, non-touchable reserve? - Keep in mind the founders' financial situation. Do they all have low fixed costs, which will allow you to bootstrap and keep costs and income low? Or do some of them have families already, and aren't able to take on as much risk? Profit taxes vary from 12-20% depending on the canton. At the beginning of a company, when you haven't broken even because you're not even profitable yet, tax benefits aren't really on your mind — so founders usually choose a domicile in the geographical zone most relevant to their business. But you should take into consideration that the corporate tax reform gives you different advantages/disadvantages depending on the canton you choose, so choose wisely. But even if you make the wrong decision, you can always change domicile later on. Many founders wonder whether they should set up an individual company or a corporate one. Here are some differences to consider: - If you're running an individual company, you're taxed on your business profit with the income tax, together with all the other private factors you have: rental income, investment income, etc... But if you're running a corporate company, you're taxed with profit taxes. The income tax only applies if you draw a salary. - If you have a corporate company and you sell it, you can benefit from tax free capital gains. If you sell an individual company, it's fully taxed. Memorable Quotes: "Becoming an entrepreneur means tapping into your savings. It should not be done lightly." If you would like to listen to the two previous parts of this UBS co-production, check out our conversations with Lukas Reinhardt and Alexander Curiger.

Timestamps: 1:05 - Getting started in the agency business 7:07 - Thinking about monetization 11:09 - Evaluating an exit scenario 28:26 - Co-founder chemistry 45:06 - Accidentally becoming CEO About Christian Reiter Christian Reiter is a co-founder and board member at Kingfluencers, the leading Swiss social influence agency. After getting his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from ETH, he created a number of ventures, most notably Hitz Dev/Bitspin and Panamove, before building Kingfluencers. Hitz Dev was founded during Christian's university studies, as a result of a project done in collaboration with SBB. As it transitioned from an agency business to a product-centered business (more specifically, an android app), Hitz Dev became Bitspin, and got acquired by Google in 2014. Then in 2015 he created the personal trainer app Panamove, but ended up shutting it down in less than a year. Though the company was able to secure revenue after 2 months, there were a few aspects of the core business model which the team was never able to figure out, which hindered the sustainability of the whole endeavour. Christian does not identify with the Swiss fear of failure: he thinks if you need to fail, fail fast — so instead of persisting with Panamove for years and years, he let it go. In 2016 he became interested in influencer marketing and decided to embark on a new venture: Kingfluencers. Their business model was simple: they had influencers, and they had customers. The difficulty lay in execution, since the field was completely new to Christian — and it was also relatively new to Switzerland, so Kingfluencers needed to become a market educator. Nowadays this market has grown to become relatively big. In 2020 Christian stepped down from his CEO role and became a board member, which, according to him, was not very hard, since he never wished to be CEO in the first place. His core motivation was to build something which would stand on its own feet, grow and evolve — and this development cannot take place if people refuse to have their roles change. Memorable Quotes: "If it's not working, don't invest another 3 years into it. Move on to something new." Resources Mentioned: Techcrunch To listen to more episodes on digital marketing, check out our conversation with Lukas Stuber. 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: 1:00 - From the US to Engelberg 14:30 - The vending machine market 20:56 - A disruptive business model 32:51 - Who stands in the way of disruption? 44:45 - Thinking about the exit About Jon Brezinski Jon Brezinski is the co-founder and CEO at Invenda, a company disrupting the machine industry with connected smart technology. Invenda offers smart vending machines, digital signage and smart fridges, as well as business intelligence, customization and integration services. Their partners include Microsoft and Intel. Jon comes originally from the U.S., having studied Information Systems at the University of North Carolina. His first job after college was at a startup. Experiencing a work environment where everybody had a fixed job but also evolving responsibilities showed Jon that this was the path for him. In 2016 he founded Invenda, having originally been inspired by a trip to Philadelphia, where he had been working on a ticket machine project. Their MVP provided clients with a 20-80% sales increase, which is no wonder: Invenda machines have shopping carts, allowing customers to buy several products at a time, which means that for every product sold by traditional vending machines, Invenda sells 4. In the first 3 years, Invenda only invested 3% of its budget on sales and marketing, which means they ended up with a pretty solid and attractive product — but they are now ready to start shifting their budget priorities. Even though the vending machine market is quite large (with over 15m of these machines all over the world), Jon is interested in a accessing markets whose products have not traditionally been sold by vending machines, like socks or luxury chocolate. Jon thinks one of the biggest challenges startups face is knowing which opportunities are worth pursuing, since there's no shortage of them. But how do you maintain the right focus? - Try to keep things fun. Choose things that your team would find interesting; - Use market research from your core customers; - Consult your partners. Jon is also a big proponent of hiring for culture and not skills. People can learn almost anything, and having someone "rock the boat" is dangerous. Don't get blindsided by someone's beautiful CV. He also tells his employees that every conversation they have should be a job interview, since finding the right people is an ongoing process that everyone can participate in. Invenda has had a couple of companies approach them about exit scenarios but thus far none seemed like the right fit. Jon also doesn't feel like Invenda is done with its journey yet. Memorable Quotes:  "One of our main challenges as a startup is to figure out which opportunities are worth pursuing." "As a founder I have a lot of weird problems I never expected to have and which none of my friends can relate to." "I think I'm the only person I know who goes to board meetings and has fun." Resources Mentioned: ReMarkable 2

Timestamps: 1:02 - How studying abroad can change your life 5:56 - How is an investor trained? 19:47 - How an investor finds companies 25:55 - How to lose an investor's trust 48:20 - Attracting institutional investors About Gina Domanig Gina Domanig is a managing partner at Emerald Technology Ventures, a globally recognized investment and venture capital firm with a focus on cleantech. Before becoming an investor, Gina spent 10 years working at Sulzer as head of M&A, where she met her Swiss husband. Gina is originally from the U.S. but has since given up her U.S. citizenship and has been living in Switzerland for several decades. In the early 2000s, Gina left Sulzer and joined the cleantech fund Emerald Technology Ventures, because she wanted a job which combined strategy/transactions with something she could believe in. During their early days they made several mistakes: - They invested in early stage, capital intensive ventures (which, during the dot com crash, seemed like "real" investments); - They approved/rejected investment deals by voting yes/no, which turned out to be too reductionistic: too many deals were progressing which partners were not really that excited about. Nowadays they give deals a score of 1-5 and the deal must have an average score of 4 to pass. Two decades in the cleantech space have taught Gina that industrial incumbents really have the power to block innovation — however, she feels we are now at a tipping point where there's finally enough regulatory and consumer pressure for industrial incumbents to start looking for alternatives. But naturally, they always look for a way to shift the blame to some other sector (for instance, plastic producers blame waste managers, and vice versa). Memorable Quotes: "Just because you believe something should happen doesn't mean it's going to. Even if all of your analysis points towards that conclusion." "An investor needs to know that management teams tend to be unbelievably optimistic." "Look forward with confidence and back without regrets." Resources Mentioned: Leadership is Language, by L. David Marquet Humour, Seriously, by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas To listen to more episodes on VC funds, check out our conversation with Aleksandra Laska. 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 - The fundraising momentum in Switzerland 3:25 - Setbacks in Swiss investing today 11:53 - Going beyond the pitch 15:43 - How to approach investors 27:38 - An overview of Swiss brokers About Lukas Reinhardt Lukas Reinhardt is the head of UBS' Growth Advisory, the leading partner for fast-growing Swiss companies, such as On Running, VIU Eyewear and farmy.ch. He first joined UBS in 2006 as a Graduate Trainee and since then worked in different M&A and Corporate Finance positions for UBS in Zurich and New York. In 2020 over $2bn were invested in Swiss startups and scaleups, so it's never been more relevant to discuss the intricacies of fundraising in Switzerland. Some main fundraising challenges are: - Being ready: knowing what your most recent milestones were, having your documentation in order, gaining some pitching experience; - Access to investors: this can be tricky, especially if you don't make a habit of proactively networking with them; - The Valley of Death: seed stage money can be relatively easy to acquire, but growth stage money not so much (since the amount needed is bigger). How to approach potential investors: - The best possible option is already knowing one — this requires constant networking on your part; - The second best thing is to get a warm introduction; - A pitching event can be a good platform, but one-on-one conversations are usually more fruitful, because you can tailor your pitch to a specific investor and build trust more quickly; - If all else fails, there's always cold emailing/calling. After the initial contact: - Send a one-pager/teaser document quickly summarizing the investment case; - In case of a positive reaction, send them a pitch deck. Why you might want to work with a broker: - It frees up resources: fundraising is not something you can just do on the side, but you also don't want to let it steal time away from operational tasks; - Brokers have transaction expertise and know-how which you yourself might not possess; - Brokers have easier access to investors; - The good reputation of a broker can elevate your own reputation within the market. But naturally, brokers charge fees, and demand a certain exclusivity. Memorable Quotes: "Fundraising is not just something you can do on the side, but at the same time, you can't dedicate all your time to it and neglect operational tasks. That's why you should outsource it to an advisor." If you would like to listen to more episodes related to UBS, check out our conversation with Verena Kaiser. 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: 1:05 - The Goldman Sachs epiphany 9:28 - Getting into impact investment 18:53 - Women in developing countries & traditional banks 32:44 - From a 20$ loan to an SME 51:23 - Investing in European startups About Roger Müller Roger Müller is a board member and managing partner at Enabling Qapital, an microfinance advisory company. His background is in traditional asset management. During the 2008 financial crisis, he was working at Julius Bär's Asset Management — at that time, a conversation with a colleague about the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy made it clear to him that he needed to pursue a more independent path, because he did not want to suffer the risk of losing everything from one day to another. He began to pursue entrepreneurial projects. But it was only in 2014 that he became involved in the impact investment world by joining Blue Orchard. Years later, in 2020, he built his own impact investment fund: Enabling Qapital. What is impact investing? It's a small loan you dispense to someone in an emerging market, helping them raise their living standard and become financially independent. The minimum amount is around $20, and the maximum is $30'000. Any higher than that is considered an SME loan. Which precautions should you take? You cannot take anything for granted. Make sure the person knows what a loan is, how they will repay it, and what to do if business goes south. Before dispensing loans to people, Enabling Qapital execute a due diligence process with more than 100 checks. Why is microfinance necessary? People who live in remote areas and only wish to borrow a small amount of money have trouble getting loans from traditional banks because the operational costs offset the profits for banks. Whether you give out a $50 loan or a $20'000, the due diligence process is the same. Enabling Qapital is active in all emerging markets except for North Korea, South Sudan, Cuba and the Central African Republic. Once per year they produce a Social Impact Report, showcasing the achievements of the previous 12 months. Memorable Quotes: "My finances were stable, and I felt like I'd stopped growing as a person. It was time to start taking risks." Resources Mentioned: The Happiness Lab  Business Wars  Naval Ravikant Yuval Noah Harari If you would like to listen to more episodes about impact startups, check out our conversation with Anaïs Matthey-Junod. 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!