Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 2:05 - What's the difference between fundraising for growth vs seed financing? 10:01 - How to find the right investors 17:31 - Negotiating with investors 21:28 - What kills a fundraising process? 27:54 - How much money should you raise? About Verena Kaiser: Verena Kaiser served as the Head of Direct Investment at UBS before becoming Chief of Staff, Corporate & Institutional Clients International in May 2020. As Head of Direct Investment, she was responsible for due diligence and matching of growth stage startups with UBS private investors. The UBS Direct Investment arm has already provided over CHF 120m in capital, among them VIU Ventures AG, Coatmaster AG and Cutiss AG. 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: 1:03 - Starting a marine tech startup 6:01 - Is the Swiss marine tech market big enough for Clickahoy? 7:55 - Competing with Americans About Christian and clickahoy: Christian Fehr is the CEO and co-founder of clickahoy, a Swiss marine-tech startup. The founding team behind clickahoy is the same as for ship-ahoy.ch, the boat sharing platform launched in 2016. The founders saw a personal need to make owning a boat “smart” the way owning a car or a house can be. The company is currently looking to raise CHF 400k to increase the number of connected boats 10x and expand outside of Switzerland within the next 18 months. 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: 0:45 - What mistakes do Swiss startups make repeatedly when it comes to bootstrapping? 14:20 - Boostrapping and growing fast 17:43 - Constant AB testing 25:48 - Building a solid user base 32:45 - Organic traffic & relying on Google The Episode in 60 seconds: Considerations when deciding whether to bootstrap: Bootstrapping is a long term project which needs time and dedication. Once you decide to get on the VC train, you can’t go back. External funding rounds also mean valuation rounds, which you have to keep driving up. A downround can be detrimental. If you cannot get a top tier international investor, it may not be worth the trouble. Bootstrapping a user base: Brand: building trust and recognition is a long term game that will pay off. SEO / organic search: quality content and a product that truly meets the user needs will go a long way. Of course, this makes you dependent on the search engine algorithm. Community: know your target audience and build a community around your product. Running experiments: Once you have a user base, experiment everything and optimize whatever you can. Always test on a subset of users to minimize overall impact of negative test results. Monitor all KPIs, not just conversion (e.g. customer retention, customer lifetime value, satisfaction, etc.). 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: 7:16 - Competition 8:51 - Should you get a patent? 11:24 - What should you fundraise for? About Ketevani and Logmind: Ketevani Zaridze is the CEO and Founder of Logmind, an AI-accelerated log data analytics platform. Originally from Georgia, she got her Masters in Computer Science from EPFL in Switzerland. After gaining work experience at Xerox, Open Systems and Cern, she started Logmind in 2018. Recently the company signed their first enterprise customer. They are now looking to raise CHF 1.3m in their seed round in order to grow to CHF 1.5m in recurring annual revenue within the next 2 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: 1:23 - Studying economics and engineering 10:16 - Starting a company at 16 19:09 - Why move from the startup world to corporate? 52:52 - Jumping around from company to company 1:10:13 - Burnout and company responsibility About Dennis Just: Dennis Just is the CEO of smallPDF, a SaaS company which offers all-in-one easy-to-use online PDF tools such as merging, editing and signing. Dennis is a serial entrepreneur, having started his first company, dSlash.de, while still in high school. During his university years, he started compreo.de, a translation service, but stopped the venture after 2 years because it was too early for the market. He went on to be Head of Product at DeinDeal and subsequently started Numbrs and Knip  (now Digital Insurance Group), two successful fin/insurtech companies. 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: 0:48 - Why start your own company? 10:35 - What are they fundraising for? 11:55 - Tackling sales About Martin and Turicode: Martin Keller is the co-founder and CEO of turicode, a machine learning based document extraction solution. The company bootstrapped to CHF 1m in revenue. Their technology, MINT.extract, works to extract information from any type of document, supporting their customers along the entirety of their business processes. They are looking to raise CHF 2m to diversify the skillset in their team and also to scale internationally. 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: 2:05 - Why do startups need a pricing strategy? 7:55 - Recurring revenue vs One-time fees 18:40 - How the buyer persona influences pricing 32:28 - Maximizing revenue 37:41 - Are discounts a good idea? About Reto Lämmler: Reto Lämmler is the CEO and co-founder of Testing Time, a recruiting  platform for usability test users. Some of Reto’s previous ventures include:  Xellery, a cloud-based collaboration service for Microsoft Excel, which was sold to expressocorp.com and RememberTheName, an app for learning names in your address book. At doodle.com, Reto gained international startup experience as VP Product Management. He holds an MAS in Interaction Design and a BSc in Computer Science. 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: 2:15 - What problem does Caressoma fix? 5:44 - Who uses Caressoma? 8:37 - What milestones has Caressoma recently achieved? About Sophia and Caressoma: Sophia Borowka is the CEO and co-founder of Caressoma, a startup providing ultrasound diagnostics for monitoring soft tissue injuries. Sophia is a physicist by training and has spent several years as CERN Fellow in Geneva. Together with her two co-founders, Jana Maes, an experienced Osteopathy practitioner and Jinesh Kallunkathariyil, a physicist and R&D expert, they have already raised 270k CHF from investors. Now looking to raise an additional 800k CHF to bring the product to market as a non-medical device for training optimization for athletes. 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: 4:34 - Where David met his co-founders 10:28 - How to sell to lawyers 15:41 - Does Legartis have competition? 16:35 - Finding the right talent 19:29- Why create a second office in Lisbon? About David Alain Bloch: David Alain Bloch is the CEO and co-founder of Legartis, a legal tech company which uses AI to help businesses with their legal needs. David is an Attorney at Law admitted at the Zurich bar. He was a member of the “Global Shapers”, a World Economic Forum (WEF) community network of highly motivated individuals who have a great potential for future leadership roles in society. David also co-founded Foraus, a Swiss think tank on foreign policy. 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: 2:32 - What problem does UNISERS solve? 8:01 - What milestones has UNISERS reached so far? 9:25 - Does UNISERS have competitors? About Fabian and UNISERS: Fabian Walter is the co-founder and CTO of UNISERS, an ETH spinoff specialized in automated analysis equipment for high-purity liquids used in semiconductor production. UNISERS emerged out of the ETH pioneer fellowship in 2017. The company holds a patent for their technology and is currently looking to raise $ 1.2 m to expand their marketing activities at several high profile events and to bring their MVP solution to the market. 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!