Laurent Decrue is the co-founder of the moving company MOVU and the software company Holycode, and the former CEO at Bexio. Currently he is active as CFO and co-CEO at Holycode. He holds an MBA from the University of Basel and previously worked at DeinDeal.
Throughout his time at MOVU, Bexio, DeinDeal and Holycode, Laurent observed time and time again the following product building mistakes:
What do all great products have in common, regardless of industry?
When it comes to KPIs which can keep product iteration on track, Laurent warns you not to focus too much on stuff like revenue or absolute number of users, but instead conversion rate, which points to stumbling blocks along your funnel regardless of your user scale.
What are 4 key sub departments in a product team?
How can you cultivate a strong culture not only within the product team, but the whole team overall?
"Values have to come from the founders. Otherwise it doesn’t work."
"You have to be naive when starting a business. If you actually knew how hard it was going to be, you simply wouldn’t do it."
Nathalie Moral is the founder and CEO of Clima Now, a foundation that finances and invests in climate solutions She received a degree in business administration from the University of St. Gallen and a certification in business and climate change, from both ZHAW and Cambridge. She followed a career in consulting, working at companies like PwC, but soon realized she felt like she had a bigger purpose and wanted to make an impact, and to do something she would be proud to tell her children about one day.
Born in Switzerland, her family unconventionally spent the first few years of her life in India, and upon moving back to Switzerland, she was confronted with how different the experiences were between the two places. She gained awareness early on in life of the privileged bubble that Switzerland can be and became cognizant of the experiences of others. That is what got her interested in helping to fight climate change, and her optimistic outlook has often infectiously inspired other people. She tries not to focus on the pessimistic aspects when thinking about climate change but rather to be aware of the fantastic work people are doing around her to make a difference in this pressing issue – she believes the future is bright.
The combination of impact and investment is one of the best ways she sees to make real change, as in this capacity you can get involved with political movements which are focused on the climate, and not just their own political agenda. She has a goal to get 100k signatures for Clima Now’s initiative, Spotlight, which allows communities to submit climate-conscious ideas that are then voted on by the public at large. Since in Switzerland 100k is a large enough number of signatures to change the law, hitting this milestone would be a huge stride for the organization.
Switzerland being one of the world’s wealthiest countries, it is often thought that we are already doing enough to be carbon neutral, and we are, in fact, doing many positive things. However there are still areas where improvements can be made and it is largely to do with aligning political agendas, because climate consciousness should not be a political strategy, and neither should taking responsibility and providing support to the Global South.
Clima Now’s future focus will be on the youth aged 18-35, which is the generation that climate changes will affect the most, and they will as well be focused on climate-positive food security sourcing and how people think about what they eat, and where it comes from. Like any venture, there has to be a focus on the finances, and there is a hope to raise between 50 and 100 million Swiss francs in the next few years to be able to invest in even more projects. They want funders to see this investment as a climate return, more than a financial one.
“Getting a seat at the table, and then changing the role that people have for you, is where the true shift for women begins.”
“Challenges for startups will always come up both when you have money and when you don’t have it.”
Dennis Just is a serial entrepreneur and the former CEO at smallpdf, the rapidly growing and fully bootstrapped PDF powerhouse. He holds a BSc in Economics and Engineering from the Technische Universität Berlin and previously founded companies like dSLASH.de, compreo.de, TopFachhandel.de, Numbrs, and Knip AG, and also worked at the famous scaleup DeinDeal. Currently he’s active as a venture partner at the European venture capital group 3VC.
Dennis was CEO at smallpdf from 2019 to March 2023, and during his time there the company acquired PDF Tools AG (2022) for $30M. He advises founders to cultivate a strategic mindset before even beginning the acquisition process: you need to make sure you have both the revenue and the talent to support the massive growth that acquisition implies.
When trying to identify acquisition targets, Dennis suggests liaising with the competitors in your market from early on. Find out who’s who, where they’re headed, whether or not they’re your 1:1 competitors, and, if they’re not, whether it would make sense to join forces with them. In smallpdf’s case, since they’re a bootstrapped company, it didn’t make sense for them to look for companies backed by VCs, since investors tend to have demands which bootstrapped buyers (with building generational, sustainable businesses in mind) typically cannot meet. So instead they looked for bootstrapped companies with a track record of organic growth.
Something that’s also crucial is to assess the cultural fit, and that’s why having a long-term relationship with these companies comes in handy. But regardless of how long you’ve known them, a due diligence process should always include cultural assessment interviews with all employees. It’s important to set clear standards for what you want the culture to be, even if that means losing 30% of the people from the company you acquired.
"The due diligence process should include cultural assessment interviews with every single employee from the company you’re considering buying."
Dominik Megert is the founder and CEO at offerz, a company which provides the largest assortment of digital vouchers and gift cards in Switzerland. He studied Retail Trade at the Business School Thun and started offerz when he finished his studies, in 2015.
Whether it’s credit for gaming services (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Blizzard, Steam), vouchers for entertainment ( Spotify, deezer, Google Play), gift cards for everyday needs (Coop, Manor, Lidl, MediaMarkt, Zalando, Just Eat) or prepaid mobile top-ups, offerz has it available at any time and printable as PDF. They also allow you to personalize your gift card with text, image or video. In return for promoting the gift card issuing companies, offerz receives a commission between 2% and 20%, depending on how well the card typically sells.
Though the average gift card sale in Switzerland is twice as high as in other European countries (due to the higher purchasing power and stronger currency), gift card issuing companies don’t usually go for Switzerland, because of its small size and multilingualism.
However, offerz’ innovative solution seems to have convinced a number of them, and they feature offerz’ logo on their online shops. This helped offerz build up trust with potential customers, and for that same purpose they also upgraded the look of their own website and logo and invested in building a strong customer support team.
"If your online shop looks ugly, that certainly won’t help build trust with customers."
Pascal Bieri is the co-founder of Planted, a startup creating healthy plant-based meat alternatives. He holds an MA in Informations-, Media- and Technology Management from the University of St Gallen, and previously worked in companies like SweetWorks Confections and DeepTech Capital AG before starting Planted in 2019. He also co-founded the Green Liberal Party in Lucerne when he was 21, but the slowness of politics soon dissuaded him from getting further involved.
So what’s wrong with livestock farming?
From a cold, technocratic point of view, not taking into account the environment, animal well-being or workers’ rights was great for the meat industry, since it allowed it to achieve a fantastic production ration, super efficient supply chains, pay almost no taxes and deliver very low margins to everyone involved. Meat became cheap and accessible to almost everyone. However, this came at the cost of…
Planted makes meat alternatives mainly out of pea protein, which can be grown locally and gives great taste. In 100 g of planted.chicken Nature, for example, there is 23.7 g of protein, which is about the same amount as found in conventional chicken meat. planted.chicken Nature consists of no more than four natural ingredients and a healthy portion of vitamin B12. What scares Pascal in the meat alternative market is not companies trying to produce equally healthy and tasty alternatives, but the companies making unhealthy products that taste terribly, which deter people from ever trying out a vegan product again.
Planted products are available in supermarkets but also in certain restaurants, and the menus in these restaurants clearly state that they use planted products. This was intentional on planted’s part, in order to build trust with their future customers. Their goal, eventually, is to become cheaper than animal meat.
"We’re hiding from climate catastrophe behind our own plates, because we’re so attached to eating meat."
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Andrea Belliger is the director of the Institut für Kommunikation und Führung, Switzerland's leading educational research and consulting institution. She studied at the University of Lucerne, majoring in theology, philosophy, and history. She also completed two post-doctorates, one at the University of Zurich in Classical Studies and Law, and the other at the University of Athens, focusing on ancient church history. She joined IKF in 2005, and is involved with many of the courses' conceptual structures. Her other job titles include professor, scientist, author, speaker, and board member.
A significant focus of IKF is teaching communication, management, and personal leadership skills, and helping to encourage. You can find your career path by embracing change and taking inspiration from your American counterparts: it is important to be bold and not shy away from failure! Foundations play an important role in Switzerland's entrepreneurial make-up and help to bring into existence projects which may not otherwise have had the necessary financial means. To provide this support is one of the main focuses of IKF, and to do so in a variety of industries, including e-learning, e-health, and e-government.
Andrea also gives some tips on working more thoughtfully by focusing on your strengths and improving your work culture. She recommends questioning yourself to ensure you're on the right path and in the right seat, because you sometimes need to come to terms with the fact that you may not be satisfied in your career. Lastly, we talk about how wealth in Switzerland doesn't always help society make the changes it needs, and point to the importance of shifting mindsets and having ideas worth the funding available.
"Wir sind veränderungsresistent, weil es uns sehr gut geht."
Ulrike is the co-founder and Head of Science and Development at rrreefs, a startup rebuilding coral reefs to restore marine biodiversity and protect coast lines. She holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics/Experimental Bioinformatics and was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow of Biological Oceanography at ETH, before creating rrreefs in 2020.
What causes damage to coral reefs?
It’s estimated that we’ve already lost 50% of all coral reefs on planet Earth. This is truly tragic, because they harbor ⅓ of all species that exist in the ocean, and are essential for industries like pharma, beauty, etc. In the pharma industry, for example, byproducts of the coral reef ecosystem are used for drugs against bacteria, viruses, pain, and even cancer.
rrreefs tackles this issue by building modular systems of 3D-printed terracotta bricks which, when “implanted”, create a new habitat for about 20000 reef animals smaller than 0.5mm for each m3. Every reef is built in collaboration with local stakeholders and all reef material is 100% plastic free and free of additives. Their reefs are proven to increase fish abundance and diversity by providing shelter for adult and juvenile fish, and the rrreefs team continuously integrates results from scientific experiments to improve their reef system.
rrreefs began their operations by crowdfunding, and after that accepted donations from companies and grants from foundations. In 2023, the rrreefs foundation is becoming an AG and starting to raise capital, targeting companies that want to foster a reef as part of their sustainability portfolio. Why just plant trees, when you can also foster coral reefs? Companies can sponsor their very own reef or sponsor part of a communal reef, and they can also add on a data & storytelling subscription to know how their reef is evolving. rrreefs’ medium to long term goal is to eventually create reef credits which will be tokenized and work as financial assets.
"We’ve probably lost around 50% of all coral reefs already. These reefs harbor ⅓ of all species that live in the ocean."
The daughter of a Namibian diplomat, Hilda Liswani has lived in many places, including South Africa, Ethiopia, and the UK. The experience of always being an outsider looking in has shaped her perspective toward diversity and inclusion: she was made to realize how boundless the world is, and how opportunities present themselves to you once you change your mindset. Hilda has a degree in International relations from the Nottingham University of Trent and an MSc from the University of London in Migration Mobility development. Nowadays she is the CEO and founder of WeBloom, a non-profit focused on building gender equality in Switzerland within policy making and institutions.
WeBloom is a non-profit association based in Zurich, Switzerland, whose focus is to adopt inclusion and sustainable methods towards diversity in Swiss work environments, specifically within the tech industry, with a focus on venture capital, academic institutions, founders and corporates to address systemic challenges within technological innovation. According to research WeBloom conducted in 2022, only 1.9% of seed funding only went to female founders — this shows us where change most needs to take place.
Hilda believes that Switzerland is already bridging the diversity gap and is further ahead than many other European countries. However, there is still a way to go, and what will ignite that change is economic inclusion and actively changing people’s mindsets, especially for women and minorities, to shift their internalized cultural perspectives. WeBloom conducted another study where they found that 17% of Swiss people have negative feelings towards black people, and 21% towards Muslim people, which naturally is also felt in the workplace. Policy makers and employers should not attempt to fix this issue through setting quotas, because making people feel like they’re a quota hire is both disheartening and unsustainable in the long-term. Instead, employers should look to improve their unbiased hiring practices, to ensure preconceived notions of “the other” do not prevent them from hiring the best person for the job.
Some additional solutions Hilda suggests are prioritizing financing female founders and integrating DAI (Diversity and Inclusion) initiatives in the workplace that provide clear and actionable information.
“Diverse teams yield about 32% more financial returns in terms of profit and are also more effective in avoiding harmful design and development.”
“Only 20% of entrepreneurs in Switzerland are female, and only 10% of those are in tech. Things are not faring so great right now, but a lot of opportunities are available for change.”
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
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Pascale Vonmont is the director of the Gebert Rüf Stiftung, which funds innovative Swiss university projects. She is also a board member at Swiss Foundations, VentureKick and the Swiss National Science Foundation, and a jury member of EY “Entrepreneur of The Year” Switzerland. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from ETH Zurich.
Founded in 1999, Gebert Rüf is the largest private science and innovation-funding foundation in Switzerland, with the objective to promote «Switzerland as a top location for business and as a place to live». As a private funding agency guided by its mission statement «making science effective», it supports entrepreneurial projects which are committed to achieving an impact. They’re supporters of known Swiss projects like InnoBooster and Venture Kick.
Pascale Vonmont manages the operational side of the foundation. She supports the board of trustees in its strategic activities, manages the foundation's support programmes, and networks the foundation's activities with central partners.
Pascale’s decades of experience have taught her that foundations should make a priority out of transparency and approachability, and need to recognize that innovation is a risk which sometimes necessitates failure, but failure doesn’t mean that the work wasn’t worthwhile. Gebert Rüf also helped create Swiss Foundations, a “voice” for foundations in Switzerland which offers practical advice and educates foundation bodies.
Gebert Rüg’s funding strategy has 4 main pillars:
Pascale advises startups thinking about applying for a Gebert Rüf grant to first get in touch with them by calling or emailing, so that both parties can make sure that the startup’s area of activity falls within the foundation’s scope.
Gebert Rüf is currently celebrating their 25th anniversary, which prompted them to co-produce a bonus series with us early this year celebrating the role of foundations in entrepreneurship.
"The key role of every foundation is to do impactful funding. No matter how small they are, there will be a gap in the market requiring their funding."
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After getting his degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich and having a background in highly competitive sports, as his mother and grandfather were competitive endurance athletes, Fabian Mächler figured out early on that sport as a career was not for him. However, he found that startups gave him the same need to perform. Fabian has participated in various startup initiatives, like startup days, Startup INVEST, and Sigma Squared Society, and previously worked as a software and electrical engineer. Now, he’s the co-founder of grape, a digital employee insurance that improves team health by integrating software, health, and insurance to work synchronously.
Founded in Zurich in 2021, grape has grown from strength to strength, having raised 1.7 million Swiss Francs in the first-seed stage and recently made 7 digits in premium volume. Employee health care is a requirement in Swiss companies, which means an open landscape of ideas for this necessary service. They provide their services to companies as small as 50 employees and up to 4000, and it is the integration of automation software, combined with health and insurance, that has allowed them to have this kind of reach. It is also vital to grape that their product alleviates the pressure for both employees and managers to take on administrative responsibility. The grape insurance model can step in and handle a large amount of it, and a completed report gets to a manager and allows them to give more support to their colleagues.
Significantly, when trying to start grape, Fabian and his team’s research process went through many validation stages. grape as we know it today is the result of 6 or 7 tries, and the iteration process allowed them to realize that they did not necessarily need to create an insurance platform from scratch, but would do better to focus on being the agent who brings the 3 phases of healthcare together. Through their research and user testing, they discovered how short-term absenteeism (1 - 30 days absence period) is the most common symptom of workplace dissatisfaction regarding health and wellness. Another vital aspect that they were focused on was making sure their product was available to everyone, and not just people who are already in good health. This keeps them active in the preventative care space while acknowledging the importance of reactive care, which often receives the most attention in any case, but also usually has the most impact.
Fabian has slowly begun to find some work-life balance, prioritizing sleep and continuing to focus on sports, spending time with family and friends, and occasionally fasting. The grape team wants to reach some big revenue milestones in 2023, which they cannot disclose too much about just yet. We’ll just have to wait!
"Startups are the Olympics of the professional world."
"We have chosen to offer insurance that has the best options for employees, not the lowest price."
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
Flavio Pfaffhauser is a co-founder and CIO at Beekeeper, a frontline operating system which helps companies ditch paper and manual processes to improve employee engagement, retention, and performance. Tobias Gunzenhauser is the co-founder and CEO at yamo, an omnichannel FoodTech company creating the healthiest and tastiest products good for people and planet. Léa Miggiano is co-founder and CMO at Carvolution, the biggest car subscription service in Switzerland.
All agree that when going international, branding is very important, because:
What differentiates success in the US market and success in the Swiss market?
Flavio and Tobias recommend not to compromise on the hiring process when going international. They advise you to actively look for people at recruiting fairs, LinkedIn, or even by browsing through master’s theses and contacting the authors whose work most closely relates to your industry. Tobias also adds that at this stage, you should both hire and fire fast.
"I don’t think there’s such a thing as feeling ready for the next step, in a startup context. Running a startup means being constantly out of your comfort zone." (Tobias)
"The war for talent is on fire, regardless of where you hire." (Léa)
"It’s always good to have a plan, but sometimes you have to take the opportunity when it presents itself." (Flavio)
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?
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.
"Startups are the future of alternative asset classes."
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
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:
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.
"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."
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."
https://foreverpollution.eu/ (to learn about PFAS chemicals)
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
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.
"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."
Arman Anatürk is the co-founder of the cleantech fund HackCapital and a founding member at FoodHack, the world’s largest foodtech community. He previously worked for companies like CoderCourse and OneRoof Agency.
Arman is very enthusiastic about the role cleantech startups can play in successfully navigating climate change, and especially the progress being made by foodtech startups. Some studies estimate that 34% of greenhouse gas emissions come from food production and distribution, and we will soon have 10B people in the world to feed, so this is a very pressing issue. Currently, ⅓ of all food goes to waste, and the plastic used in packaging our food ends up in landfills and in the ocean, contaminating the food we eat with microplastics.
New technology will allow us to overcome these issues: plastics are nowadays being developed from algae or mycelium, and techniques like precision fermentation and cultivating meat will soon allow us to enjoy our favorite dishes without the huge expenditure of land and water (and animal suffering) that the current meat farming system requires.
Running a cleantech fund himself, Arman encourages other investors to take a bet on these technologies, but warns them that certain industries, like, for instance, foodtech, simply do not adhere well to the 10 year fund cycle, but can nonetheless be successful and provide much needed alternatives.
"Foodtech companies can’t typically adhere to the 10 year fund cycle, and investors need to understand this."
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
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.
"If I could stop time and just do what I enjoy the most, I would do research."
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?
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?
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
"Co-founders are one of the most important things, and also one of the main reasons startups fail."
This episode was co-produced by Startup Days 2023. Click here to purchase your ticket now.
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?
Startups are by definition resource-constrained operations — they don’t have a lot of time, people or capital — so they should focus their energy on the right opportunities. When engaging with other companies or individuals, make sure the person/company you’re engaging with falls into at least two of the following categories, if not all three: buyers, customers and partner/investors.
When is it the right time to sell? // What type of trade sales are there?
Which KPIs are important to convince buyers? It depends!
You need to know what the buyers in your ecosystem are interested in. If you don’t know, go to tradeshows, conferences, networking events, etc…
What if you disagree on the purchase price?
If you’re looking to undergo an M&A process, make sure to prepare for 6 to 9 months. Within the first 4 to 6 weeks, however, you should already have an idea of where things are headed.
"Buyers today are a lot more diligent about due diligence than they were a decade ago."
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.
"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."
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?
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?
What are a buyer’s main motivations?
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.
"We went from not having the money to hire people, to hardly being able to hire fast enough."
"Buyers have two main motivations: money and recognition."
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.
"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."
Vincent Bieri is the co-founder of Nexthink, a leader in digital employee experience management software and one of the rare Swiss unicorns. He studied Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences of Fribourg, and later went on to work for Cisco for 7 years, before starting his own venture in 2004. His time at Cisco, which coincided with the dot com crash, taught him to temper his expectations of wealth and success and ground them in what is real and measurable.
In 2004, together with friends Pedro and Patrick, Vincent co-founded Nexthink, a B2B SaaS business monitoring user experience for large organizations. It’s estimated that people working for big companies lose on average 20 min per day dealing with computer issues – much of this technical failure is not even reported to upper management but merely dealt with, so companies are often unaware that such a problem exists. Nexthink allows you to monitor and proactively anticipate the problem, so that time lost to technical difficulties is greatly reduced, leading to higher productivity, higher employee satisfaction, and a lower churn.
Since 2004 Nexthink has scaled up over 1'000 employees, equipped 15 millions users with its software and raised a total of $345M in funding. Reaching a 1.1B$ valuation in 2021, Nexthink earned the title of Swiss Unicorn. Vincent attributes the success of the company to several factors, both circumstantial and not, and he highlights a few rules of thumb:
In 2019 Vincent left his operational role at Nexthink. He remains a shareholder, friend and advisor, but has since begun to enjoy having more time for himself and his other hobbies and projects.
"Anticipating major market transitions is the secret to a company’s success."
"Don’t celebrate one-off successes too much. You never know how circumstantial they are. Focus on positive trends instead."
Igor Fisch is the founder and former CEO/President/Chairman at Selexis, a life-sciences Geneva-based company, and current president of the Romandie innovation incubator Fongit. He holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Geneva and previously worked as an assistant professor at the University of Lausanne and the EPFL.
In 2001 he co-founded Selexis as a university spin-off together with Nicolas Mermod, to change the way biologic drugs were developed. Selexis is nowadays the global leader in cell line development with best-in-class modular technology and highly specialized solutions that enable the life sciences industry to rapidly discover, develop and commercialize innovative biologic medicines and vaccines.
From research laboratories and biotech startups to big pharma, Selexis has partners in over 42 countries. Their partners use Selexis technologies to advance more than 164 products in preclinical and clinical development and 10 commercial products. Igor and Nicolas acquired these partners by presenting hard-data arguments which would convince scientists, and make them Selexis evangelists.
Selexis holds 210 granted patents that cover innovations in genetic elements, procedures/ transfection, cell line engineering, and devices related to cell line development and protein expression. They have pursued this path determinedly in order to keep their future options open and be in a better position to strike deals. Igor thinks the most difficult thing about filing the patent is writing the claims, which need to be drafted with a chess player’s finesse and strategic thinking. He advises startups to procure a provisional patent application in the case that they’re not yet ready to file a full patent but plan on being so in less than a year.
In 2017 Selexis became part of the JSR Life Sciences group, and Igor left his operational role at the company. Nowadays he serves in the Venture Kick strategy board, as a way to give back the investment that was made in Selexis back in the mid 2000s.
"Regardless of industry, every entrepreneur faces the same challenges: what’s your product? Who are your customers? What’s your market?"
"Swiss foundations, together with incubators, are a winning combination to get quality funds and education to upcoming Swiss startups."
In addition to being a tech lead at Palantir, one of the world's leading data science companies, Stefany Barker is also an entrepreneur and investor. She pursued an MSc in management, information systems and innovation at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Stefany grew up in Switzerland, lived in different countries, and studied abroad to learn about other cultures, businesses and entrepreneurial mindsets, specifically about the different attitudes towards entrepreneurship. For example, Stefany learnt that Americans accept entrepreneurial failure more readily than their continental European counterparts.
When Stefany returned to Switzerland in 2015, she became aware of the talent and gender gap in the Swiss tech sector. She was inspired to launch GirlsinTechSwitzerland in 2016 to establish an inclusive atmosphere for young women to learn and succeed in the Swiss tech industry. Stefany then founded TechFace in 2018 with the primary objective of changing the employment practices in the Swiss tech industry from transactional to relationship-based. This approach ensured that a candidate's team-fit potential was not only based on their CV.
While being diverse and discussing diversity are important, they should not be the only subjects of conversation. The skills that an individual brings to the table are also essential. Stefany believes that if we continue in this direction, everyone's prospects in the tech space will improve. Furthermore, the out-of-date nature of CVs and the current job search process that sometimes asks you to include your marital status, personal photo, or address can unintentionally harm a candidate’s job search, divert focus from a candidate's real skills, and decrease equity in the hiring process. With the organizations she is involved with, she intends to implement better principles so that her ventures can continue to inspire and be pioneers in the tech space.
In this episode you can find out more about Stefany's other businesses at WaaS Websites and her angel investing endeavors at Moonshot Network.
"I think it is important to speak about diversity but I also enjoy speaking about my primary area of expertise in data and software that I bring to the table.”
“I personally choose to work with organizations that walk the talk when it comes to their values.”
Pivot, a tech podcast
The Ministry of the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson
Tobias Kistler is a co-founder of Luya, a foodtech startup creating deliciously sustainable vegan alternatives to meat. He holds an MA from the ETH Zürich and previously worked as a researcher at the Berner Fachhochschule.
Luya has found a way to provide meat alternatives which are both delicious and healthy through a clever use of fermentation, i.e., the process which brings us beloved foods like beer and bread. Luya also manages to be incredibly sustainable, because what they ferment to make their delicious paddies is okara, the leftover pulp from soybean pressing, together with chickpeas. The 24h fermentation process changes these two ingredients in terms of texture (making it elastic and juicy), taste (delicious) and bioavailability (high for all of its compounds, which make up a full aminoacid profile).
They source both their soybeans and their chickpeas from Switzerland and Northern Italy, and have managed to earn the coveted Bio Swiss Label. Adapting their product to match the Bio Swiss criteria meant being able to choose from a smaller pool of soybean/chickpea producers, and paying more for these raw materials, but this added cost is made up for by the fact that sporting a Bio Swiss label allows Luya to charge higher prices.
They had a relatively easy time getting into big supermarkets, since nowadays the current health and sustainability trends are pushing these companies to want to be on the forefront of food innovation.
Luya benefitted from funds from the Gebert Rüft foundation when they participated in the First Ventures program, in VentureKick, and in Innobooster (since these programs are all associated with the foundation). In between programs they also raised a bridge round with Gebert Rüft acting as an intermediary, and raised money from the VC fund Red Alpine.
“You want an ingredient that gives you freedom, that is a bit of a blank canvas for you to play with. That’s why chefs like using our product.”
“At the end of the day, when you come from a stressful day at work, you want to be able to whip up a nice meal that’s healthy and makes you feel good.”
Christina Hertel is the project manager at LEVO, at the Enterprise for Society Center (E4S), a joint initiative from 3 institutions of renowned excellence: the University of Lausanne, the Institute for Management Development and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Christina graduated from the Technical University of Munich with a BSc in Marketing, Strategy, and Leadership and an MSc in Sustainable Resource Management. She then went on to earn her PhD in Sustainable Entrepreneurship. In 2019 she founded LEVO to assist startups in incorporating sustainability in the early stages and to investigate how businesses can use entrepreneurship to address societal problems.
Christina has always been interested in sustainability, but entrepreneurship had not always piqued her curiosity. However, she met a group of founders at an event, and after learning about their startup, she became intrigued. She started working with them as an intern. During her internship, she enrolled in a research program at a university. Working with a startup that integrated sustainability and pursuing research on sustainability confirmed her ideas that entrepreneurship can be used to solve societal problems.
From her research and experience, she learnt that a company's success should be based on a number of factors, including its social and environmental contribution, in addition to its profitability. Additionally, organizations should avoid delaying assessing their sustainability until they are large enterprises. Starting as soon as possible will lay the proper groundwork and guarantee the best outcome.
Although responsible entrepreneurship is crucial, Christina has found that many organizations still do not recognize the advantages of sustainability. Some businesses don't view sustainability as a critical component of their business model that should be non-negotiable and given top priority, but rather as a task to be completed. Nevertheless, the future of entrepreneurship is promising, as more and more businesses start integrating sustainability and as the world moves toward a more sustainable future.
“Entrepreneurship is one of the most effective tools to address societal issues.”
"Responsible entrepreneurship involves evaluating where you are and identifying areas for improvement."
LEVO - provides startups with a free operational sustainability assessment
Fairphone - a sustainable phone company
flip - A German magazine investigating sustainability claims of startups
Julian Massler is the co-founder and CEO at AURUM Fit, a gym which provides innovative high-intensity fitness training. Julian Massler studied economics at the University of Konstanz. Mathias Wegmüller is an early investor and board member at AURUM Fit who studied environmental health at ETH.
Since starting in Switzerland in 2018, AURUM has disrupted the entire fitness industry and has grown exponentially through franchising. Franchises are business models in which an established brand allows an independent entity to own and operate a franchise based on its brand, business model, and other intellectual property. The AURUM franchising model has been enormously successful since its inception. With a 9 out of 10 franchise success rate, it has achieved unprecedented profitability. It offers a scalable opportunity with a proven business model that provides quick cash flow to those with a passion for fitness and entrepreneurship.
Franchise systems are sometimes underestimated, but AURUM Fit has demonstrated how profitable they can be. Mathias and Julian respond to the most frequently asked questions in order to address concerns about:
As AURUM Fit expands, it wants to maximize its presence in Switzerland while also making its model more scalable globally. In the future, AURUM Fit intends to focus specifically on expanding its network in Zürich by doubling its locations, as well as opening more locations in lesser-known Swiss cities such as Thun. In the short term, AURUM Fit's focus is Mission 100: a goal to establish 100 locations in Switzerland within the next few years.
AURUM Fit believes that its objectives are attainable, as there is an increase in investment from financial institutions due to the scalability and profitability trends of franchises. Furthermore, as more people adopt a healthier lifestyle, AURUM Fit's appeal has the potential to thrive because it combines health and the lucrativeness of franchising to offer great value to franchisees and end customers who recognize the value of a fitness-based franchise brand.
“We always say cash is the blood of entrepreneurship.”
"Self-confidence is a crucial component to future success because if you fail at your first few businesses, you lose confidence."
Florian and Gian Grundböck are the founders of Deux Fréres, a gin company. Before founding Deux Fréres in 2016, Gian studied business administration and was a professional handball player at Grasshopper Club Zürich, and then went on to work for an architecture firm as an executive assistant. Florian, on the other hand, pursued a Bachelor's degree in Food Science and Technology from the Zürich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).
The Deux Fréres story started when Florian secretly distilled gin in the student lab at ZHAW, creating a unique gin which changed colors. Gian and Florian saw the business opportunity in the uniqueness of the gin, and began the journey of perfecting the recipe and finding the best distillery for their product. Reconnecting with their family roots in Austria proved useful, as it became the main location to source ingredients and the producing distillery of the gin, which led to the success of the company we see today.
After 2 years of starting the company, Florian and Gian had to deal with competitors who were replicating their gin's unique feature: color-changing. Florian and Gian struggled with the possible failure of their business as a result, but remained steadfast in their belief that the quality of their product and the captivating essence of their branding would allow them to stand out and continue their success. They were right!
Since its inception, Deux Fréres Gin has grown exponentially, expanding to other markets outside of Switzerland, with their most recent accomplishment being their distribution expansion in China. Florian and Gian hope to captivate the Chinese market with their craft gin, and grow it extensively in the upcoming months.
Florian and Gian remain ambitious in their future goals for Deux Frères. They hope to establish a warehouse in Switzerland in the near future, as well as introduce more products to widen their target audience and open up their customer base. While growing a bootstrapped company presents a number of challenges, Florian and Gian believe their brotherly bond, their quality products and brand, and their passion for doing what they love will continue to make them successful as they strive to provide consumers with the best products.
“You have to know when it is time to change.”
"In the future, we aim to be more than just gin producers; we also want to be recognized as flavour producers."
Job van der Voort is the co-founder and CEO of Remote.com, the world’s fastest-growing employment network that allows companies to easily and transparently hire worldwide. He studied his bachelor's in psychonomics and pursued a master's degree in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam. After graduating from university, he worked as a software engineer while co-founding a startup with Marcelo Lebre. Despite the startup's lack of long-term success, he enjoyed the process of starting a business and became more acquainted with the conventions of entrepreneurship.
Job worked previously at GitLab, where he experienced what it was like to work remotely and saw the benefits of a virtual working environment . He created Remote.com in 2019 with Marcelo to address issues he had seen with remote working during his time at GitLab. The Remote.com software enables companies to transparently hire someone in another country by managing payroll, employee benefits, and legalities, easing the traditional burden of going through the tiring complexities of remote hiring.
Since launching Remote.com, the platform has been used by businesses in many countries around the world and has grown from just a handful of employees to over 2000 employees working remotely from all over the world. In this episode Job speaks more about how they cultivated a lucrative company culture. He also discusses how they got enough financing to launch the company and how they achieved unicorn status in such a short period of time.
“We want to make hiring from anywhere really easy and transparent.”
“The only way to challenge someone is to fully understand what they're doing.”
Philipp Stauffer is the co-founder and managing director of FYRFLY Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in companies using data and intelligence to build their competitive advantage. His investments have included AngelList, Philz Coffee, and Beekeeper, among many others. As well as being a founding board member of the Swiss Blockchain Federation, he is also on the Advisory Board of the Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation. Additionally, he serves on the boards of PubMatic, the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce, and the Digital Citizen Fund.
Human beings are social animals and it's easier to build better trust by meeting in person than remotely — this is the value physical spaces may have over a remote working model. Philipp got a taste of the office environment when he started working at a Swiss private bank. When he got into consulting, he started working remotely. It became apparent to him how different office life is versus remote working: in terms of culture, habits and lifestyle. The serendipity of running into someone at the office who ends up being instrumental to your success is something that is hard to replicate in a remote space.
Even though working in an office has its social advantages, some of the drawbacks of the physical space are the additional expenses in time and money that come with commuting. Despite this, going to the office versus working remotely was not something many companies thought about until the onset of COVID, which changed the work culture completely. It forced us to become more intentional about travel and taught us how to be more efficient with time. The appeal to a remote working environment grew as physical spaces, especially for startups, became an unnecessary additional expense. Furthermore, the distance became less of a factor when putting together a team, and more companies were able to hire talents from all over the world.
Remote working became the ideal fix post-covid. However, as it became the norm, its challenges became more apparent. Having team members operating in different countries with different time zones can make collaboration challenging. Additionally, there is a greater need to build a more engaging work culture which is efficient in easily motivating a remote team. If this is not done well, some founders lose control of their company, experience mass quiet quitting or have to shut down their business completely.
With these challenges came innovations that made the remote working experience less complicated and more profitable. Today, even though more companies are introducing a hybrid model that balances remote and office life as the world continues to navigate back to normal, it is clear that remote working isn’t going away anytime soon.
"Involve your team in your hybrid model approach."
“The pandemic taught us how critical it is to make in-person meetings purposeful.”
Benedikt Schuppli is the co-founder and co-CEO of Obligate, a blockchain company and the hub for tokenized debt. He studied law at the University of Zürich and always had a knack for the way financial markets work. After law school, he worked at a private bank, and in 2016 (right around the time when Benedikt took his bar exam) Switzerland started to become a hub for FinTech, which allowed Benedikt to see a completely new side of the Swiss financial market. He then began getting into blockchain from a legal perspective and joined Lykke Corp, his first job in the blockchain crypto space.
Benedikt comes from an entrepreneurial family: both his father and brothers built their own businesses because there was a strong urge in all of them to challenge the status quo and do things their way. After working as a lawyer for a few years, Benedikt himself felt compelled to get more involved in business decisions and launch his own company.
In 2019, he founded FQX. Along with his co-founders, he shared a vision to build a platform and infrastructure for tokenized debt assets that are recognized as legal assets. FQX is a blockchain startup that uses eNotes to enable companies to issue debt securities via the blockchain directly to investors, changing the way companies secure funding.
In this episode, he talks more about his experience launching a blockchain company in Switzerland. He also goes into more detail about the e-Note concept and discusses the difficulties he encountered while attempting to obtain funding for his blockchain start-up.
“I think the financial market is one of the most complex things humans have created.”
“Throwing a bunch of very smart people in a room doesn’t guarantee you’re going to build a great product.”
Julie Maples is a co-founder and managing director at FYRFLY Ventures, where she has made investments in companies such as Boundless, Rosalyn.ai, and Mobi Systems, among others. She also serves on the board of the V Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports cancer research. At The Wharton School, she earned a BS in entrepreneurial management and an MA in Finance.
It may appear strange to consider a founder being involved in the sales process. However, a founder's responsibilities extend beyond just running the business; a founder must make the first sales of their product or service to reap valuable lessons from these sales sessions.
Some founders may enjoy building the product, but they may dislike selling it. It is important to change that mindset and replace the word "sales" with "partnership". It is critical to view your potential customers as evangelists who will be your biggest champions if they like your product or service, especially in early customer meetings. When you satisfy your early customers and learn from them, you learn what works and what doesn't.
Even if you don't think you have a passion for sales, you can change the way you approach it by letting go of the idea that it must be done a certain way. You can simply speak honestly about your vision while listening to the person across from you. If you pass up the chance, you can miss out on important information from early customers that could help you develop a better product or service.
It is also critical to recognize the value of the sales process, because outsourcing sales in the early stages of a business may not be the best move. It deprives you of the opportunity to learn and incurs additional costs. When your company has grown, it is a better time to outsource. As a founder, you'll always be doing sales. When you approach sales as a partnership, you will fall in love with sharing your passion with others as often as the opportunity presents itself.
“You don’t have to love sales; just share your vision authentically and learn from the person across from you.”
“Your early customers are your biggest champions.”
Tomoko Yokoi is a researcher and advisor in digital transformation at the IMD Business School and a lecturer at ETH Zürich. She also co-founded a market research startup, Dermintel. Before working in business, she studied International Development and Human Rights at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service. Although she had a huge passion for development and human rights, she wanted to venture into something different and decided to enter the corporate world.
The more she learned about entrepreneurship, the more she realised the advantages of the entrepreneurial lifestyle, including time flexibility, which she felt was lacking in corporate life. In 2020, the covid pandemic forced Tomoko to pause Dermintel's development, allowing her to focus more on her passion for digital transformation.
Digital transformation can be complicated, but Tomoko loves unpacking the complexity to help organisations succeed. For her, it's not just about technology: it's also about governance, innovation, culture change, leadership, and competency development. As part of her book, Hacking Digital: Best Practices for Implementing and Accelerating Your Business Transformation, Tomoko Yokoi shares more about how to implement digital transformation in the workplace by giving insight into:
Article: Emojis In The World Of Work, Tomoko Yokoi
“So many opportunities exist, it really depends on how you can target what you need when you need it.”
“It is important to think of inclusivity when you think about innovation.”
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Julie Maples is a co-founder and managing director at FYRFLY Ventures, where she has made investments in companies such as Boundless, Rosalyn.ai, and Mobi Systems, among others. She also serves on the board of the V Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports cancer research. At The Wharton School, she earned a BS in entrepreneurial management and an MA in Finance.
In this episode, Julie talks about raising funds and managing the demands fundraising takes on your time as a founder. As a founder, you should build trust with potential investors, determine who should be in charge of raising money, and divide your time well between fundraising and managing your business.
It has always been difficult for entrepreneurs to separate their personal life and their professional lives. No single issue should consume all of your time as a founder, and especially not fundraising. It's equally important to protect your mental health as it is to achieve your next milestone. It will always be an easier and more successful journey if you tend to yourself.
For a free masterclass on angel investing with DART Labs founder Sophie Lamparter and SICTIC president Thomas Dübendorfer, click here.
“As a founder, it is important that you have an advisory board that opens doors for you.”
“It is important to keep a pulse on the status of the business to know when you are underperforming.”
Philipp Stauffer is the co-founder and managing director of FYRFLY Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in companies using data and intelligence to build their competitive advantage. His investments have included AngelList, Philz Coffee, and Beekeeper, among many others. As well as being a founding board member of the Swiss Blockchain Federation, he is also on the Advisory Board of the Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation. Additionally, he serves on the boards of PubMatic, the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce, and the Digital Citizen Fund.
In this episode, Philipp talks about how to handle competition in the workplace. He compares the competition ecosystem to the animal kingdom: highlighting the importance of knowing and understanding your place in the marketplace in order to respond more effectively to your competitor’s actions.
In this episode, he gives insight into:
With regards to differentiation in the marketplace, Philipp explains that differentiation is not just about how exceptional your product is, but it also expands to other aspects of your company:
Above all, Philipp believes that understanding your “why” is important. This greatly affects how you handle competition, especially when it comes to taking competitive action and understanding why your competitors take action as well.
“Don’t think you’re the lion if you’re the sheep.”
“You don’t have to be paranoid about competition all the time.”
Alex Pachikov is the co-founder and CEO of Sunflower Labs, a remote and autonomous drone solution for property security. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2003 with a degree in Astronomy and Sociology. A decade later, he co-founded Sunflower Labs with Chris Eheim and Nicolas de Palézieux.
Alex Pachikov was born in Russia and moved to the United States in 1992, at the age of 11. He began his career at Silicon Graphics at the age of 17 and became the youngest employee in 1997. He and his roommate, Chris Eheim, started a company together during college in 1999 before co-founding Sunflower Labs together in 2016.
When he started Sunflower Labs in 2016, it was one of five ideas they had after brainstorming about several business ventures they wanted to do together. It was the perfect time for Sunflower Labs to launch since the drone industry worldwide was starting to gain traction. The idea of Sunflower Labs as an automated drone-in-a-box solution that integrates with your existing security cameras and sensors became revolutionary in the space of commercial drone security. With the push of a button, the drone flies from its hive and is able to plan a path and perform a sweep of a large property within seconds. The secret is the 3D property mapping and geofencing technology that allows the drone to navigate and stay within the property, detect unexpected obstacles, re-route to avoid collision and actively deter intruders and loiters with its presence.
Despite Sunflower Lab’s revolutionary take on property security, they faced many challenges during their startup stage, including but not limited to:
What helped Sunflower Labs to be successful despite these challenges was the support of the Evernote Network. Alex worked at Evernote from 2006-2015, dedicating almost a decade of his life to it. He was Evernote’s 3rd official employee and was a member of the founding team, serving as VP of partnerships, developer relations and hardware products integration. When he had the idea of starting Sunflower Labs, the Evernote Founders Network was a valuable asset, providing mentorship as well as investing in his company. With their support having an integral role in their start-up stage, Sunflower Labs raised over 15 million dollars in seed funds.
From moving to the USA from Russia to studying Astronomy to starting a drone-security company, Alex Pachikov’s journey is inspiring to new entrepreneurs who may want to pursue a similar dream. His journey reinforces that what you study does not have to charter your future entirely and that with great ideas, paired with a lot of hard work and great support, dreams can come true!
“If you want a software to be executed with perfection you have to build your own hardware."
“If you play a game, you’re not playing the same level over and over. At some point you want to level up.”
Philipp Stauffer is the co-founder and general partner of Fyrfly Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in companies using data and intelligence to build their competitive advantage. His investments have included AngelList, Philz Coffee, and Beekeeper, among many others. As well as being a founding board member of the Swiss Blockchain Federation, he is also on the Advisory Board of the Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation. Additionally, he serves on the boards of PubMatic, the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce, and the Digital Citizen Fund.
In this episode, Philipp speaks about the operational aspects of being a founder specifically about how to plan and execute a successful board meeting. He gives insight into the different stages of a board meeting, from discussing how often a board should meet, to whether physical or remote board meetings are better. Phillipp starts the episode by explaining the role of a board. The board has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of those they represent, including:
When it comes to who should sit on the board, he explains that for startups it is important to have members who will:
Having self-awareness is key as a founder as well as knowing what is lacking in the company and what needs to be done to fix it. He sees the board as a secret weapon that can help a company win the market and urges other founders to do the same.
How often a board should meet is equally important. The normal practice is at least once per year; however, he advises boards to hold quarterly meetings, because each meeting has a different role. The first board meeting will focus on budgeting, planning and accountability, while subsequent meetings will change based on specific needs. In addition to quarterly meetings, board members can meet as often as necessary. For example, to encourage collaboration and keep everyone up to date, monthly board meetings may be most appropriate if you're in a high-property fundraising mode.
Board meeting preparation does not just include what is done before or during the meeting, it also includes following up with members after the meeting. It is important to manage board members proactively. By being proactive, a founder can make the most out of their board, and this will in return benefit the company.
“Board members are a secret weapon to help you win the market."
“Your own job as a CEO is to fire yourself if you're not doing your work. It’s important to look in the mirror.”
Tobias Rein is the co-founder and Principal Engineer at GetYourGuide, a leading online booking platform for travel experiences. He studied Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich). During his studies, he also worked for the design agency, Palindrome. In 2009, he and his four co-founders had an idea to create a marketplace for tours and activities, and from there GetYourGuide was born.
What started out as a concept targeted at students morphed into a platform with a B2B business model aimed at professional suppliers and businesses, since students weren’t as interested in the initial concept of GetYourGuide as the team initially assumed. After they launched the prototype, companies started reaching out to them to get on the platform, which they took as a sign to go back to the drawing board and launch GetYourGuide 2.0, a platform for professional suppliers.
Tobias thinks timing is one of the keys to any successful business model, especially businesses in the travel market. At the time GetYourGuide started, travel was just beginning to move slowly online. They decided to adapt to the market and created GetYourGuide as a forerunner of the online travel era in terms of online booking experiences. As they grew, new products started to launch in the market, and Google became one of their biggest competitors by integrating booking features in its software. In 2017, “Reserve with Google” was launched, which enabled customers to book tours and activities from local businesses directly through Google Maps, Google Search or the Reserve with Google platform. Tobias believes that the key to standing out from big competitors such as Google is to provide unmatched customer service and to have a solid knowledge of the brand.
In 2020, the pandemic disturbed travel as we knew it, and GetYourGuide, along with many other travel platforms, was deeply affected. With the rise in their competitor’s leverage and the onset of covid-19, Tobias and his team incorporated three main principles to help them outlive the crisis:
By doing this, they canceled tours that were no longer possible and set up a hassle-free process to refund customers. They avoided mass layoffs, though inevitably letting go of a few people. Finally, they were more frugal with their expenses, getting rid of non-essential items they were no longer using. Despite the changes they had to go through, Tobias believes that this experience made them more resilient and better prepared for any upcoming challenges. Post-pandemic, GetYourGuide has been redeemed, seeing their revenue skyrocket since borders have opened up.
Tobias reflects on the growth of GetYourGuide, from when they started in 2009 with just five founders, to managing over 700 employees to surviving a pandemic and now booming in the post-pandemic era. He advises that growth is slow, and encourages founders to take the time to reflect. He also urges founders to hire external people who exceed their knowledge, so that they can learn from them, which he believes will in return foster incalculable personal growth.
“I would rather go on the safe path of adapting to the market, rather than trying to change the market”
“Motivation and passion are only half of it”
Stefan Muehlemann is the founder, chairman and former CEO at Loanboox, the independent debt issuing platform that connects public sector, large corporate and real estate borrowers with banks and institutional investors. He holds an MBA in Business Administration and Management from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and previously worked as a foreign exchange trader at UBS and LGT, as well as having been a lecturer at HSG and UZH.
His first business venture was back in the 90s, during his trading floor years, where he built Basel’s first Asian food chain, Asian Express, later sold in 1998. Much later, in 2015, he founded Loanboox, and Dario Zogg and Andi Burri joined later as co-founders. This arose from his own experience: as an investor (connected to companies like Omnibiz, Carvolution, and Futurae), Stefan was unsatisfied with conventional brokers. In contrast to conventional brokering, financing and investing through Loanboox is simple, transparent, safe and low-cost. They provide advice on financing strategy, bring together borrowers with financing needs and professional capital providers, and offer debt management tools, portfolio analysis and software solutions. Their track record is impressive: 170 active investors, transactions with a volume of EUR 28b closed in 12 countries, and 90/100 customer satisfaction.
"I’m not a person who’s easily satisfied. I don’t like rules. And that’s a sure recipe for an entrepreneur."
"Oftentimes the founder personality isn’t suited to being the CEO of a publicly listed company."
Alan Cabello is the founder of SparkLabs, Sparkworks and Sparkademy, three sister companies working towards a common goal: business innovation in Switzerland. He previously co-founded the startup Kooku and holds a PhD in Strategy & Innovation Management from the EPFL.
Around 2013/2014, while he was getting his PhD, Alan was a visiting researcher at Stanford, and there had a great experience with the d.school, where students and professors from different academic fields come together to tackle complex issues through a transdisciplinary and human-centered approach. When he returned to Switzerland, despite the prevalence of high-quality education, he found no such problem-solving approach. In 2014 he created SparkLabs, a cooperation between different Swiss universities with the purpose of educating and advancing a human-centered approach to product, service, and business model innovation.
Then in 2015 he created Spark Works, a small innovation consultancy to tackle corporate innovation and transformation challenges. Finally, in 2020, Alan built Sparkademy, a digital-first institution bringing scalable and measurable learning to the corporate world. Sparkademy offers Online Courses, Practical Assignments, Knowledge Checks and access to a Method Kit, and also defines clear learning objectives and effective inputs, so as to help measure participant progress and provide feedback.
Sparkademy runs on two business models: one is the classic business school model, where companies are charged per participant per course, and the other one is an engagement-based yearly fee (plus in-app purchases), meaning if engagement goes down, so does the price. Alan feels confident offering this alternative because Sparkademy’s average rate of course completion is 88-94% (stupendously higher than the online course average).
These levels of engagement are possible firstly due to the fact that Sparkademy courses were built using behavioral science insights to keep learners motivated, and secondly because Sparkademy forms the learner cohorts using the Spark Check, a tool based on neuroscience research which helps them test employees' ability to deal with uncertainty and other people’s emotions.
"As an innovation consultant, at least half the time spent with your client goes into educating them on process basics. Which is not the best use of their time, or yours."
"You want to make sure that people are on your team because they want to be there. The person sitting in the corner with their arms crossed brings everybody down; no matter how motivated they are."
Ben James, CEO of TP24, is an engineer at heart. After completing an engineering degree at Leeds University and working in the sales and operations department there, he started working at GE Capital full-time in sales and operations. During his studies, he worked in the insurance and (profit and loss) P&L team for GE. Then, after moving to Switzerland, he became responsible for credit-based insurance and started managing all GE businesses in the Swiss market. He later worked in the IPO team for GE Capital and Money Bank, which led to the establishment of Cembra Money Bank, a leading consumer lender in Switzerland. During his career, he recognised a gap in the lending solution market and saw the opportunity to create TP24, a flexible funding opportunity for growth.
In this episode, Ben speaks a bit more about his life before TP24 and gives insight into its early stages. , as well as how its business model differs from other lending solutions worldwide. He also examines several risks business owners go through for pricing segments for loan solutions and funding sources for their businesses and how TP24 provides a better model for the front end of their customers compared to their competition.
Ben goes on to speak on the negative implications of running a business on one’s mental health. He talks about his own founder experience and the impact it has had on his personal and family life, and how he struck a balance between being a business owner, a father and a husband. He provides tips for other entrepreneurs on how to ensure that their company's success does not come at the expense of their mental health or life at home.
"Finance products hold great businesses back."
"If we learnt anything from businesses around the world, it was to look after your customers. If you don’t other businesses will, and you’ll lose them."
David Heinemeier Hansson, originally from Denmark, studied Business Administration at the Copenhagen Business School in the late 1990s. He is the founder of the open-source web framework, Ruby On Rails, and co-founder of 37Signals and HEY along with his business partner, Jason Fried.
In 2001, he got his first official commercial job, after programming for only 2 years. At the time he envisioned programming not just as a tool, but as something he saw himself doing for the long term, which encouraged him to excel at programming, and later resulted in the creation of Ruby on Rails. David founded Ruby on Rails in 2003, a software used for creating high-performance web platforms. It has been very successful since its inception, with popular applications such as Airbnb, Square and Spotify being built on the platform.
A year later, in 2004, David launched Basecamp, one of the first software-as-a-service applications, with his co-founder, Jason Fried. Basecamp is now a gold standard for easier and superior project management. It has been used by over 75,000 organizations across 166 countries and 5 continents. Some well-known organizations that have used basecamp include Shopify, and Accenture, among others. In 2020, HEY was created by David and his team as an alternative to Gmail and Outlook. It shifts the paradigm of the traditional email structure and allows users to better deal with spam and unread messages, helping customers to better track and filter incoming emails. Since launch, HEY has already attracted tens of thousands of users.
During the episode, David explained his views on quiet quitting: he believes that quiet quitting is a lose-lose situation for both the employer and the employee, and that business owners should be more aware of the emotional and mental state of their employees. He advises that companies should be satisfied with having employees who do good work in a reasonable time, rather than desiring employees who share the same intense devotion to the company that a founder would have. He also urges against "deferred living" and encourages everyone to make the most of the time they have now by diligently doing gratifying work together with people they enjoy. David has employed this structure to create his own work-life balance, as he juggles many hats: being a founder of several companies, a father, a bestselling author, an investor and a Le Mans & WEC class-winning racing driver.
"Ruby really changed my trajectory as a programmer. Programming stopped being just a tool, but something I could really see myself doing in the long term."
"I don’t consider myself a computer engineer. I consider myself a software writer. That’s a completely different paradigm, and self-perception."
Bernhard Heusler ist Mitgründer und Partner der Heusler Werthmüller Heitz AG, mit Hauptsitz in Basel und spezialisiert auf die Erbringung von Dienstleistungen im Bereich der Wirtschaftsberatung, des Sports und der Kultur.
Der in Basel promovierte Jurist war von 2000 bis 2014 Partner der Kanzlei Wenger Plattner, anschliessend bis Oktober 2017 Konsulent bei Walder Wyss AG. Im Sommer 2003 nahm er seine Tätigkeiten für den FC Basel 1893 auf, ab 2006 amtete er als dessen Vizepräsident und ab 2009 übernahm er die operative Leitung, um schliesslich dem Club von 2012 bis 2017 als Präsident vorzustehen.
In Erweiterung seiner Verantwortung für den Verein hat Bernhard Heusler in diversen Exekutiv- und Entscheidungsgremien des internationalen (FIFA, UEFA, ECA) und nationalen (SFV und SFL) Fussballs Einsitz genommen. Zudem amtet er seit 2012 als Richter am Internationalen Sportgerichtshof (TAS/CAS) in Lausanne. Seit einigen Jahren tritt Bernhard Heusler zunehmend als Referent an Anlässen und Seminaren, namentlich zu Themen der Unternehmens- und Teamführung, auf. Seit rund zwanzig Jahren bekleidet er diverse Verwaltungsratsmandate.
"Eine Führungsaufgabe beginnt immer bei einem selbst. Man muss authentisch und echt sein."
“Als ich nicht mehr die gleiche Freude spürte, merkt ich, dass es an der Zeit war meine Führungsaufgabe abzugeben.”
“Anerkennung, Wertschätzung und positives Feedback sind wirksame gratis Tools für Führungskräfte.”
Levent Künzi is the co-founder and CEO at Properti, a technology-driven real estate company modernizing residential real estate. He holds a BSc in Business Administration, Marketing and Business Communications from Kalaidos Fachhochschule Schweiz and previously worked at Betterhomes Real GmbH, where he quickly rose through the ranks and became COO at just 25 years old. His success, however, was not without its drawbacks: after a total of 10 years there, he quit due to severe burnout. Levent then had to take some time to rest, recover and discover who he was outside of work.
His journey of self-discovery resulted in him starting a business with his brother, Adrian Künzi, in 2019: Properti, which combines cutting-edge technologies such as robotics, virtual reality and artificial intelligence with years of experience, expert knowledge and digital marketing. They’re simultaneously a real estate company and also a software company, offering a 360º view of all real estate related transactions (buying, renting, moving, cleaning..), in which 80% of all processes are automatized. Properti real estate agents are thus able to handle several more listings than regular agents.
Levent and Adrian bootstrapped Properti for the first 2 years, and just recently raised a $6.5M seed round.
"When I quit my job, it was very hard for me to find out who I am. Burnout turned into a real crisis."
Aurelio Perucca is the co-founder and CEO at Splint Invest, an alternative investment platform. He holds a MS in Business Administration from the University of Bern and previously worked at Stryker and PwC.
Aurelio’s entrepreneurial journey all began in 2020, when he and some of his PwC co-workers started investing in rare whiskey. Prior to that, Aurelio had only invested in ETFs and stocks, but he soon realized that the high correlation between traditional assets and economic downturns meant that he had to diversify his investment portfolio. Further research led him to discovering that alternative asset classes such as cars, watches and whiskey had a much lower correlation with economic fluctuation. Specifically assets like whiskey or wine have the added advantage of their price being driven by their intrinsic value, which only increases with time (the older the whiskey, the better, the more expensive) – they’re not dependent on some hype. They are also, so to speak, “recession-resistant”.
So in 2021 Aurelio and his co-founders created Splint Invest, an app with the mission to enable all private investors to invest in alternative assets, starting at just CHF 50. You can trade your “splints” with other investors or hold them until the asset is sold and you get to collect your profits. When an asset is sold, you’re charged a flat fee of 2% of the sales price on a pro-rata basis, which covers Splint Invest’s sales process expenses. There are no running costs when you invest in Splints: the variable costs for storage and insurance are already included in the splint price of CHF 50.
However, it is true that stocks have a higher yield on average (despite also being a riskier investment) – but Aurelio makes it clear that alternative assets should only make up 5-15% of your investment portfolio (the rest consisting of stocks, real estate, etc…), and that they’re not something for beginners to dabble with. If you’re just starting out on your investment journey, you’re better off with low-effort investments, like ETFs. But if you want to take your investment game to the next level, sign up today at Splint Invest.
"At some point, you can’t just add more milestones, more proofs of concept, more validation… You actually need to trust the idea and go for it."
Robert Piconi is the co-founder and CEO at Energy Vault, a global energy storage company based in Ticino and publicly listed at NYSE. He previously worked at companies like BP, Alcatel and Spirent Communications.
Despite his past in the oil business, Robert is currently dedicated to taking an active role in the transition to renewals. That’s why he co-founded Energy Vault in 2017, after having validated the idea at Idealab, the longest running technology incubator in the US, with a very impressive track record: almost half of its companies have either gone public or been acquired.
Energy Vault aims to tackle the complicated issue of energy storage, i.e. electron storage. This storage is made difficult by the electrons’ limited “shelf-life”, by the costliness of the infrastructure, and by the fact that it is rather hard to find sustainable ways of doing it. Energy Vault combines innovative design, advanced materials science, and proprietary machine-vision software to orchestrate the storage and dispatch of electrical power by lifting and lowering composite bricks, made from eco-friendly materials. Energy Vault’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in a unique approach to the circular economy which utilizes local industrial and energy waste, including remediated coal ash and recycled wind blades converted to recyclable materials, to build the system’s composite bricks.
They run their infrastructure and acquire their raw materials locally, so as to avoid greenhouse gas emissions and reinvest in the communities where they’re located. One major customer segment of theirs are utilities companies that distribute to a grid infrastructure, and which are currently in the process of shutting down their fossil fuel plants and making the switch to renewables.
Energy Vault went public on the NYSE in 2022, through a merger with Novus Capital Corporation II (NYSE: NXU). The transaction raised approximately $235 million in gross proceeds, additive to its recently announced Series C of $107M and the $50M license fee from Atlas Renewable, to fund the execution of its growth strategy. Reflecting on the going public process, Robert advises founders to not go public before they’ve reached a scale which allows them to reliably predict the company’s future, or before they’ve hired enough people to maintain operational excellence during the IPO process.
"I felt like my potential could reach greater heights if it weren’t held back by corporate constraints."
"Countries have no walls: greenhouse gasses go all over the world. It is imperative that we cooperate."
"An IPO process takes months. I would caution founders to structure their business in a way that makes sure things run on time even if they’re away."
Vincenzo Neidhardt is the Managing Partner at Helga, a hyper-focused digital manager that specializes in the use of data in the music world. He holds a BSc in Business Administration from HWZ and previously co-founded the booking agency Garasch Musig.
Helga tackles an issue very relevant to our current music industry: unlike in the past, when music artists worked with a single label for a long stretch of time, today’s musicians work with several music labels simultaneously, and therefore have multiple pay sources – their main concern is, therefore, keeping track of whether or not they’re actually getting paid, and, if they weren’t adequately compensated, having the analytics software necessary to approach the defaulting party with the data to back it up. It’s estimated that there are $2.5b missing in the music market due to this type of occurrence.
Helga has yet to properly launch, and most of their employees are also students on the side. They are currently raising CHF 600K and have chosen to tokenize their shares with daura. Learn more about the advantages of this unconventional financing route by visiting https://daura.ch .
"As a musician who studied business administration, I see every artist as a small company."
Luca Michas is the co-founder and CMO at Yamo, a B2C company revolutionizing the kid's food market with nutritious and organic options for kids of all ages. Luca holds an MA in Media & Communication / Marketing from the UZH and previously worked for companies like SodaStream International and the Campari Group.
In 2015, while working at the Campari Group with his future co-founder, Tobias Gunzenhauser, Luca watched a documentary about veganism and decided to go vegan for a month, and Tobias joined him in this adventure. They soon discovered that healthy, plant-based products were very hard to come by in a Swiss supermarket, and – as a joke – decided to check out the baby food aisle, only to find out the baby food available on the market was tasteless and of dubious nutritional value.
This was because the traditional process for creating shelf-stable baby food was heat-based sterilization, which, considering many vitamins are heat-sensitive, necessitated later re-adding the vitamins which the process destroyed. But friend and food scientist José Amado-Blanco soon clued them into a better way of making baby food: High-pressure pasteurization, which combines homemade flavor with proper nutrition, and lasts several weeks in a refrigerated environment. This was how Yamo was able to combine nutritional quality with convenience, and win the trust of Swiss parents all around.
So as not to have their customers age out of Yamo products, the team has now also begun making kids’ food, like joghurts and snack bars. With their office in Zug, they currently sell in the DACH region, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. A Series B round is also underway.
"Branding makes a huge difference in whether your product succeeds or not. It’s not just pricing, it’s not just availability. You need to tell a story."
"Nowadays sustainability is no longer something that sets your brand apart, but on the other hand, if you’re not sustainable, your brand is gonna have a problem."
"Contrary to popular belief, we were not drunk when we came up with the Yamo product names."
Raphael Schaad is the founder and CEO at Cron, a next-generation calendar software. Raphael holds an masters from MIT and a bachelors from the University of Applied Sciences Bern. He previously was a designer and engineer at Flipboard and a researcher at the MIT Media Lab.
He started working for Flipboard back in 2011, which meant moving to Palo Alto. Raphael remembers that back then, Apple was still a much smaller player than Microsoft, Steve Jobs lived on the same street as Raphael, and the Facebook team still operated from next to the Stanford campus. The tech scene, in general, was a whole lot smaller.
Early on in his professional life, Raphael noticed that all the high-achievers around him were very intentional about their calendars, but never fully satisfied with the calendar software they used, and tried to compensate for this by adding extensions from third party apps. Apple, Microsoft, Google … They all fell short, and companies like Calendly seemed more like a calendar feature than a calendar itself. So, Raphael got to hacking together calendar extensions to turn his calendar into pro-mode, and nowadays Cron includes features like availability sharing, team overlays, time zones, multiple accounts, a menu bar calendar, multi-select flows, dark mode, and lots of keyboard shortcuts.
Cron was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2020 batch, and though the experience was cut short by COVID (canceling their demo day), Raphael still benefited from it by laser focusing for 10 weeks straight with like-minded individuals. Cron was then launched in early access mode, both because they wanted to optimize for learning and because they had already gathered a very long waiting list from initial word of mouth success.
Cron raised $3.5M in a seed round in April 2020 and was acquired by Notion in June 2022. Head over to to cron.com for early access.
"Knowing that Steve Jobs lived on the same block as me definitely infused me with an adventurous energy that was very special, back then."
"All the high-achievers were religious about their calendars, but they all complained about their calendar software."
"Participating in Y Combinator means, in all likelihood, sitting in the same room as 5 unicorns and the next Mark Zuckerberg."
