Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 2:05 - What's the difference between fundraising for growth vs seed financing? 10:01 - How to find the right investors 17:31 - Negotiating with investors 21:28 - What kills a fundraising process? 27:54 - How much money should you raise? About Verena Kaiser: Verena Kaiser served as the Head of Direct Investment at UBS before becoming Chief of Staff, Corporate & Institutional Clients...

Timestamps: 1:03 - Starting a marine tech startup 6:01 - Is the Swiss marine tech market big enough for Clickahoy? 7:55 - Competing with Americans About Christian and clickahoy: Christian Fehr is the CEO and co-founder of clickahoy, a Swiss marine-tech startup. The founding team behind clickahoy is the same as for ship-ahoy.ch , the boat sharing platform launched in 2016. The founders saw a person...

Timestamps: 0:45 - What mistakes do Swiss startups make repeatedly when it comes to bootstrapping? 14:20 - Boostrapping and growing fast 17:43 - Constant AB testing 25:48 - Building a solid user base 32:45 - Organic traffic & relying on Google The Episode in 60 seconds: Considerations when deciding whether to bootstrap: Bootstrapping is a long term project which needs time and dedication. Once...

Timestamps: 7:16 - Competition 8:51 - Should you get a patent? 11:24 - What should you fundraise for? About Ketevani and Logmind: Ketevani Zaridze is the CEO and Founder of Logmind, an AI-accelerated log data analytics platform. Originally from Georgia, she got her Masters in Computer Science from EPFL in Switzerland. After gaining work experience at Xerox , Open Systems and Cern , she started Log...

Timestamps: 1:23 - Studying economics and engineering 10:16 - Starting a company at 16 19:09 - Why move from the startup world to corporate? 52:52 - Jumping around from company to company 1:10:13 - Burnout and company responsibility About Dennis Just: Dennis Just is the CEO of smallPDF, a SaaS company which offers all-in-one easy-to-use online PDF tools such as merging, editing and signing. Dennis...

Timestamps: 0:48 - Why start your own company? 10:35 - What are they fundraising for? 11:55 - Tackling sales About Martin and Turicode: Martin Keller is the co-founder and CEO of turicode, a machine learning based document extraction solution. The company bootstrapped to CHF 1m in revenue. Their technology, MINT.extract, works to extract information from any type of document, supporting their cust...

Timestamps: 2:05 - Why do startups need a pricing strategy? 7:55 - Recurring revenue vs One-time fees 18:40 - How the buyer persona influences pricing 32:28 - Maximizing revenue 37:41 - Are discounts a good idea? About Reto L ämmler: Reto Lämmler is the CEO and co-founder of Testing Time, a recruiting  platform for usability test users. Some of Reto’s previous ventures include:  Xellery,...

Timestamps: 2:15 - What problem does Caressoma fix? 5:44 - Who uses Caressoma? 8:37 - What milestones has Caressoma recently achieved? About Sophia and Caressoma: Sophia Borowka is the CEO and co-founder of Caressoma, a startup providing ultrasound diagnostics for monitoring soft tissue injuries. Sophia is a physicist by training and has spent several years as CERN Fellow in Geneva. Together with...

Timestamps: 4:34 - Where David met his co-founders 10:28 - How to sell to lawyers 15:41 - Does Legartis have competition? 16:35 - Finding the right talent 19:29- Why create a second office in Lisbon? About David Alain Bloch: David Alain Bloch is the CEO and co-founder of Legartis , a legal tech company which uses AI to help businesses with their legal needs. David is an Attorney at Law admitted at...

Timestamps: 2:32 - What problem does UNISERS solve? 8:01 - What milestones has UNISERS reached so far? 9:25 - Does UNISERS have competitors? About Fabian and UNISERS: Fabian Walter is the co-founder and CTO of UNISERS, an ETH spinoff specialized in automated analysis equipment for high-purity liquids used in semiconductor production. UNISERS emerged out of the ETH pioneer fellowship in 2017. The c...

Timestamps: 2:06 - Why are sales so important? 5:20 - When should you start having your own sales team? 6:25 - What are the different stages of the B2B process? 7:42 - How do you find the right target client? 8:29 - Should you focus on one industry only? 11:52 - How to qualify leads 14:03 - Testing sales channels 18:19 - Speed up the selling process 24:19 - How to keep in touch with customers 27:2...

Timestamps: 4:00 - What milestones has What To Label achieved? 4:47 - Internationalization 8:11 - Toughest challenges to overcome About Igor and What To Label: Igor Susmelj is the co-founder of WhatToLabel, a Data Preparation Platform for Machine Learning. Together with his co-founder, Matthias Heller, they bring together the best of the tech and business world. WhatToLabel is both a HSG and an ET...

Timestamps: 1:43 - What common mistakes do Swiss companies make in the B2B sales area? 10:14 - How to get the contact details of future customers 18:49 - Is there such a thing as too many follow-ups with clients? 26:21 - Selling something before it even exists 37:06 - The best sales team set-up The Episode in 60 seconds The ABC of B2B sales First Contact - Consider a mix of standardized outreach v...

Timestamps: 1:41 - Why start your own company? 6:35 - Winning over clients 15:48 - A young entrepreneur's summer jobs About Alex and Realbot Engineering: Alex Tyropolis is a co-founder and CEO at Realbot Engineering, a startup offering robot technology for remote viewing of real estate. He co-founded the company after years of experience in the real estate industry as an analyst for Engel & Vö...

Timestamps: 2:37 - Why Melanie decided to start her own company 9:08 - Big founding teams 17:41 - Closing a big financing round just before covid-19 26:34 - How to hire the right people 30:46 - Ensuring good communication in a growing team About Melanie Gabriel: Melanie Gabriel is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Yokoy , a SaaS company which leverages Artificial Intelligence to fully...

Timestamps: 3:16 - What problem does onCyt solve? 11:50 - Possible competitors for onCyt 20:44 - Fundraising horizon About Michael and onCyt: OnCyt, a startup offering microbial monitoring, emerged from Michael Besmer’s PhD at ETH Zurich . He assembled a team of co-founders from a diversity of backgrounds including engineering and business development. After 3 years, the team is already looking ba...

Timestamps: 1:47 - What do Swiss startups often get wrong with boards of directors? 6:00 - What different skills need to be present in a board of directors? 12:06 - How to best compensate your board 18:52 - How can a board help your startup achieve success? 23:05 - How should a startup collaborate with a board? The Episode In 60 Seconds Setting up your Board of Directors - the right way. The right...

Timestamps: 1:36 - What motivated Kevin to start his own company? 7:50 - What milestones has Kevin's startup recently achieved? 11:29 - Tough challenges to overcome About Kevin and Helio: Kevin Häfeli is the co-founder of Helio, a platform to connect demand and supply of computing power. He started Helio in 2018 together with Christoph Buchli. Previously, he worked as a DevOps engineer at Zatoo an...

Timestamps: 2:00 - Going from journalism, to law, to business 13:22 - Being the youngest board member around 20:00 - Determining founding values 27:32 - Finding the balance between commitment and change 36:16 - Having a stay at home husband About Katja Berlinger: Katja Berlinger is the CEO of Swiss Medi Kids and a professional board member. Katja started out as a journalist at the publication “Cas...

Timestamps: 2:17 - Where can startups get help during the corona crisis? 3:11 - What legal aspects do Swiss startups not pay enough attention to? 6:52 - Will copy pasting terms and conditions save me legal fees? 08:01 - How do I best deal with liability and risk? 09:05 - What should online shops address before going live? 11:10 - Can geographic names be used to name products? 17:53 - How will the...

Timestamps: 1:44 - What mistakes do Swiss founders repeatedly make, when it comes to exits? 11:55 - Coping with stress and pressure 21:50 - Always striving for the next level 32:18 - Knowing what your company is worth 40:32 - Achieving billion dollar exits The Episode In 60 Seconds Dream Big – Sell Big Swiss people have a tendency to sell themselves and their business short. Instead of going for t...

Timestamps: 11:31 - Scaling from 0 to 150 million in revenue within 6 years 23:23 - Why not just enjoy a billionaire fortune? 35:08 - Closing an intercontinental gap 43:50 - Ariel's most surreally successful moment 52:34 - Being the "anti-venture capitalist" About Ariel Lüdi: Ariel Lüdi is a parachute stuntman turned millionaire. After dropping out of his physics degree at ETH Zurich, Ariel joined...

Timestamps: 2:05 - Managing a work-life balance 3:42 - Missing half of your own wedding 8:00 - Finding out what's really important 14:08 - Preparing for motherhood 18:19 - Finding a challenging part-time job 20:55 - Why not a corporate career? 29:57 - The role of Tanja's husband 32:43 - How to split parenting responsibilities 40:23 - Swiss women in leadership positions 46:05 - What does motherhood...

Timestamps: 1:52 - What mistakes do Swiss startups make when it comes to moving to Silicon Valley? 16:02 - When should you not go to the Valley? 29:56 - Hiring the right sales person 32:28 - Tackling the PR and marketing game 43:23 - What shocks Swiss companies when they come to the US? The Episode In 60 Seconds Competing with Silicon Valley Startups – what to expect Switzerland is generally stron...

Timestamps: 2:10 - Where does Philipp's entrepreneurial spirit come from? 15:31 - Getting an American green card during the 9/11 era 24:23 - When a mission-driven company fails 34:18 - The 1/1/1 program 48:40 - How can young people find their mission? About Philipp Stauffer: Philipp Stauffer is the co-founder of and Managing Partner at FYRFLY , an early stage technology venture firm. Amongst their...