Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps: 11:20 - Giving up your salary for a startup idea 12:58 - Moving to California 23:25 - Marketing a solution with broad applications 32:19 - Tweaking your pricing 40:03 - Convincing investors to invest About Chris Bach: Chris Bach is the CSO/CCO at Netlify, a platform for building highly-performant and dynamic websites, e-commerce stores and apps. He studied film and media science at the University of Copenhagen but then pivoted to the business world, and created Netlify in 2015 together with co-founders Mathias Biilmann. By uniting an extensive ecosystem of technologies, services and APIs into one workflow, Netlify unlocks new levels of team productivity, while saving time, money and the planet. Their idea was to change the architecture of the web and provide a viable workflow for developers, since nowadays it’s known that the biggest overall challenge companies face is reducing time to market, and that the number 1 way of doing so is to invest in developer tools and workflow. They knew that Netlify would have to be venture-backed in order to have the right time-to-market and create the desired impact. Europe was much too risk averse in terms of capital, so they decided to raise funds in the US. To date they’ve taken on $212M in investment from investors such as A16Z, Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer, EQT, BOND and Menlo Ventures, and angels such as the founders of Github, Heroku, Rackspace Cloud, Slack, Yelp, Figma, and many more. Memorable Quotes: "Venture capital was much too risk-averse in Europe. What we needed was the Silicon Valley approach." "The mission is not money. The mission is building a better web." Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest   initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,   weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

This episode was produced in cooperation with the ETH Entrepreneur Club. Timestamps: 3:20 - IoT 10 years ago 20:02 - Subscription based models and high margins 25:09 - Going international from day one 30:02 - Picking Ariel Lüdi as an investor 45:00 - Scaling your team About Samuel Mueller: Samuel Mueller is the co-founder and CEO at Scandit, the leading technology platform for mobile computer vision and augmented reality (AR) solutions for enterprises. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and Temporal Logics from ETH Zurich. Together with Christian Floerkermeier and Christof Roduner, he created Scandit in 2009. Their goal with Scandit was to create a bridge between real world objects and the digital information available about them. Barcodes were then the natural entry points, especially at a time when phone cameras were just starting to become ubiquitous. Nowadays they work with 4 key verticals: Large retail organizations Logistics organizations Big manufacturers Health organizations Scandit runs a subscription-based model which allows customers to “go as they grow”, meaning the bigger they get, the more Scandit services they can accrue. It's also a very high margin business, because a lot of the heavy lifting, the computer vision magic, is happening on the user devices, so there’s no distinct cloud need. Memorable Quotes: "As an entrepreneur, if you don’t get really good at saying ‘no’, you’re gonna get terribly distracted." "Today’s customers are really smart. If you don’t have an answer ready for them, they’re already on their way to check out the product somewhere else." If you would like to listen to our previous episode on Scandit, check out our conversation with Christof Roduner. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest  initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,  weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 9:25 - Netcentric’s focus 23:17 - Growing your headcount 26:45 - Choosing holacracy 38:36 - Getting acquired 49:08 - Building a wine marketplace About Elian Kool: Elian Kool is the co-founder and former CEO at Netcentric, a Zurich based company that develops CX marketing solutions. He previously worked at companies like Acommit AG, Namics and Logica Deutschland. Elian co-founded Netcentric in 2012, right around the time that Adobe Experience Cloud (the focus of their business) was first emerging. They were quite precocious, in the sense that they always competed at eye level with big consultants like Deloitte and Accenture, and very early on set up an office in Barcelona. They were also quick to take on a holacratic organizational method, in order to create a work environment that was both extremely efficient and attractive to its employees. In 2017 they were acquired by cognizant in order to grow more quickly at an international level. Memorable Quotes: "In my view it’s much better to stay focused and know what you’re good at than trying to mitigate every potential risk." Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest   initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,   weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 7:21 - The right time for scaling up 26:36 - Why hire in Belgrade 32:02 - Scaling while bootstrapped 42:42 - Growth engines 53:15 - Growing towards an exit About Dennis Just and Mathis Büchi: Dennis Just is the current CEO at Smallpdf, a company offering a suite of clever document management tools for everyone. He holds a BSc in Economics and Engineering from Technische Universität Berlin and previously founded companies like Numbrs and Knip. Mathis Büchi is co-founder and chairman at Smallpdf and Taxfix, a digital tax accountant. He studied International Business and Global Management at the University of Hong Kong and previously founded Encounter Korea, a company organizing tours to North Korea. Dennis and Mathis recommend that you only scale once the following conditions are met: You’ve achieved product-market fit, meaning you found a problem that’s big enough and that you solve well enough for people to have recognized the value in your solution. There’s room to scale: either the market for the problem you’re solving is big enough or you’re able to solve different problems closely connected to the original one. You have either the money or the profitability to scale. You’ve hired the right people to scale. Do you always need to raise funds in order to scale up? Not always, no, but if you’re solving a problem that is too big or too complicated to make money from right away, then you need to raise funds. Or if, for instance, you need to beat your competition in a winner-takes-all market by outspending everyone, then you need to raise funds. Memorable Quotes: "Even if a problem seems boring, like PDFs or taxes, it’s still engaging to solve it, and you still get to help a lot of people’s lives." (Mathis) "You need to define your entrepreneurial identity: why are you doing what you’re doing? What’s your goal?" (Dennis) If you would like to listen to our previous conversations with Dennis Just, check out episodes 85 and 87. For Mathis Büchi, listen to episode 208. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest  initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,  weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Kevin Smith, co-founder and CEO of Snipd, dives into the fascinating world of podcasts as a massive knowledge base. He shares his journey from banking to founding a startup, driven by his passion for machine learning. Kevin discusses how Snipd's innovative AI extracts key moments from lengthy episodes, making knowledge accessible. He also emphasizes the startup culture he embraced at Contovista and the Swiss startup network's invaluable support. Expect insights into the future of speech AI and personalized learning experiences!

Timestamps: 2:01 - How consulting makes you a better entrepreneur 7:27 - Spending your sabbatical in Rheinfeld 31:18 - Staying healthy as a founder 42:18 - Complex and non-complex system 47:35 - Getting acquired by Zoom Info About Roy Raanani: Roy Raanani is the co-founder, former CEO and current president of Chorus.ai, a B2B SaaS platform that helps sales teams improve the quality of their conversations and sales processes by analyzing how top performers engage with customers in calls and video meetings. He holds a BA in Engineering Science from UoT and an MBA from Stanford, and previously worked for companies like Bain & Company and Innovation Endeavors. After quitting his consultancy job and spending a sabbatical in Rheinfeld thinking about business ideas, Roy developed an interest in undervalued data sets in business, specifically conversations – he wanted to use machine learning to discover what makes a conversation end badly and what makes it end well. He founded Chorus.ai in 2015 and has since grown it to millions in revenue and over 100 employees, and raised over $65M in capital from Emergence Capital, Redpoint and Georgian Partners. But the sailing wasn’t always this smooth. Thinking back to when they were first building the product, Roy recounts an interesting cycle he observed: When you’re building a product, the feedback you get from your first customers will be mostly negative, which decreases both your motivation and your customer’s excitement level about the product. However, simultaneously to this, your product’s quality level is slowly going up. At some point these first customers might lose their patience and stop using your product. But then you acquire new customers whose excitement level is just as high as your first customers’ once was, and this time your product is starting off from a slightly better position. Rinse and repeat. Finally you reach a point when your new customer doesn’t have a bad experience! And the only thing that kept you going through this entire process was the fact that, flaws and all, people were still using your product, so you must be answering a real need. In conclusion, so long as you don’t run out of hope or cash, perseverance will get you to product-market fit. In Chorus.ai’s case, it also got them to a tradesale. They were acquired by Zoom Info in 2021 for $575M and have since seen their yearly growth rate double from 100% to 200%. Memorable Quotes: "A lot of investors are too comfortable giving entrepreneurs advice having never been in their shoes." "We’re always focused on older, experienced people, but I think it’s just as important to get to know the amazing people that are maybe a couple years behind you." If you would like to listen to more conversations with expats living in Switzerland, check out our episode with Ross Mason. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest  initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,  weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 3:52 - Breaking up and getting back together with McKinsey 9:36 - Gathering the Oviva team 12:01 - Certified dieticians vs nutritionists 16:52 - Working with health insurers 34:59 - Keeping in touch with your investors About Kai Eberhardt: Kai Eberhardt is the co-founder and CEO at Oviva, an app which provides personalized advice and individual support for targeted dietary changes. He holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry from ETH and previously worked for McKinsey and Groupon. Kai left McKinsey to get a taste of the startup life at the rapidly growing Group, but ended up having a mixed experience. Due to its IPO goal, Groupon cultivated unsustainable company growth, which often came at the expense of employees and customers, and was, in Kai’s experience, a “ruthless” environment – which explains the crash they suffered right after going public. Kai nonetheless considers his time there a valuable personal growth opportunity. In 2014 he founded Oviva together with co-founders Manuel and Mark, and the inspiration actually came from his past: during his time as a student, Kai suffered from cancer (which fortunately was treatable), and this motivated him to help people live healthier and happier lives. Kai and his co-founders saw that dieticians weren’t meeting often enough with their patients, and hypothesized that a much better way to reach these patients would be through their phone, which they already used for copious amounts of time anyway. Oviva offers not only one-to-one nutritional assessment, advice and continual support, but also nutritional tracking, through pictures that patients take of their meals with their phones, and which dieticians review. Oviva employs these dieticians and tries their best to have users be reimbursed by their health insurance providers. They mainly acquire users through their doctors, and to both doctors and health insurers Oviva shows metrics like program completion, weight loss (when relevant), a calculation of the hospital visit reduction, and also how many patients were able to go off (expensive) medications by following their dietary protocol. This proves to doctors and insurers that Oviva saves hospitals their resources and insurers their money. Memorable Quotes: "I didn’t want to stay at McKinsey forever because there you never get to own anything you work on." "Nowadays integrated medicine only happens in specialist clinics, despite the fact that obesity and type 2 diabetes are absolute epidemics." If you would like to listen to more conversations on medtech apps, check out our episode with Bettina Hein. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest  initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,  weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 12:50 - Alcohol-free drinks for the new decade 18:17 - Choosing Switzerland as a production site 21:40 - Who’s buying alcohol-free drinks? 22:53 - Reaching a crowdfunding goal in 11 hours 28:37 - Selling B2C and B2B About Christof Tremp: Christof Tremp is the co-founder and CEO at Rebels 0.0%, a startup producing alcohol-free spirits. He holds an MA in Business Administration from HSG and has previously worked at Kraft Foods Group, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Lindt & Sprüngli. Rebels 0.0% currently produces alternatives to gin, rum and aperitif, aiming to capitalize on the current trend of declining alcohol consumption, especially prevalent among younger generations. However, they take good care not to position themselves as anti-alcohol: they are merely providing an alternative. These concoctions, which taste incredibly like the real thing, are the result of double distillation using organic botanicals. Their production site is Switzerland, since the company cares deeply about sustainability. Since their production process is more complicated than regular alcohol and obeys a series of ethical standards, the finished product is not cheaper than its alcoholic counterpart. Rebels 0.0% recently met a crowdfunding goal in just 11h, which gave them an extraordinary proof of concept. Despite having gone the bootstrapped way early on, they have now also begun to raise funds in equity rounds (recently 1M ) in order to really accelerate their marketing. Memorable Quotes: "I never really looked at entrepreneurship as a risk. If I failed, I could just go back to my old life." "Switzerland will always be our home, but it’s too small a market." Resources mentioned: Foodtech_network Crowdfoods If you would like to listen to more episodes on selling spirits, check out our conversation with Alexander Curiger. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest  initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,  weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 5:02 - Picking the right co-founder 14:14 - Going B2B 18:07 - Getting better at sales 21:42 - Fundraising as a spin-off 31:59 - Getting inspiration as an entrepreneur About Patrik Deuss: Patrik Deuss is the co-founder and CEO at LEDCity, a cleantech startup specializing in smart lighting solutions. Patrik holds a BS in Energy and Environmental Engineering from ZHAW and previously worked at m-way agm and blitzzcar GmbH. With LEDCity’s solution, AI-trained algorithms control the light autonomously and dynamically. This means that rooms are only lit when it actually makes sense to do so. The duration and intensity of light can thus be adapted to actual lighting needs, and energy spending is cut by about 90%. This is an incredible win considering that lighting makes up 12% of Swiss energy consumption. LEDCity initially relied only on research grants money and otherwise bootstrapped their operations, which turned them into a very efficient team. They later raised an equity round (CHF 2M), and this capital combined with their efficiency has given them a great growth rate. Memorable Quotes: "In the beginning our sales person was calling people way too much. It’s never good to come across as desperate." "If your startup doesn’t have an impactful mission, your motivation will suffer." Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest   initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,   weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps: 5:00 - The ideal human future 7:27 - Reversing aging vs curing common diseases 10:22 - Longevity tips 13:11 - Societal costs to longevity 20:22 - Recs for 20 year olds About Alexander Schueller & Tobias Reichmuth: Alexander Schueller is the founder and CEO at cellvie, a seed-stage venture developing mitochondria-based therapies. Tobias Reichmuth is a founding partner at maximoon, a venture studio company builder which has already built 2 longevity startups, with 3 more to follow this year. Nowadays we know that there are 9 reasons for human aging, all cell-based: - Genomic instability; - Telomere attrition; - Epigenetic alterations; - Loss of proteostasis; - Deregulated nutrient sensing; - Mitochondrial dysfunction; - Cellular senescence; - Stem cell exhaustion; - Altered inter-cellular comms. Nowadays average life expectancy is at 83. Alexander’s and Tobias’ companies aim not to extend life indefinitely, but significantly, and insure quality of life right up until the very end. Longevity companies typically have a hard time raising money because their research results require several decades; funds looking to focus on health topics usually go for companies whose products treat diseases, and which can therefore return the investment max. 14 years after it was made. However nowadays the World Health Organization already recognizes aging as a sickness – it’s therefore time for venture funds, research granters and healthcare insurers to start doing so as well. Alexander’s & Tobias’ general tips to improve longevity: - Eat less and do intermittent fasting; - Do HIIT training or some other form of exercise; - Quit bad habits like smoking or drinking; - Cultivate a good social life; - Take both hot and cold showers; - Take certain supplements (this will depend on each individual’s case). Greater longevity will naturally result in societal changes such as: - People putting up with poor labor conditions for much shorter, since their working life will be longer; - Co-living solutions for active seniors; - Changes to the pension system: if labor conditions are good, people will not want to retire so early, even if they no longer continue to work 100%. A good life requires purpose, and a good job can serve as that; - Employers may begin to offer benefits such as a sabbatical semester every 10 years, plus an educational stipend, so that every 10 years you may reinvent your career if you so choose. Memorable quotes: "The ideal human future is one in which you are free from disease and have a strong purpose up until the very end of your life." "Our goal is for people to die as late as possible, with a body as young as possible." If you would like to listen to more episodes about healthtech, check out our conversation with Tanja Dowe. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest  initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows,  weekly give-aways or founders dinners!