Finding the right exit strategy for you and your company.
Getting the basics right
Selecting the right partner and deal
Timing
Depends on several factors:
Exit options
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Marc P. Bernegger is the founder of usgang.ch, a nightlife platform, and Amiando, a ticketing system for events. Marc started usgang.ch in 1999 when he was 20 years old and sold it to Axel Springer in 2008. In 2006, he co-founded Amiando based out of Munich. Amiando was acquired by Xing in 2010. Since then, Marc has been active in the fintech space, as founder of the Crypto Finance Conference St. Moritz and of Crypto Finance AG and as a board member at Falcon Bank.
Marc holds a Masters in Law from the University of Zurich.
Patrick Thevoz is Co-founder and CEO of Flyability, a company specialized in commercial indoor drones. During his time at Fyability, the company grew from 2 to over 60 employees and acquired over 300 customers. The company successfully raised $11 m in 2018 with Swisscom Ventures as one of the lead investors. Before founding Flyability, Patrick worked as a strategy consultant in the life sciences industries. Patrick holds an MSc in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (EPFL).
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Monique Morrow spent 16 years at Cisco, where she became the company’s first Services CTO and spearheaded Cisco’s transition to services as the core piece of their offerings portfolio. After leaving Cisco, she founded The Humanized Internet, a non-profit organization with a mission to provide persistent, secure, global digital identity to the world’s population.
In 2019, she joined the newly established VETRI Foundation as the president of the board and has been shaping the organization’s path towards a blockchain based personal data management solution.
Monique has several patents to her name, amongst them “Cloud Framework for Multi-Cloud Extension” and “Deep Learning Bias Detection in Text”.
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Know your competitive landscape
Why companies acquire other companies
How to approach competitors
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Michael Friedrich is the CEO of Distalmotion, a medical device company specialized in robots for minimally invasive surgery. Michael started his first venture as a 16-year-old teenager during high school. The company, Berne Byte Bears, focused on the early applications of the Internet, producing specialized software programs, websites and other web applications. Their most successful offering was an online product comparison site, komsumenteninfo.ch, which was acquired by Comparis in 2002. Michael went on to study Microengineering at EPFL Lausanne. From there, he started Aïmago, a medtech venture focused on visualizing blood flow in real time. Aïmago was acquired by its competitor Novadaq for $12m in 2014. Nowadays, Michael is CEO (and early investor) of Lausanne-based Distalmotion, a spin-off of the EPFL that has set out to make robotic surgery more accessible and establish robotics as the new standard of care in the OR via its surgical robot called Dexter.
The four phases of fundraising.
Phase 1: Preparation
Phase 2: Pitching
Phase 3: Negotiating Term Sheets
Phase 4: Due Diligence
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Cristian Grossmann is the CEO and co-founder at Beekeeper, a software company which allows businesses to easily communicate with their non-desk workforce. Cristian was born in Mexico City, to a Mexican-Swiss family. He left Mexico as a teenager to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering at ETH Zurich and went on to complete his doctorate in Electrical Engineering. The path to Beekeeper began in 2011, when he and his co-founder Flavio started an anonymous dating app for university students called BlicKlick. BlicKlick became Spocal, a community platform for all types of interactions – not just flirting. The solution was picked up not only by university students but also by businesses trying to engage their workforce. In 2012, Swissôtel, a Swiss hotel chain, used the solution to manage communication with its non-desk workforce during a merger with two other global hotel chains. This was a breakthrough moment for Beekeper, which since then has been growing rapidly and just closed a $ 45 million series B round this year.
Emile de Rijk is the co-founder and CEO of Swissto12, a high-tech company which specializes in the 3D printing of radio frequency products based on its own patented technology. The company’s technology originated from Emil’s PhD thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), in Lausanne. After initially focusing on the production of scientific equipment, the company pivoted in 2014 and since then is mainly active in the market for antennas for satellite telecommunications. Swissto12 was awarded a contract by the European Space Agency in 2015 and raised a $ 18.5m series B round earlier this year with Swisscom Ventures as one of the lead investors.
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Nicolas Bürer is the Managing Director of DigitalSwitzerland, an initiative of over 150 Swiss corporate companies to strengthen Switzerland’s position as a leading innovation hub. Nicolas started his entrepreneurial career as Chief Marketing Officer at DeinDeal.ch, which rose to be one of Switzerland’s most successful e-commerce sites within only 5 years. After DeinDeal, he transitioned to become Managing Director at the TV company Joiz, which had to close its doors in 2016. Nicolas is also one of the co-founders of Movu, a platform of moving and cleaning companies, which was acquired by Baloise in 2017. He holds a Masters in physics from the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and was awarded “Business Angel of the Year” in 2018.
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It’s never too early
Scaling culture
The topic of salaries
Letting people go
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About Andreas Fischler and Frontify
Andreas Fischler is the co-founder of and former CEO at Frontify, which offers cloud software for brand management. During his time at Frontify, the company grew from 2 to over 70 employees. Before joining Frontify, he was a partner at Namics and had his own project, Sakku, which produced solar-powered bags. Andreas holds a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from ETH and a Masters in Information Management from the University of St. Gallen.
Andri Silberschmidt is a politician, investment consultant and the co-founder of Kaisin AG. After his apprenticeship at Swisscanto Invest, he became (and is still) responsible for the management of all quantitative equity funds that invest in developing countries. In 2017, together with friends, he founded the restaurant chain Kaisin AG, which currently operates three branches in Zurich and one in Basel. Andri Silberschmidt has been politically active since 2011 and President of the Young Liberals Party of Switzerland since 2016. In 2018, he was elected to the Parliament of the City of Zurich for the FDP (Swiss Liberal Party) and is now a candidate for the National Parliament on the list of the FDP Canton of Zurich. Andri holds a BSc in Business Administration and an MSc in Global Finance from Cass Business School.
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What drives inequality in Switzerland?
How can we tackle inequality?
Quotas: yay or nay?
Diversity matters.
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Estefanía Tapias is the CEO and Co-Founder of WeSpace, a community, workspace and digital platform that nurtures female leadership and innovation, having opened its doors in Zurich in 2018. Estefanía holds a PhD in Information Cities and Urban Climate from ETH Zurich and co-developed the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) series on ‘Future Cities’ available on edX. She was also featured on the BILANZ Top 100 Digital Shapers in Switzerland as well as in Forbes’ 30 under 30.
Michael Born is co-founder and CEO at the ETH spin-off PXL Vision, a tech startup which uses computer vision for secure identity verification. He started PXL Vision together with key employees from his previous company, Dacuda, which specializes in software 3D camera technology and was acquired by Magic Leap in 2017. Before starting his entrepreneurial career, Michael was a consultant at Capgemini, specializing in technology consulting. He holds a MSc in International Affairs from the University of St. Gallen.
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People can be an organization’s biggest asset but also one of their greatest pain points. Here are some of Markus Okumus’ key takeaways:
Attracting talent
Diversity
Hyper-growth
Values
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Markus Okumus is a serial entrepreneur with two successful exits in Switzerland. In 2007, his first venture, students.ch (part of Amiado Group) was acquired by Axel Springer. Only a year later, he started Fashion Days which came to be one of the leading fashion e-commerce businesses in Eastern Europe and was acquired by Naspers in 2015. In 2016, Markus started Baze, a provider of personalized nutrition supplements. Baze closed their series A round with $ 6m in August of this year.
Next to his own ventures, Markus is also active as an investor in his role as founder and partner at Canopei, an investment firm focusing on early-stage preventive, and consumer-centric health and wellness companies.
Pascal Mathis is Co-Founder and former COO of GetYourGuide. After he left the company in 2013, he joined Google as an Industry Manager. Subsequently, he dedicated his career to startup coaching and early stage investments as a co-founder and partner at Wingman. Pascal is also an accredited coach for InnoSuise and sits on the advisory board of the Swiss ICT Investor Club. He holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ).
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The role of a startup CEO is challenging and ever-changing. These are some of the tasks you should be ready to tackle in the initial stages of your company:
Early stage
After A-round
After B-round
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Originally from the Swiss Canton of Graubunden, Alexander Fries moved to San Francisco in 2002 in connection with a tech startup (SVOX AG) he had co-founded in Switzerland. Today, Alex is one of the most renowned Swiss venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. SVOX AG was acquired by Nuance Inc. in 2011 and Playspan Inc., another startup Alex co-founded, was sold to VISA the same year. In 2005, he founded Ecosystem Ventures with the specific goal of supporting European early-stage tech companies and bringing them onto the American market. He is also a partner at Alpana Ventures, a Swiss VC firm which supports startups in making the bridge into both the American and the Asian market.
Frank Thelen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Freigeist Capital (formerly e42). He is however best known for his role on “Höhle der Löwen”, a German reality TV program where founders pitch to senior venture capitalists for fundraising. Since the early 90’s, he has founded more than 10 companies, most with a strong focus on innovative technology. One of his first ventures, Twisd AG, had to file for bankrupcy in the wake of the bursting “dotcom“ bubble. Based on this experience, he published his autobiography “Startup-DNA – Hinfallen, aufstehen, die Welt verändern” which became a bestseller in Germany. Frank has also had an active role in German politics as one of the leading members of the German Innovation Council.
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When it comes to finances, the mantra is “never procrastinate”. Here are the most important points to start off on the right foot:
VAT (Value added tax)
Payroll
Be aware of mandatory fees and deductions
Invoicing
Accounting costs and tools
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There are 5 legal areas every startup should have covered:
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Setting your sales team up for success
Good sales people are valuable and hard to come by. Therefore, finding the right timing for them to be able to bring the most value to your company is crucial. If you hire a sales team too early – before there is anything tangible to sell – they will be unable to perform which leads to frustration and high turnover rates. You should also consider that while you as a founder may be able to sell your product solely based on your visionary conviction, your sales people will have to be able to show real use cases and results in order to convince your potential clients.
Once you do hire the team, you should ideally have at least one person with ample experience in the field. B2B sales are complex and a lot of time can get lost for building up this expertise. If you cannot hire an expert, try to organise coaching for your team on a regular basis.
Managing complex sales processes
B2B sales are more complex and time intensive than your average B2C sales. To manage the complexity, it is vital to set up a robust process which will determine the interactions with your (prospective) client from lead generation to full-scale roll out.
The skills needed along the different stages of your sales process will vary. Therefore, it is advisable to divide your sales team into sub-teams with a particular specialisation and task in the overall process. One possible division is into
– Sales development
– Account management
– Solution consulting
These three sub-teams work together to funnel your prospective clients into and guide them through the three roll-out stages:
– Proof of value project
– Small-scale rollout
– Large-scale rollout
Practically, the interplay of the different sub-teams and roll-out stages could work as follows: The sales development team produces new leads through either research and cold calling/ emailing or through their presence at industry events. After a first successful email exchange with the potential client, the sales development team sets up a discovery meeting between the client and the account manager. The account manager should have a clear process to evaluate whether a specific lead can be classified as an opportunity with the potential to be closed within 3 to 6 months. If a lead develops into an opportunity, it makes sense to support account managers with so called „C-level sponsors“, that is people from the management who help to open doors at the prospective client company. If you are selling a highly complex product, it may also be beneficial to have a dedicated solutions consulting team which helps to determine the customers specific needs.
If this first part of the sales process is successful, it will be followed by an implementation phase. Again, in the case of highly complex products with sizeable upfront investments, it is likely that you will decide together with the client to follow a staged implementation process. This usually consists of an initial proof of value, sometimes also referred to as proof of concept, pilot project or similar. The key element of this early phase is usually to demonstrate the potential return on investment (ROI) of the project. If deemed successful, it will likely be followed by smaller roll outs which eventually lead into a large scale roll out. This entire process may easily take 2 to 3 years, depending on the decision making cycles in your client company.
Securing that first client is extremely important, particularly when you are selling a „high risk“ product, since it will give your prospective clients an external source of validation and confidence. At the end of the day it is important to remember, that although you are in the B2B business, the person you are selling to is a human with their own experiences, ambitions and fears. Taking this into consideration and knowing how to respond to the human element of the sales process will be an important factor for success.
Deriving your sales strategy
Your sales team should, like any other team in your company, align with and contribute to the company’s overall vision and strategy. In order to assure this, your sales strategy should be derived from your go-to-market strategy which in turn should pay into your midterm OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). One way to ensure that your sales team is aligned is by defining success metrics which meaningfully contribute to the company’s strategy. An example could be annual recurring revenue from purchases of your technology. It is important to define these metrics carefully because they will determine the priorities of the entire sales effort.
When selling a complex product with a strong visionary component, it will likely take some time until you are able to determine the most promising industry or use case for yourself. One way to test this systematically is by implementing sales sprints, where the entire sales team focuses on one industry or use case for a specified amount of time and thereby determines whether this particular area shows potential for future exploration. Finding the right market for your product is a delicate balancing act between open exploration and pragmatic focus which will constantly have to be fine tuned and justified to your team and most likely to your investors as well.
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Iman Nahvi is the co-founder and CEO of Advertima, a company which uses AI for consumer engagement on physical channels. At Advertima, Iman implemented a holocratic organisational structure, meaning (among other things) equal pay for all employees and a broad distribution of decision-making power. In 2017, Advertima won the “Coolest Startup Award” at the WorldWeb Forum.
Before starting his latest venture, Iman had founded various other companies, such as Digital Delight and Taxi Frosch. Iman holds a BA in Banking & Finance from the University of Zurich and an MA in Entrepreneurship from the University of St. Gallen.
B2C Marketing Framework For Startups, by Alan Frei.
Sell a story not a product
In the early stages of your venture, your customers will be buying your vision and personality rather than an amazingly polished product. Therefore, make sure you have inspiring stories ready for them. The most common format for your „story“ is an elevator pitch. It’s worth investing some time to perfect it since (hopefully) you will be telling your story hundreds of times. A few words on elevator pitches: keep it short and sweet. Try to include interesting facts which benefit your audience beyond simply knowing your product. Avoid being „the Uber of X“ or „the Airbnb of Y“, have the courage to be one of a kind. Lastly, and this is probably the most underestimated trick, don’t take yourself too seriously. Be funny. People love to laugh and giving them a positive feeling will really benefit your brand.
When you convincingly told your story, give people a simple call to action. This could for example be your business card with a coupon code for your product. This brings us to our next point.
Marketing on a budget
If you don’t have half a million to spend on marketing like Uber, tap into whatever you can get for free or at least don’t have to spend money without guaranteed revenue. One great example is free PR: think about where you’d like to be featured and research what has been written in this publication about topics related to your company and/or your industry. Put together some interesting facts and figures and reach out to the journalist which has covered this topic in the past. Emphasize your insights, not your company or product. Give the journalist a clear deadline for accepting or rejecting the story. If they reject it, you move on to the next outlet with your story. This way, you position yourself and your brand as experts on a particular topic and even if your story is rejected this time around, the journalist might reach out if they run a story in the future.
One of the first things which you should pay attention to when starting your marketing efforts is conversion rates, meaning the ratio of people who visit your website to those who end up buying your product. To understand what drives (or hampers) your conversion rate, consider doing some simple user testing. Ask your aunt to visit your website and make a purchase. Observe her buying journey and try to understand where she might struggle and give up. Iterate and improve until you reach a value close to your industry benchmark (this will be between 1-2% for most industries).
Once you are confident that people who visit your website will likely buy your product, it’s time to drive traffic. To find out which acquisition channels work best for you, it’s advisable to test them all. Test sequentially in order to be able to easily determine which source is generating your traffic at any given time. Again, try to use free resources or agree on revenue shares in order to avoid paying for things which don’t work. For example, hire an influencer and agree on paying him/her a percentage of the revenue he/she helped to create. Another option is to ask for free trials in order to determine whether a particular channel is worth spending resources on.
Having optimised both conversion and traffic at a low budget, the third important concept to focus on is your customer lifetime value, or the amount of revenue a customer will generate for you over an extended amount of time. This metric is often overlooked in startups since they are preoccupied with attracting as many new customers as possible. It is however worth considering since it will help you get a higher return for your acquisition costs. The key takeaway here is to keep your customers engaged. Even if they are not interested in buying anything at the moment, you should stay on top of their minds so once they are ready, your brand will be the first thing they think of. One way to achieve this is through compelling content that delivers value to your customers. Videos are known to perform exceptionally well in that regard. Since they are costly to produce however, you might want to test the waters with a less resource intensive blog or infographic format.
Tools
Measuring your metrics is everything, therefore google analytics will be your best friend. If you want to integrate other tools, a spreadsheet will probably do as a dashboard in the beginning. As your processes become more complex, there are a lot of great tools out there to help you manage. Alan’s go-to solutions are Asana for teams and Minubo for business intelligence.
New channels to try right now
The marketing landscape is in constant flux. To excel it is therefore important to stay ahead of the curve and discover new trends and channels early on. For the Swiss market, Alan predicts that Youtube, podcasts and compelling email newsletters will gain significant importance in the near future. It’s certainly worth to give it a try!
“The perfect elevator pitch is quick, clear and interesting – and, if you can manage it, funny.”
“People don’t always want to buy. But they do want to be engaged – and for that you need content.”
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Alan Frei is the co-founder of amorana.ch, an e-commerce platform for sex toys and lingerie. Before starting Amorana, he experimented with a variety of other projects such as nachhilfeportal.de and LooksOfLove, from which he learned what it takes to make a company successful. Alan is a University of Zurich alumni and headed the University’s startup center. He lives a minimalist lifestyle, counting less than 120 items in his personal possession.
“Corporate experience is overrated. Working for a great entrepreneur abroad will help you more, in the long run.”
“If you need to convince people that your product is useful, it’ll be very difficult to scale up quickly.”
“Where lawyers see risk, entrepreneurs see opportunity.”
“A lean lifestyle gives you freedom and a whole bunch of opportunities.”
How to fundraise as an early stage startup, by Daniel Gutenberg.
Valuation
Fundraising means putting a price tag on your company. Especially for first time founders this may not be such a straightforward process. Therefore, it may be tempting to look at the valuation of your peers for guidance. This can however lead to an unhealthy upward spiral of ever higher valuations which are completely unsustainable. Consequently, you risk for your next round to be a down round. This casts a bad light on your ability to make realistic estimations and can also be a source of serious demotivation for the founding team. Therefore, instead of going for the highest valuation possible it may be advisable to consult with a range of experienced investors on how they would value your company based on their experience.
How much money to raise
The next difficult numbers question is how much money to raise. The general wisdom here is to always raise for achieving your next milestone. This may be a beta product, a certain number of customers or similar. The milestone should be defined in a way that it will allow you to attract new investors based on it. Once you determined the amount of financial resources needed to achieve the milestone, you’ll want to raise double that, since it always takes longer to get there than you expect. Also consider that it will typically take you between 3 to 4 months to close an investment round, so the round should give you runway for at least a year or better more.
Establishing contact with investors
The best way to establish contact with potential investors is through their network or portfolio companies. Send a comprehensive business plan, covering all important areas of business such as the team, go-to-market strategy, competition, etc. Try to focus on the underlying logic rather than on the exact number of office chairs you will be buying in the next 3 years. Also try not to exceed 20 pages with the entire deck. For a first meeting, be prepared to talk about yourself and your track record. At a very early stage it is as much about you and your ability to execute as about your business idea.
Managing the process
Fundraising is like a sales process. Much of the success is based on having a broad enough funnel and a well structured process. Don’t expect your investors to manage the process for you. Be clear on the timeline and the next steps.
Structuring investors
Think about how to structure your investors. You will most likely want more than one in order to minimise risk exposure. You however also don’t want too many since this will make managing them time-consuming and cumbersome. Also beware of large numbers of „non-professional“ investors, aka friends and family. While they may be a viable source of funds, it’s important to structure their contributions in a way that their participation will not hold you back once you enter a high growth stage.
If you have a variety of investors lined up to choose from, don’t hesitate to do your own due-diligence, for example by talking to CEOs of their portfolio companies.
After the round is closed
One of the sensitive and tricky questions which often comes up after a successful fundraising round is how much the founders should now be paid. Daniel Gutenberg’s view on this is clear: „if you really believe you are building a unicorn, then investing every cent you have into it is the only logical way to go.“ This decision will likely depend very much on your personal situation, particularly if you are supporting people besides yourself, e.g. a family.
With regards to your investors, don’t be surprised if they decide to take a more hands-off approach and are not looking for an active role in the company, for example on the board. They will most likely be heavily involved again once you see an exit or similar on the horizon.
“Raise as much money as you need to accomplish your next big milestone – and then show that to as many investors as possible.”
“I invest in only 1% of the startups I look at.”
“You can only be a unicorn if you believe that you are one.”
“I only invest in people who are far more intelligent than myself.”
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About Daniel Gutenberg
Finding unicorns before they have 10 employees is his ambition. Daniel Gutenberg is one of Switzerland’s most active Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors. During his career he’s collected a total of 12 unicorns in his portfolio, so far. Daniel started his first company – Gutenberg Communication Systems – in 1991 and sold it in 2000 as part of a deal to become the CEO of the acquiring company. During this time, Daniel was a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), through which he met people like Jeff Bezos and Marc Andreessen. Since 2003 he has been active as an investor and advisor to startups through the Swiss venture capital firm Venture Incubator Partners. Daniel was awarded business angel of the year in 2011 (SECA).
“If an investor has skin in the game, he’ll take better care of his investments.”
“When I had my first big exit and stopped working, I started having trouble getting up in the morning and I realized I never had anything interesting to tell anyone. Money does not make for a fulfilled life.”
Building a great product, by Herbert Bay.
Solve one problem at a time
As an entrepreneur, seeing opportunities in problems is your bread and butter. When building a product, this may, however, prove to be more of a bane than a boon. Scaling your product too early or trying to solve an ever larger set of problems dilutes your focus and will make your product worse. Consequently, your retention rate will be low and any resources you invest into expanding your user base are like pouring water into a leaky bathtub – it is not going to get you far. Therefore, focus on making your core product excel before anything else. Whenever “the bathtub stops draining”, meaning your user base remains stable and you start seeing organic growth, it is time to think about moving forward, be it in terms of scale or new features.
Get out of the office and talk to your customer
Most of the time, you will be building your product based on assumptions about problems your customers are experiencing. While this is a great starting point, you will have to verify whether these assumptions are actually accurate, before you start coding anything. For this purpose, it is recommendable to talk to your customers face-to-face, rather than using online panels or evaluation tools. The advantage of speaking to your customer directly is that it is easier to ask open-ended “why” questions which will allow you to get to the bottom of your customers’ problems.
The team behind a great product
Building a great product takes time – usually more than you expect. In order to keep a long run way, it is recommendable to keep the team and processes as lean as possible until you are ready to scale. If you are building a tech heavy product, you obviously want your initial team to consist of coders and possibly a designer, if you can afford it. After the initial development stage, it may be advisable to add a dedicated growth team with business developers, content creators, etc. At this point, you will also need a specialized product team which acts as the bridge between the sales team and the developers. To be effective, the people in your product team should have a high degree of entrepreneurial spirit paired with a good understanding of both the underlying technology of your product and the problems your customers face. Good product management is crucial for the success of your company, hence why it may be a task that the founders want to be engage in themselves.
Focus, focus, focus
Not that you wouldn’t know this point already. Nevertheless, it is worth emphasizing it once more. In spite of what may be the common perception, as a founder, your most scarce resource is probably not money but the time you can spend in a “deep work state” which is necessary to get things done. Getting to that state is a very personal process which differs from person to person. Some tricks to start with may be: leave your phone turned off for the first few hours of work in the morning. Don’t check your email, your social media or anything else. Just sit down and work for a few hours before you let distraction seep in. Try working on paper rather than on a laptop. This forces you to think things through before you google them. Another technique may be to make a mental assessment of your most pressing problems before you go to sleep and re-asses them once you wake up again. Whatever it is that works for you, it is worth investing some time and energy to find out.
“You should scale your product when you stop losing more customers than you acquire.”
“A great product solves the right problem for the right customers.”
“If you wanna live an extraordinary life, don’t do what ordinary people did.”
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Herbert Bay is the co-founder of Kooaba, an image recognition program which he successfully sold to Qualcomm in 2014. Following his successful exit, he embarked on a sailing trip from France to New Zealand together with his wife and two young sons. While at sea, he managed his second venture, Shortcut, remotely. After a 4-year journey, Herbert returned to Switzerland, where he took the position as Principal Software Engineer, Digital Health & User Perception at Magic Leap, a US company that specializes in “mixed-reality” applications. Herbert holds a PhD from ETH Zurich and is a published researcher.
“A founding team should have a developer, and designer, and a sales person — all capable of multitasking.”
“Gratefulness is an important ingredient for a happy life. And another one is not taking yourself too seriously.”
“Being CEO doesn’t mean being at the top – quite the contrary: you serve your customers, employees, shareholders, the board…”
Teams 101, by Cédric Waldburger
In the beginning, keep it flexible
Team roles and processes undergo fundamental changes as your company grows. Roughly every time you triple the number of employees, you have to fundamentally rethink the way you work together. Therefore, it is a good idea to keep roles and titles flexible as long as you can. Defining roles on a project-to-project basis may be a good approach. At an early stage, approximately up to 10 people, you will need mostly generalists, that are able to take on tasks as they present themselves. After you have passed this stage, specialists will become more important and with them, a certain structuring of your core business units.
Team meetings and how to make them efficient
Meetings, when done wrong, can become a waste of time for both you and your team. Therefore, it is worth investing some time and effort to get them right from the beginning. You don’t have to come up with everything yourself though. Try for example crowdsourcing ideas for effective processes and protocols with your team. A good way to minimize time spent in meetings is to establish certain documentation practices that allow everyone to stay in the loop by following the relevant document stream. This way, you can use meetings to discuss problems instead of merely giving updates on everyone’s progress.
Co-founders — your first team members
Your first team members are obviously going to be your co-founder(s). There are many things you should be considering when choosing who to start your company with. What it boils down to though, is that you and your co-founder(s) should share similar values and complement each other in your skills and ambitions. Holding similar values is crucial because it will allow you to find common ground even if you disagree on certain decisions. Complementary skills and ambitions will enable each of you to grow your own way without stepping on each other’s toes. No matter how well aligned you are with your co-founder(s) though, there are also going to be tough times to navigate as your company matures. In these situations, the only way forward is to communicate openly and to stay on the table until things are sorted out.
Centralized vs decentralized teams
Nowadays, the odds are high that you will have team members across different parts of the world. Decentralizing your team comes with with the advantage of being able to hire from a geographically larger talent pool. It also makes it more difficult, however, to build company culture and solve problems face-to-face. Choosing how decentralized your team can or should be will to a large degree depend on the type of product or service you are building. Highly complex and research heavy products or services do not lend themselves to decentralization, for example.
If you do chose to have a strongly decentralized team structure, it may be a good idea to bring everyone together on a quarterly or half-yearly basis. These meetings can serve to align on the roadmap, solve any difficult problems that have arisen and most importantly, to forge connections and build culture. Again, the importance of communication cannot be overemphasized. Getting regular feedback from employees and speaking to them face-to-face will help you to recognize potential problems early on.
“The earlier you join the founding team, the higher up you’ll end up in the company — and that’s not necessarily a good thing for your business.”
“You should never sacrifice your opinion for the sake of preserving a business relationship.”
“If you have a remote team, your main challenge becomes building culture. We’re all much more complex than our email address or slack username.”
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Cédric Waldburger is a Venture Capitalist and founder of Tenderloin Ventures and Sendtask. He started his first venture – Mediasign, a digital branding agency – in high school. He went on to study electrical engineering at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and spent the following years in different jobs in Hongkong, New York and Berlin. Since 2013, he is active as a venture capitalist through his company Tenderloin Ventures. He also became involved in his first blockchain project with the company Dfinity. Cédric is an avowed minimalist, owning only 64 things. He’s known for his strongly optimized lifestyle, following what he calls the “90 review and preview”.
“In the end, it’s all about the team. There’s no good product and no good market if there’s no good team.”
“I wanted to create a setup where I could travel without much friction. So I only own 64 possessions and they all fit in a backpack.”
About Christian Hirsig and Powercoders
Christian Hirsig is one of the co-founders of Swisspreneur.org and a passionate serial entrepreneur. He founded his first venture — Atizo, a crowdsourcing platform for ideas — in 2007. He eventually sold the company and went on to start the consulting business and startup incubator Pacific Catch Ltd. together with his wife, Bettina Hirsig. Under the umbrella of Pacific Catch, he has initiated and supported a wide variety of projects such as „Geile Eier“ — a breakfast franchise, Blacknose — a Swiss mountain pale ale brand and Powercoders — a coding academy for refugees. Additionally, Christian is the founder of TEDxBern and serves as a startup coach for be-advanced, Startfeld and Kickstart Accelerator. Christian was named one of the „Digital Shapers 2018“ by Bilanz Magazin and was invited to speak at TEDxZurich 2017.
“People spend too much time crafting business plans. You should spend far more time on testing than on documenting.”
“If you’re in a B2B endeavour, focus on customer interviews. If you’re in B2C, focus on user data.”
“Go out there and start failing. Failing is learning.”
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Christian Hirsig is one of the co-founders of Swisspreneur.org and a passionate serial entrepreneur. He founded his first venture — Atizo, a crowdsourcing platform for ideas — in 2007. He eventually sold the company and went on to start the consulting business and startup incubator Pacific Catch Ltd. together with his wife, Bettina Hirsig. Under the umbrella of Pacific Catch, he has initiated and supported a wide variety of projects such as „Geile Eier“ — a breakfast franchise, Blacknose — a Swiss mountain pale ale brand and Powercoders — a coding academy for refugees. Additionally, Christian is the founder of TEDxBern and serves as a startup coach for be-advanced, Startfeld and Kickstart Accelerator. Christian was named one of the „Digital Shapers 2018“ by Bilanz Magazin and was invited to speak at TEDxZurich 2017.
“I think people should stop thinking so much about the exit. That’s not a good driver for the first couple years starting a company.”
“Having your wife as a co-founder is like playing poker with all chips on the table.”
“Sometimes abandoning a project almost feels like abandoning a kid.”
Anastasia Hoffmann
Through her work experience in Malta, Miami Beach, Lausanne and Zurich, Anastasia developed a strong fascination for the hospitality industry. She holds a Bachelor of international hospitality management from Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne and is very interested in the development and implementation of sustainable practices within this dynamic industry.
This led her to co-found KITRO, a startup which provides the technology to identify, track and monitor food waste.
Naomi MacKenzie
With experience working in the food and beverage industry, Naomi witnessed the enormous amount of edible food that is being thrown away every day. This has led her to commit herself to reducing the avoidable food waste in this sector.
The idea behind KITRO originated during Naomi’s studies at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne. Since then, she and her co-founder Anastasia have been vigorously working to bring the hospitality industry a solution to tackle the growing issue of food waste. Their goal is to bring back the value of food, so that all food is appreciated and not wasted.
“I don’t agree that you shouldn’t start a company with your best friend. No one knows you and trusts you like a best friend.” (Naomi)
“Switzerland could help startups by bringing down legal costs.” (Anastasia)
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Thomas Sterchi is best known as the founder of jobs.ch, an online job market platform. In 2007, he and his partner sold the venture to an American holding company for a multi-million dollar sum. Since his successful exit, Thomas has built up a diversified portfolio of projects under the umbrella of his holding company “Tom Talent”. Examples include the online-TV portal Teleboy or the music festival Zermatt Unplugged. Thomas has also successfully produced several movies, amongst them “A Dangerous Method” starring Keira Knightley.
“I learnt more about entrepreneurship at the boy scouts than in school.”
“Co-founders should have complimentary skills.”
“Develop your company in a way that eventually makes you dispensable to it.”
“I think most people are not just motivated by the money. They’re looking for other things: appreciation, a good team, fulfillment, freedom, respect, and so on…”
“If you don’t really understand the market and don’t have the right people, money doesn’t make a difference.”
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Rosmarie Michel, now in her eighties, looks back on a lifetime of entrepreneurship and advocacy for women in business. In the 1970s she was one of the first women to be appointed to the board of major Swiss companies such as Valora and Volksbank, which later was bought by Credit Suisse. From 1983-1985 she held the presidency of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (IFBPW). She also served over a decade as the vice chair of Women’s World Banking, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing female entrepreneurs with access to financial resources. During her career Rosmarie met and exchanged her thoughts on women in business with many influential personalities, such as President Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton. To this day, Rosmarie remains active as a mentor of female entrepreneurs and a driver for the empowerment of all women.
“You should prove to your employer that you are interested in solving problems, and not in building up your career.”
“Entrepreneurs should take care to preserve their recreational time. Music, literature, friendship… these are very important things.”
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Markus Popp is best known as the founder of tilllate.com, a party event platform with photo gallery and community features. In 2009, Markus left tilllate.com and embarked on a half-year inspirational sabbatical. Upon his return, he founded the company builder Mühlemann & Popp Online Media AG together with one of his co-founders at tilllate.com, Silvan Mühlemann. Next to being engaged at Mühlemann & Popp, Markus has launched various other digital startups such as SOBRADO or eveni.to. Markus has a Masters in Management, Technology and Economics from ETH Zurich.
“Material goods don’t motivate me. This gives me a lot of freedom.”
“A lot of people mystify entrepreneurship — and this attitude creates a lot of disappointment.”
“Failure should not be stigmatized — it should be talked about.”
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Lea is best know as the Co-founder and President of Ava Science, Inc., the company behind the Ava bracelet, the first fertility-tracking wearable device. Prior to starting Ava, Lea co-founded L’inouï, a premium chocolate production and retail chain in Bangalore, India. She also spent time working for the marketing division of Procter & Gamble in Frankfurt and for a strategy-consulting boutique in Paris. Lea holds a Master’s degree in global entrepreneurship from EM Lyon in France, Zhejiang University in China and Purdue Krannert University in the USA. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of St.Gallen and HEC Montréal in Canada. In 2017, she was recognized by the University of St. Gallen with the HSG Founder of the Year award.
“The startup ecosystem in Switzerland is still really young, so there’s still the chance to influence it and give it some direction.”
“The sexism in the startup ecosystem reinforces itself.”
“The more you pitch, the better.”
“If you wanna be fast, and you’re doing a consumer product, then you have to go to the U.S. It’s so much more scalable.”
“The best time to fundraise is when you don’t need the money.”
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In 1993, graphic designers Markus and Daniel Freitag were looking for a functional, water-repellent and robust bag to hold their creative work. Inspired by the multicolored heavy traffic that rumbled through the Zurich transit intersection in front of their flat, they developed a messenger bag from used truck tarpaulins, discarded bicycle inner tubes and car seat belts. This is how the first FREITAG bags took shape in the living room of their shared apartment. Today their products are available in 29 F-STORES as well as at over 300 resellers around the world.
FREITAG lab.ag has been headquartered at the Nœrd industrial complex in Zurich-Oerlikon since 2011. In 2014, FREITAG launched a new product, F-ABRIC. These completely compostable textiles are based on bast fibers that are produced using a minimum of resources within a 2500-kilometer radius of headquarters.
FREITAG has not only committed to the circular, closed-loop economy but is also organized in circles: in 2016, the company, which still belongs to the Freitag brothers, abandoned the classical hierarchical structure and replaced it with Holacracy, a form of organization based on self-management.
“When you have a prototype approach, failure doesn’t feel like failure — it feels like learning.”
“Diversity is one of our core values.”
“On a global level, Switzerland is irrelevant. But as an example, Switzerland proves us that you can always do something better.”
“Switzerland needs to be more open-minded, to be less perfect.”
“Treat your co-founder as a brother.”
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Adrian is best known as Founder and COO of DeinDeal.ch, an e-commerce coupons and discounts platform for products and services. Within a year of starting the business, DeinDeal.ch was the fastest growing Swiss start-up and market leader in the group buying segment in Switzerland. After 18 months, the Swiss media group Ringier bought 60% of DeinDeal.ch as a strategic investment. At that time the company was valued at CHF 30 Mio. After his exit from DeinDeal.ch, Adrian went on to start new ventures that are leveraging Artificial Intelligence.
Adrian graduated with a degree in business and economics from the University of St. Gallen (HSG), where he started his very first business as a software developer. He was awarded “HSG Entrepreneur of the Year 2012”, “Swiss E-Commerce Champion 2015” and was ranked “40 under 40” by Swiss Bilanz magazine.
“Swiss entrepreneurs should take the plunge as soon as possible. The earlier you start to fail, the earlier you’ll start to succeed.”
“It’s not about the idea. It’s about timing. Most businesses out there are total copycats!”
“Never try to develop a market as a startup. It’s gonna kill you.”
“Questionnaires are not valid feedback, because people don’t do what they say they do.”
“My best employees at the time were people who nowadays are founders. Out of Dein Deal, at least 20 companies were created.”
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Peter Schüpbach started his entrepreneurial career as a co-founder of Miracle Software AG back in 1986 and served as its Chief Executive Officer for more than 10 years. He grew the organization in 14 years to a 350 employee software company with offices in 5 countries and went public with an IPO at the Swiss Stock Exchange SWX in 1999. Today he is engaged in several start-up companies and is a member of the board of several organizations, for example SwissCommerce, an internet platform that builds and buys E-Commerce companies in special interest markets. He received the award “Business Angel of the Year” from the ASBAN (Swiss Business Angel Association) in 2005.
“In the middle of a technological revolution, we rocked the market.”
“Only go international once you have your own market.”
“When you create something that shifts the paradigm, timing is very important.”
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Roman is best known as the Founder and CEO of UrbanFarmers, a company dedicated to building commercial food production systems in and around cities. Together with Andreas Graber, he has developed UrbanFarmers’ vision how food could be grown in an urban space at a large scale. He noticed the trend abroad and learned about a breakthrough Swiss technology that could make it more reliable and sustainable. Since 2011, UrbanFarmers has become a technology leader in Aquaponics, saving water, energy and nutrients to grow fish and plants in a closed-loop.
Roman graduated from University of St. Gallen with an M.A. in Accounting, Finance and Controlling. Before starting UrbanFarms, he has a worked with various large companies in the food and health sector, such as P&G, Novartis and Franke Group.
“Entrepreneurship is about drive and passion, but it’s also about management and leadership.”
“There’s a lot of inefficiency in agriculture. I think urban farming will play a role in fixing that.”
“I would not trade skills over passion. If someone is passionate, that goes a long way.”
“A friend of mine told me: it takes a long time to achieve instant success.”
“Having a great partner at home is a key ingredient for entrepreneurial success.”
“It’s difficult to separate your professional life from your personal one, when you’re an entrepreneur. You bring it home.”
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André Borschberg is best known as the CEO, co-founder and pilot of Solar Impulse: the enterprise that, under his guidance, built a solar-powered plane that broke the world record for the longest solo flight in an airplane of any kind: 117 hours and 52 minutes. He had previously achieved recognition for the first-ever day and night flight in a solar airplane flying Solar Impulse 1 in 2010, followed by eight different world records. André led the development of the aircraft on a mission that began as the passionate vision of Bertrand Piccard more than 13 years ago, tackling numerous challenges ranging from equipment failures to major delays along the way. André graduated from the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and holds a Master’s in Management Science from the MIT Sloan School of Management in Boston. In addition, he was a partner of a venture capital firm for eight years and successfully launched two start-ups, including Innovative Silicon, a technology company in the field of microprocessor memories. Today, André contributes as a mentor and by driving initiatives as a member of the World President’s and the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). He also speaks frequently at leadership forums such as the World Economic Forum (WEF).
“I was never bothered when people told me ‘no’. It always made me think ‘I’ll prove you wrong’.”
“At the beginning, you don’t look for good team players. You look for people who have the talent and skills you need.”
“You have to be able to welcome the unexpected. Preparing for the worst is the way to go.”
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Alisée de Tonnac is the Founder and CEO of Seedstars, an investment firm building and investing in tech companies in 60+ emerging markets. After traveling for a year around the world she set up the first edition of Seedstars in 2013 and grew the competition to 60+ cities around the world. Prior to founding Seedstars, Alisée worked as product manager for luxury brands at L’Oréal Group and was part of the Italian team at Voyage Privé, a leading European startup. She graduated from HEC Lausanne and obtained her Masters in International Management from the Bocconi University in Italy with highest honors. She was also a member of the Harvard Model Congress Europe where she won the Award of Excellence. Alisée is a board member of the School of Management in Fribourg, Switzerland. She was nominated top 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneur by Forbes Magazine and an Innovation Fellow by Wired UK.
“I think that in the near future diplomas are gonna become obsolete.”
“Corporate experiences give you discipline. Sometimes, pure entrepreneurs have a lot of ego.”
“My corporate experience was great for understanding what I don’t want.”
“Switzerland is just a bit too comfortable. It’s the golden cage. That’s probably why we don’t have that many entrepreneurs.”
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Daniel joined Uber in 2015 as the Head of Marketplace, the team that works on Uber’s dynamic pricing model. Before joining Uber he did a short stint at Twitter as the Vice President of Consumer Product. Prior to Twitter Daniel was in charge of leading Google’s Maps & Local teams. After Apple ousted Google Maps from iOS in 2012, Daniel led the development of an award-winning Google mapping experience that shot to number one in the iTunes store. Fast Company recognized Daniel for this achievement as one of the Most Creative People in Business 2013. Prior to Google, Daniel was the CEO of Kyte, which he founded in 2005. Kyte became a leading platform for live and on-demand video content. Daniel sold Kyte to KIT Digital in 2011. Before Kyte, Daniel joined Philips Consumer Electronics in 2001 where he developed the world’s first Internet audio stereo system and the first wireless Home Entertainment System with Internet video services. In 1999 and 2000 he was the Chief Software Engineer of ReQuest Multimedia, an award-winning Consumer Electronics startup, based in New York. There he created the world’s first MP3 Hard Disk Jukebox, the predecessor to Apple’s “iPod”. Daniel earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Interstaatliche Hochschule für Technik Buchs (NTB) and an MS in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).
“Sometimes naiveté allows you to just go in and overcome challenges. If you know too much, you’re paralyzed.”
“Hiring the wrong person can really throw your whole company off track.”
“In the startup world, everything looks like such a great opportunity — but if you take on too much, you do everything half-baked.”
“I would bet 90% of the challenges you face in life are related to communication: miscommunication or lack of communication.”
“Nowadays it’s easier and less capital-intense than ever before to start a technology and information business.”
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Toni Schneider is a founding Partner of True Ventures. From 2006-2014 he was CEO of Automattic where he led WordPress.com to become a top 10 global internet destination with close to a billion monthly visitors. At Automattic, Toni also helped create a new type of startup with over 300 employees working together in an “office optional”, distributed fashion from homes and co-working spaces in over 40 countries. His career in technology began as a software engineer at Crystal River Engineering where he built 3D audio simulators for NASA and a VP of Technology at Aureal Semiconductor (acquired by Creative Labs). He joined the world of startups as the co-founder of Uplister, a venture-backed music recommendation startup in early 2000. It was his role as CEO of Oddpost, however, that may have impacted his career path most significantly. Yahoo! acquired Oddpost in 2004, which formed the basis of the new Yahoo! Mail used by over 250 million people around the world. Toni joined Yahoo! as a VP and created the Yahoo! Developer Network. While at True and Automattic, he also found time to co-found Sphere (acquired by AOL) with Tony Conrad. Voted startup CEO of the Year at the 2007 Crunchies, Toni’s leadership style is commended by many of those who have worked for or with him. When he is not running a company or advising another, you can find him in his VW van crossing the US with his family, coaching San Francisco Little League baseball, or tinkering with old cars.
“What made WordPress unique from day 1 was how customizable and extendable it was.”
“Our mission with WordPress was to democratize publishing.”
“Everyone who writes code should get to work directly with the customer.”
“Being a CEO is by design a lonely job.”
“The things that work in Silicon Valley are largely tied to Venture Capital.”
“Switzerland’s stability and long-term thinking can be an entrepreneurial strength.”
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Myke Näf is the founder and former CEO of Doodle, the prominent event scheduler software. He sold the company for an undisclosed amount to Tamedia in 2014. Shortly after the acquisition he left Doodle and has become an active angel investor and startup mentor in Switzerland. He’s a Venture Partner at Cavalry Ventures, a Startup Mentor at Kickstart Accelerator, and serves on a number of different boards. He’s also a Partner at Swiss Life Lab, an incubator for Fintech, Insurtech and Propertytech. Myke holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich and Executive Diploma from the University of St. Gallen (HSG).
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