Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps:

0:58 - Starting a company with your significant other

2:08 - How to evaluate the potential of a founding team

7:55 - Added pressure to your relationship

17:10 - Splitting roles

21:14 - Challenging situations

The episode in 60 seconds:

Starting a business with your significant other can be a rewarding experience. In this episode, Dorina shared her insights about how to make it work.

Rules and communication

-  Starting your business is a 24/7 endeavor and it can become overbearing if you also spend your free time with your business partner. Set clear rules about when you plan to take breaks from work.

-  Set more rules than you think are necessary because you’ll likely underestimate the temptation of wanting to talk about your business on your date night out.

-  Be realistic about the chances to succeed with your business and don’t make your relationship dependent on business success.

How to know if your partner would make a great co-founder

-  As with all co-founding relationships, complementary skill sets are crucial.

-  Working together on smaller projects (like building an IKEA shelf) is probably a good indicator on whether you function well in a business context or not.

Advantages of starting a business with your partner

-  Studies show that family businesses on average are more sustainable than other businesses although with lower growth rates.

-  Being able to share the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship with your partner can be very valuable and rewarding.

-  In tough times, you won’t have to put on a brave face for your partner because they’ll know what’s going on.

Timestamps:

1:27 - Becoming an entrepreneur after an impressive student CV

8:48 - Discovering the vet market

19:47 - Convincing investors about your hardware tech

25:45 - Winning American clients remotely

31:19 - The trickiness of raising Swiss funds

Biography

Dr. Dorina Thiess is the CEO and co-founder of Piavita AG, a medtech startup that develops and distributes digital veterinary diagnostic systems. Previously, Dorina worked for the innovation team at BHS in Munich and in the US while completing her doctorate in entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen, where she also served as the Managing Director for the Center for Entrepreneurship. She started Piavita in 2016 together with her partner Sascha Bührle. Within three years Piavita has grown to over 30 employees and has obtained financing from renowned investors, among them Fyrefly Venture Partners and Investire.

Timestamps:

0:55 - Branding mistakes Swiss startups make repeatedly

5:56 - Building a brand as a group

10:02 - Steps to creating a strong brand

15:03 - Target client vs your personal startup story

20:14 - Rapid fire questions

The Episode in 60 Seconds:

Getting inspired for your brand

- Building a recognizable brand is like building a character - it can come with its own edges and quirks.

- Your brand is probably not the first thing you need to worry about but if you move beyond the proof of concept phase, you should invest some time into it.

- Get your inspiration from the how, what and why of your company.

- Looking around for inspiration is good but your brand needs to be unique and recognizable, so don’t just copy paste from someone else

Getting real with your brand

- Getting the branding right is important - and hard. If you can, work with specialists in your surroundings - friends, board members, investors...

- Your brand follows your purpose and mission, so make sure to have that defined first.

- Your brand is not just your logo and color palette. Take a holistic approach and include everything from the language you use to how you present yourself in pictures (and of course make sure those pictures are high quality).

5 steps to your first brand set up

- Choose a short, simple name.

- Add some simple and concise messaging (a claim).

- Define your core audience and how you’ll address them with visual, spoken and written language.

- Connect the dots between the three first steps.

- If you can, work with a specialist in the field to fine tune your branding work.

Timestamps:

2:57 - Splitting roles between 5 co-founders

10:05 - Testing the market

19:24 - Having net promoter score as your main KPI

25:40 - Disrupting the market and facing opponents

35:31 - Starting to hire people full-time

Biography:

Peter Käser is the Founder and COO of VIU Ventures AG, a Swiss eyewear brand. He started VIU in 2013, together with his co-founder Kilian Wagner, both of them bespectacled. VIU was originally conceived as an online-only store, integrating the entire eyewear supply chain and therefore offering higher quality at a lower price. But the founders soon realized that their customers like to physically try on their glasses before buying them. Today VIU has over 50 physical stores in 6 countries and several hundred employees. Peter holds a Masters in Banking and Finance from the University of St. Gallen (HSG).

Timestamps:

1:48 - What can I do on my own and where do I need professional finance advice?

2:55 - What are the best tools to manage your finances?

5:00 - What's the best business credit card out there?

7:20 - Can I use my Swiss bank account to accept international payments?

8:56 - Managing international payments

10:51 - How does the Swiss tax system work?

17:51 - Is Switzerland really tax heaven?

20:52 - Optimizing tax return

22:22 - Do freelancers pay less taxes?

25:24 - Personal finance advice for entrepreneurs

27:36 - Can I get a mortgage without being a Swiss citizen?

Biography:

Renato Stalder is the Founder and CEO of Klara Business  AG, an accounting and administration software provider for SMEs. Previously, Renato rose through the ranks to become CEO at Soreco, where he served for 12 years. Afterwards, he held the CEO position at Axon Ivy, a digital platform provider which is part of the Axon Group. Renato holds an MBA in International Management from Fachhochschule Nordostschweiz.

Timestamps:

2:11 - What mistakes do Swiss companies make when it comes to Gen Z?

6:19 - Aligning company goals with Gen Z's activist streak

19:13 - Leading people older than you

22:44 - Which social media platforms are currently relevant?

31:00 - How to sell to Gen Z

The Episode In 60 Seconds:

What is Generation Z?

Young people born between 1995 - 2010, NOT Millennials.

How to win Generation Z as customers

- Do not simply base your assumptions on conversations with your kids.

How to win Generation  Z as employees and retain them

- A compelling company vision will be more important than high salaries.

What’s the deal with TikTok?

- Fast growing social media platform with over 2bn downloads (July 2020).

Timestamps:

1:13 - Becoming an actress at 14

11:40 - Not going to university

14:45 - Launching your own project

15:40 - Sneaking into fashion shows

27:57 - Starting a company with your romantic partner

Biography:

Yaël Meier is an actress, journalist and the co-founder of Zeam, an agency helping companies leverage Generation Z. At the age of 14, Yaël held her first movie role in the Swiss Drama “Upload”. She later on also featured in movies such as «Die fruchtbaren Jahre sind vorbei» and «Blue my Mind». As a journalist, she worked for SRF, Ringier and Weltwoche in various roles. In January of 2020, she started Zeam together with her co-founder Jo Dietrich.

Timestamps:

1:07 - Bitcoin and entrepreneurship

8:57 - Biggest milestones so far

15:53 - Having a hard time with fundraising

About Julian and Relai:

Julian Liniger is the co-founder and CEO of Relai, a startup aiming to empower everyone to invest in Bitcoin. Julian was an early crypto currency aficionado and the go-to person for his friends for anything crypto-related. This made him realize that there was no easy way for the “average Joe” to purchase Bitcoin - and that’s how Relai was born. He and his co-founder, Adem Bilican, went from 0 lines of code in April to launching the first version of their app on July 1st of this year. Relai is looking to raise CHF 200k in order to scale their product and make it more user friendly.

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?

Biography:

Verena Kaiser served as the Head of Direct Investment at UBS before becoming Chief of Staff, Corporate & Institutional Clients International in May 2020. As Head of Direct Investment, she was responsible for due diligence and matching of growth stage startups with UBS private investors. The UBS Direct Investment arm has already provided over CHF 120m in capital, among them VIU Ventures AG, Coatmaster AG and Cutiss AG.

Timestamps:

1:03 - Starting a marine tech startup

6:01 - Is the Swiss marine tech market big enough for Clickahoy?

7:55 - Competing with Americans

About Christian and clickahoy:

Christian Fehr is the CEO and co-founder of clickahoy, a Swiss marine-tech startup. The founding team behind clickahoy is the same as for ship-ahoy.ch, the boat sharing platform launched in 2016. The founders saw a personal need to make owning a boat “smart” the way owning a car or a house can be. The company is currently looking to raise CHF 400k to increase the number of connected boats 10x and expand outside of Switzerland within the next 18 months.