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 via cold emails and personalized strategies via phone or more creative means (ever thought about sending your prospects a shoe?)

Demo

- Don’t just demo all your features. Know what will create value for this specific customer.

Tools to help you close

- Hubspot

Documents you need

- Data security whitepaper

KPIs of your sales team

- Accounts Receivable vs target

Timestamps:

1:41 - Why start your own company?

6:35 - Winning over clients

15:48 - An 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 & Völkers. After only 2 years of bootstrapping, the company already has a working product on the market and has conducted 4145 remote viewings for clients such as wincasa and livit.

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

Biography

Melanie Gabriel is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Yokoy, a SaaS company which leverages Artificial Intelligence to fully automate all expense- and company credit card processes. Before starting Yokoy, Melanie joined Dizmo as Marketing Manager and worked her way up to Head of Marketing. She is a board member of WE SHAPE TECH and holds a degree in Business Management from the University of St. Gallen (HSG).

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 back on 20+ successful projects and over 800k CHF in revenue.

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 composition

Founders on the board

Compensation

Where to find the right board members

How boards change when companies grow

Meeting and decision making

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 and Snowflake Productions and co-founded the e-commerce venture Brandeer Sports.

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

Biography

Katja Berlinger is the CEO of Swiss Medi Kids and a professional board member. Katja started out as a journalist at the publication “Cash”. She quickly realized that she’d rather have an impact herself than write about people who do. Consequently, she turned to her law degree and became an associate at the law firm von der Crone, where she worked on the Swissair lawsuit. Once again, she concluded that this career path was not for her. She switched gears and joined a tech startup as their corporate sales manager. From there, she set herself up to become a professional board member and today holds more than 5 board member seats.

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 corona crisis affect valuations?

20:25 - Founder-friendly ways of writing shareholder agreements

25:49 - Co-founders joining late in the game

27:16 - Employee stock option plans

31:50 - Why can't layers give straight answers?

35:34 - Finding the right legal partner

39:45 - How much should a good lawyer cost

Biography

Beat Brechbuehl

Beat Brechbuehl is managing partner of Kellerhals Carrard and head of the M&A team. He holds a LL.M. degree of the Chicago Law School and worked with Sandoz / Novartis Nutrition. He works primarily in the area of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and joint ventures, venture capital and succession planning. He is a lecturer for entrepreneurship at the University of Berne and he has been acknowledged as one of the leading Swiss corporate lawyers by Legal500 and Chambers.

Michèle Remund

Michèle Remund has many years of experience in corporate and tax law and regularly assists clients in M&A transactions. She is also a member of Kellerhals Carrard’s Startup Desk and advises start-ups in particular in connection with employee shareholdings, financing rounds and various other issues.

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

Don’t crack under pressure

Selling done right

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"

Biography

Ariel Lüdi is a parachute stuntman turned millionaire. After dropping out of his physics degree at ETH Zurich, Ariel joined IBM as a developer. From there he joined Oracle, where he discovered his passion and talent for sales. After 8 very successful years as SVP of Sales at Broad Vision and Salesforce, he joined Hybris as CEO. He invested all his previous earnings into the company and even went into debt. In 2013, he sold Hybris to SAP for $ 1.5bn.