Swisspreneur Show

By SwisspreneurBusiness Entrepreneurship

Swisspreneur Show episodes

June 03, 2020 EP #77 - Lars Mangelsdorf: Getting Swiss Sales Right
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?)
- Don’t pitch your product upon first contact. Ask questions about your customer’s pain points and wishes.

Demo
- Don’t just demo all your features. Know what will create value for this specific customer.
- If possible, demo on-site to establish a more personal relationship.
- Even if you can’t convince the customer, ask for a referral to someone else in the industry.

Tools to help you close
- Hubspot
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Hunter
- Soap Box
- Outreach

Documents you need
- Data security whitepaper
- 1-pager of your product
- Testimonials of happy customers, if possible

KPIs of your sales team
- Accounts Receivable vs target
- Conversion rates after first meeting. 30% would be desirable
- Diversified leads: ⅓ big accounts, ⅔ small / medium accounts
51 min
May 31, 2020 EP #76 - Startup Of The Week: Realbot Engineering
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.
21 min
May 27, 2020 EP #75 - Melanie Gabriel: From Startup Employee To Startup Founder
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).
44 min
May 24, 2020 EP #74 - Startup Of The Week: onCyt
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.
27 min
May 20, 2020EP #73 - Katja Berlinger: Successful Boards of Directors
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
Get diversity of perspectives and skills, be sure you cover at least: legal, finance and your industry

Don’t go for titles, go for people with time and expertise

4 is considered a good number to start
Founders on the board
In small companies where they hold a large stake, this may be appropriate

In large companies, operations and board roles have to be separated
Compensation
Consider paying a fixed compensation in cash or equity and a variable compensation based on time invested
Where to find the right board members
Choose people you know you can work with

If you have smart money investors, they will probably be a good addition to the board
How boards change when companies grow
Small company boards may be more operational

As companies grow, boards necessarily have to professionalize and become less operational
Meeting and decision making
Meetings at most once a month and at least once a quarter

If possible, decisions should be unanimous or more time should be invested into discussions

If a board member dissents, be sure to note it in writing
36 min
May 17, 2020 EP #72 - Startup of the Week: Helio
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.
20 min
May 13, 2020 EP #71 - Katja Berlinger: How Passion Leads To Success
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.
51 min
May 06, 2020 EP #70 - Beat Brechbühl & Michèle Remund: Legal Q&A Session
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.
47 min
April 29, 2020EP #69 - Ariel Lüdi: Managing The Exit
Timestamps:
1:44 - What mistakes do Swiss founders repeatedly make, when it comes to exits?
11:55 - Coping with stress and pressure
21:50 - Always striving for the next level
32:18 - Knowing what your company is worth
40:32 - Achieving billion dollar exits

The Episode In 60 Seconds
Dream Big – Sell Big
Swiss people have a tendency to sell themselves and their business short. Instead of going for the billion dollar deal, they settle for the first offer which comes their way. Dare to be great and know your true potential.
Don’t crack under pressure
One of the reasons founders sell their companies too early (and too cheaply) is because of the immense pressure they are under; from employees, family, VCs and, sometimes, from themselves.

Know that VCs may not always have your best interest in mind and/or know the business like you do.

Be truthful with your employees, especially in hard times. If you have invested in building a company culture, this will now pay off.
Selling done right
The bad news: you cannot plan an exit strategically. The good news: if you’re good at what you do, the opportunity will arise naturally.

Make plans but be ready to abandon them if a better course of action presents itself.

Money isn’t everything. It may be smart to accept a smaller offer if this means that your company’s vision will persist and your employees will have a “good home” even after the acquisition.
50 min
April 22, 2020 EP #68 - Ariel Lüdi: How To Sell a Company For 1.5bn $
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.
1 hr 17 min

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The Swisspreneur Show is a podcast series of in-depth, candid conversations with some of Switzerland’s most successful founders, business leaders and innovators. By getting to the heart of these…