Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps:

5:10 - The DeinDeal mafia

18:53 - The biggest mistakes at MOVU

23:40 - Going bankrupt

28:07 - Saying no to a lot of money

42:34 - Why stay at MOVU

About Laurent Decrue

Laurent Decrue is the co-founder of the moving company MOVU and the software company Holycode, and is currently also the CEO at Bexio.

He grew up with a headstrong grandfather who pressured him to take a corporate job at UBS. Despite getting along well with the people there, his problem with authority made UBS too stifling an environment for his entrepreneurial spirit. When he got layed off due to the financial crisis, he decided to join DeinDeal.

Laurent thinks there were two main reasons for DeinDeal's "mafia status":

- It was an unprecedentedly fast growing company, which attracted a certain type of personality;

- It was a very big company overall, which, statistically, means spin-offs are bound to happen.

Unfortunately he suffered a small burnout during his time at DeinDeal, which motivated him to take a break from working before starting his own ventures. During this break he got his masters' degree. He never received any professional help to overcome the effects of his burnout, which in hindsight seems to him like poor decision making. He also feels a certain resentment towards the people he'd been working for, for not having helped him spot the warning signs. Laurent feels guilty himself about not having been able to do this either with two of his own employees later on.

The idea for MOVU came from his own frustration at the slowness of the existing moving services. Despite the company's success, they also underwent a series of challenges:

- From the beginning they knew they wanted to develop a subscription model around a cleaning service, but it took them so long to get to it that by the time that they did, another company had already jumped on the bandwagon and was having great success;

- Their original CTO left, and it was difficult to make sure he got fair compensation: they ended up assigning some of his shares to the new CTO and buying out some of his shares as well;

- More than once they neared bankruptcy, as investment rounds often hinged on a few yes's and no's. This was particularly nerve-wrecking considering some of the people in the MOVU team were parents;

- They received a very generous offer for MOVU early on but declined it, because it did not make strategic sense. They risked a lot to play the long game, but it ended up paying off.

In 2016 Helvetia acquired Moneypark. This let Laurent know that other insurance companies would soon start making investments, and so he made sure to get in contact with the lot of them. MOVU eventually got sold to Baloise.

Simultaneously to creating MOVU, he also founded Holycode, which provides nearshoring services. He remains there as a board member, and has also since 2020 been active as the CEO of Bexio, after Jeremias Meier stepped down from the job.

Resources Mentioned:

Startup CEO, by Matt Blumberg

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries

Zero To One, by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters

Timestamps:

1:03 - Young founders and taxes

9:39 - Cantons and tax advantages

24:00 - The wealth tax burden

32:19 - Employee participation plans

40:33 - Tax pitfalls in structuring a sale

About Peter Kempin and Patrick Arnold

Peter Kempin is a Team Head of Executives & Entrepreneurs at UBS, where he has been working for the past 15 years. Patrick Arnold is a tax expert at UBS and certified financial planner.

Decades in the industry have taught Peter and Patrick that young founders don't think much about taxes. They're heavily focused on their business idea, and taxes aren't a very sexy topic to begin with. But they are nonetheless a crucial step of every business journey.

The first thing you should concern yourself with is the business plan:

- Take into consideration the liquidity needs of the company. This is the basis for your financial requirements: is it possible for you to bootstrap the business and "keep a large portion of the cake" or if there is a need to bring on investors in order to grow the company?

- If you have a business plan for your company, you need one for your personal life as well. How much money can you contribute to your own business? Is it possible to draw pension assets? Do you want to? Should you have a private, non-touchable reserve?

- Keep in mind the founders' financial situation. Do they all have low fixed costs, which will allow you to bootstrap and keep costs and income low? Or do some of them have families already, and aren't able to take on as much risk?

Profit taxes vary from 12-20% depending on the canton. At the beginning of a company, when you haven't broken even because you're not even profitable yet, tax benefits aren't really on your mind — so founders usually choose a domicile in the geographical zone most relevant to their business. But you should take into consideration that the corporate tax reform gives you different advantages/disadvantages depending on the canton you choose, so choose wisely. But even if you make the wrong decision, you can always change domicile later on.

Many founders wonder whether they should set up an individual company or a corporate one. Here are some differences to consider:

- If you're running an individual company, you're taxed on your business profit with the income tax, together with all the other private factors you have: rental income, investment income, etc... But if you're running a corporate company, you're taxed with profit taxes. The income tax only applies if you draw a salary.

- If you have a corporate company and you sell it, you can benefit from tax free capital gains. If you sell an individual company, it's fully taxed.

Memorable Quotes:

"Becoming an entrepreneur means tapping into your savings. It should not be done lightly."

If you would like to listen to the two previous parts of this UBS co-production, check out our conversations with Lukas Reinhardt and 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:

1:05 - Getting started in the agency business

7:07 - Thinking about monetization

11:09 - Evaluating an exit scenario

28:26 - Co-founder chemistry

45:06 - Accidentally becoming CEO

About Christian Reiter

Christian Reiter is a co-founder and board member at Kingfluencers, the leading Swiss social influence agency. After getting his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from ETH, he created a number of ventures, most notably Hitz Dev/Bitspin and Panamove, before building Kingfluencers.

Hitz Dev was founded during Christian's university studies, as a result of a project done in collaboration with SBB. As it transitioned from an agency business to a product-centered business (more specifically, an android app), Hitz Dev became Bitspin, and got acquired by Google in 2014.

Then in 2015 he created the personal trainer app Panamove, but ended up shutting it down in less than a year. Though the company was able to secure revenue after 2 months, there were a few aspects of the core business model which the team was never able to figure out, which hindered the sustainability of the whole endeavour. Christian does not identify with the Swiss fear of failure: he thinks if you need to fail, fail fast — so instead of persisting with Panamove for years and years, he let it go.

In 2016 he became interested in influencer marketing and decided to embark on a new venture: Kingfluencers. Their business model was simple: they had influencers, and they had customers. The difficulty lay in execution, since the field was completely new to Christian — and it was also relatively new to Switzerland, so Kingfluencers needed to become a market educator. Nowadays this market has grown to become relatively big.

In 2020 Christian stepped down from his CEO role and became a board member, which, according to him, was not very hard, since he never wished to be CEO in the first place. His core motivation was to build something which would stand on its own feet, grow and evolve — and this development cannot take place if people refuse to have their roles change.

Memorable Quotes:

"If it's not working, don't invest another 3 years into it. Move on to something new."

Resources Mentioned:

Techcrunch

To listen to more episodes on digital marketing, check out our conversation with Lukas Stuber.

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:

1:00 - From the US to Engelberg

14:30 - The vending machine market

20:56 - A disruptive business model

32:51 - Who stands in the way of disruption?

44:45 - Thinking about the exit

About Jon Brezinski

Jon Brezinski is the co-founder and CEO at Invenda, a company disrupting the machine industry with connected smart technology. Invenda offers smart vending machines, digital signage and smart fridges, as well as business intelligence, customization and integration services. Their partners include Microsoft and Intel. Jon comes originally from the U.S., having studied Information Systems at the University of North Carolina.

His first job after college was at a startup. Experiencing a work environment where everybody had a fixed job but also evolving responsibilities showed Jon that this was the path for him.

In 2016 he founded Invenda, having originally been inspired by a trip to Philadelphia, where he had been working on a ticket machine project. Their MVP provided clients with a 20-80% sales increase, which is no wonder: Invenda machines have shopping carts, allowing customers to buy several products at a time, which means that for every product sold by traditional vending machines, Invenda sells 4. In the first 3 years, Invenda only invested 3% of its budget on sales and marketing, which means they ended up with a pretty solid and attractive product — but they are now ready to start shifting their budget priorities.

Even though the vending machine market is quite large (with over 15m of these machines all over the world), Jon is interested in a accessing markets whose products have not traditionally been sold by vending machines, like socks or luxury chocolate.

Jon thinks one of the biggest challenges startups face is knowing which opportunities are worth pursuing, since there's no shortage of them. But how do you maintain the right focus?

- Try to keep things fun. Choose things that your team would find interesting;

- Use market research from your core customers;

- Consult your partners.

Jon is also a big proponent of hiring for culture and not skills. People can learn almost anything, and having someone "rock the boat" is dangerous. Don't get blindsided by someone's beautiful CV. He also tells his employees that every conversation they have should be a job interview, since finding the right people is an ongoing process that everyone can participate in.

Invenda has had a couple of companies approach them about exit scenarios but thus far none seemed like the right fit. Jon also doesn't feel like Invenda is done with its journey yet.

Memorable Quotes: 

"One of our main challenges as a startup is to figure out which opportunities are worth pursuing."

"As a founder I have a lot of weird problems I never expected to have and which none of my friends can relate to."

"I think I'm the only person I know who goes to board meetings and has fun."

Resources Mentioned:

ReMarkable 2

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:

1:02 - How studying abroad can change your life

5:56 - How is an investor trained?

19:47 - How an investor finds companies

25:55 - How to lose an investor's trust

48:20 - Attracting institutional investors

About Gina Domanig

Gina Domanig is a managing partner at Emerald Technology Ventures, a globally recognized investment and venture capital firm with a focus on cleantech. Before becoming an investor, Gina spent 10 years working at Sulzer as head of M&A, where she met her Swiss husband. Gina is originally from the U.S. but has since given up her U.S. citizenship and has been living in Switzerland for several decades.

In the early 2000s, Gina left Sulzer and joined the cleantech fund Emerald Technology Ventures, because she wanted a job which combined strategy/transactions with something she could believe in.

During their early days they made several mistakes:

- They invested in early stage, capital intensive ventures (which, during the dot com crash, seemed like "real" investments);

- They approved/rejected investment deals by voting yes/no, which turned out to be too reductionistic: too many deals were progressing which partners were not really that excited about. Nowadays they give deals a score of 1-5 and the deal must have an average score of 4 to pass.

Two decades in the cleantech space have taught Gina that industrial incumbents really have the power to block innovation — however, she feels we are now at a tipping point where there's finally enough regulatory and consumer pressure for industrial incumbents to start looking for alternatives. But naturally, they always look for a way to shift the blame to some other sector (for instance, plastic producers blame waste managers, and vice versa).

Memorable Quotes:

"Just because you believe something should happen doesn't mean it's going to. Even if all of your analysis points towards that conclusion."

"An investor needs to know that management teams tend to be unbelievably optimistic."

"Look forward with confidence and back without regrets."

Resources Mentioned:

Leadership is Language, by L. David Marquet

Humour, Seriously, by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas

To listen to more episodes on VC funds, check out our conversation with Aleksandra Laska.

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:

1:07 - The fundraising momentum in Switzerland

3:25 - Setbacks in Swiss investing today

11:53 - Going beyond the pitch

15:43 - How to approach investors

27:38 - An overview of Swiss brokers

About Lukas Reinhardt

Lukas Reinhardt is the head of UBS' Growth Advisory, the leading partner for fast-growing Swiss companies, such as On Running, VIU Eyewear and farmy.ch. He first joined UBS in 2006 as a Graduate Trainee and since then worked in different M&A and Corporate Finance positions for UBS in Zurich and New York.

In 2020 over $2bn were invested in Swiss startups and scaleups, so it's never been more relevant to discuss the intricacies of fundraising in Switzerland.

Some main fundraising challenges are:

- Being ready: knowing what your most recent milestones were, having your documentation in order, gaining some pitching experience;

- Access to investors: this can be tricky, especially if you don't make a habit of proactively networking with them;

- The Valley of Death: seed stage money can be relatively easy to acquire, but growth stage money not so much (since the amount needed is bigger).

How to approach potential investors:

- The best possible option is already knowing one — this requires constant networking on your part;

- The second best thing is to get a warm introduction;

- A pitching event can be a good platform, but one-on-one conversations are usually more fruitful, because you can tailor your pitch to a specific investor and build trust more quickly;

- If all else fails, there's always cold emailing/calling.

After the initial contact:

- Send a one-pager/teaser document quickly summarizing the investment case;

- In case of a positive reaction, send them a pitch deck.

Why you might want to work with a broker:

- It frees up resources: fundraising is not something you can just do on the side, but you also don't want to let it steal time away from operational tasks;

- Brokers have transaction expertise and know-how which you yourself might not possess;

- Brokers have easier access to investors;

- The good reputation of a broker can elevate your own reputation within the market.

But naturally, brokers charge fees, and demand a certain exclusivity.

Memorable Quotes:

"Fundraising is not just something you can do on the side, but at the same time, you can't dedicate all your time to it and neglect operational tasks. That's why you should outsource it to an advisor."

If you would like to listen to more episodes related to UBS, check out our conversation with Verena Kaiser.

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:

1:05 - The Goldman Sachs epiphany

9:28 - Getting into impact investment

18:53 - Women in developing countries & traditional banks

32:44 - From a 20$ loan to an SME

51:23 - Investing in European startups

Roger Müller is a board member and managing partner at Enabling Qapital, an microfinance advisory company. His background is in traditional asset management. During the 2008 financial crisis, he was working at Julius Bär's Asset Management — at that time, a conversation with a colleague about the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy made it clear to him that he needed to pursue a more independent path, because he did not want to suffer the risk of losing everything from one day to another. He began to pursue entrepreneurial projects.

But it was only in 2014 that he became involved in the impact investment world by joining Blue Orchard. Years later, in 2020, he built his own impact investment fund: Enabling Qapital.

What is impact investing? It's a small loan you dispense to someone in an emerging market, helping them raise their living standard and become financially independent. The minimum amount is around $20, and the maximum is $30'000. Any higher than that is considered an SME loan.

Which precautions should you take? You cannot take anything for granted. Make sure the person knows what a loan is, how they will repay it, and what to do if business goes south. Before dispensing loans to people, Enabling Qapital execute a due diligence process with more than 100 checks.

Why is microfinance necessary? People who live in remote areas and only wish to borrow a small amount of money have trouble getting loans from traditional banks because the operational costs offset the profits for banks. Whether you give out a $50 loan or a $20'000, the due diligence process is the same.

Enabling Qapital is active in all emerging markets except for North Korea, South Sudan, Cuba and the Central African Republic. Once per year they produce a Social Impact Report, showcasing the achievements of the previous 12 months.

Memorable Quotes:

"My finances were stable, and I felt like I'd stopped growing as a person. It was time to start taking risks."

Resources Mentioned:

The Happiness Lab 

Business Wars 

Naval Ravikant

Yuval Noah Harari

If you would like to listen to more episodes about impact startups, check out our conversation with Anaïs Matthey-Junod.

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:

1:50 - From farm boy to computer geek

10:13 - Being greedy for positive feedback

16:56 - Ending up in a broken team

23:18 - Perseverance

25:05 - Getting close to burnout

About Igor Susmelj

Igor Susmelj is the co-founder of Lightly, where he helps companies improve machine learning models by curating vision data. He has previously worked at SIX Group and Unicorn Labs, and holds a master's in Electrical Engineering from ETH.

Igor grew up on a riding stable, where he spent much of his time helping out his parents. He had to fight tooth and nail for his first computer, and struggled with his family's expectations for his future career. It was at ETH that he first came into contact with the field of machine learning.

After finishing his master's, he co-founded Lightly (originally called Mirage/What To Label), which aimed to make the machine learning process for autonomously driving cars more efficient and human.

Several things went wrong at first:

- He mismanaged his team: Igor did not take care to discuss either the expectations or the roles of everyone in the team early on, and then when they finally did, it was extremely hard to make everyone happy.

- He became obsessed with the success of the company and neglected his interpersonal relationships. A loved one died during this period of Igor's life, and he feels he did not spend enough time with this person in their final days. Nowadays he calls his family every second day.

- He understood success as completely dependent on other people's perception of him and his team. He changed his business model too hastily based on external feedback.

There was even a time when, having run out of money, Igor found himself having to flip cars in order to support himself and his project. But thankfully, there was no difficulty too great for Igor to overcome, and nowadays Lightly is back on track and has in fact just been accepted to a very famous accelerator (more details to follow soon).

Memorable Quotes:

"I used to define success as what other people thought of me."

If you would like to listen to more fuck-up stories, check out our most recent episode with Cédric Waldburger.

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:

6:02 - Saying goodbye to Big Pharma

18:26 - Fulfilling your parents' expectations

47:53 - Stepping down from the CEO role

58:56 - Joining Dezentrum

1:05:18 - A do tank, not a think tank

About Malik El Bay

Malik El Bay is the co-founder of the household management app Flatastic and a partner at Dezentrum, a think-tank concocting positive scenarios of the future. His background is in interdisciplinary natural sciences and he has previously worked for Fit Analytics and Modum. He also co-founded Yeppt, an app which aimed to be a mix of Facebook events, Whatsapp and Doodle, and which participated in the Axel Springer Plug and Play Accelerator.

After graduating from ETH, Malik discovered lab work and the world of Big Pharma weren't what he was most suited for. This identity crisis led him to send out a great deal of job applications, namely to Fit Analytics, where he eventually had his first startup experience. Here he was able to run experiments dealing with data about people and products.

By then, he was sharing an apartment with a group of entrepreneurs who encouraged him to become one himself, so he did — but after a failed project, he felt he needed to go back to ETH to study some more. At this time Malik also participated in the ETH Entrepreneur Club.

Fresh out of university once again, he co-founded the social network Yeppt, and even managed to get in the Axel Springer Accelerator. Looking back, Malik can pinpoint a few mistakes:

- They received great feedback because they asked the wrong questions.

- Accelerators serve as social proof and as a stage, which they thought would easily permit them to achieve viral growth. For this reason, they didn't prioritize fundraising.

- They lost sight of what their ultimate company vision was.

After dedicating his time to Flatastic (2014/present) and Modum (2016/2020), Malik joined the think-tank Dezentrum, after having originally received a one-pager from them for feedback and remained in contact. Dezentrum calls themselves a "do-tank" because, more than write papers (which they don't enjoy doing all that much), they are able to build in-house prototypes based on their ideas. They're financed by private companies, academic institutions and foundations.

They mainly discuss Universal Basic Income, remote work and decentralized companies. Malik is of the opinion that UBI should be a top societal priority, since poverty sincerely hinders decision-making and prevents human flourishing. However, he also thinks that citizens need to take into account that a UBI will have to be payed for by everyone, though it may not necessarily be enjoyed by everyone. Regarding this topic, as with all other discussions of the future, Malik is of the belief that it's up to us to avoid dystopian scenarios.

Memorable Quotes:

"You get great feedback if you ask the wrong questions."

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:

8:16 - Leaving your well-paying corporate job

13:29 - The business model behind a free product

22:08 - Is Revolut a competitor?

27:29 - Being on Höhle der Löwen

29:35 - Doing a 5M tokenized crowd investment

About Simon Youssef

Simon Youssef is the co-founder and CTO of neon, a transaction account for everyday finances. Before starting his own company, he was an associate at the management consulting company Strategy&. His educational background is in Physics, and he holds a PhD from the Microsoft Research Lab.

Simon and his co-founder Jörg Sandrock worked together at Strategy&, where they became well acquainted with the Swiss banking market. After a few unfulfilling projects, Simon went on a surfing sabbatical in Indonesia. During this time, Jörg proposed the neon business idea to him, and Simon decided to take the leap.

Whereas typical banking apps cater to the bank's sales interests, merely replicating the organizational structure of a traditional bank, neon offers a client-focused product free of charge, with the lowest fees in Switzerland. Neon manages this because, having a team of around 20 employees, they can live on much slimmer margins. Their revenue comes from card interchange, premium plans like neon Green, and finance fees (from when clients buy partner products on the app).

Revolut and Transferwise don't pose a very big threat, since they're more travel cards than anything else. neon, on the other hand, is a Swiss banking product, meaning they can offer you a Swiss IBAN, e-bills, and so on.

Having been the first of its kind in the small Swiss market, neon has already amassed 70 000 users, in part due to the large amount of press coverage they received. Their participation in Höhle der Löwen, while helpful cashflow-wise, did not bring them as much of a boost as they initially imagined.

Memorable Quotes:

"Leaving our corporate careers was a huge risk, so we did not want to fuck this up. Not wanting to fuck up is a big motivator."

Resources Mentioned:

- How I Built This 

- The Happiness Lab 

If you'd like to know more about the neon story, check out our episode with Simon's co-founder, Jörg Sandrock.

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!