Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps:

4:45 - The importance of a good social circle

10:51 - The right to disconnect

26:40 - Taking care of your body

38:32 - A good night's sleep

47:49 - Taking care of your mind

About Mathias Wegmüller

Mathias is an accomplished entrepreneur, board member and investor, with multi-year expertise in digital transformation. Together with Simon Scheurer, Mathias co-founded Qumram in 2011 and led it in different roles - CEO, Head of Business Development and Sales - until the successful exit and trade-sale in November 2017 to Dynatrace. Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Mathias learned by trial and error how to best maintain his health. Below are a few of his tips.

Cultivating your social circle:

- It's a good idea to make friends with your co-workers, because you spend a good deal of your time at work.

- When having quality time with your family, don't go on and on and on about work.

- If necessary/possible, you can take your romantic partner on business trips.

- The number of close friendships you can have really varies from person to person.

Managing your stress:

- If you have lots of muscle pain, can't sleep, and have a hard time focusing, these might be the side effects of chronic stress. A healthy person should be free of pain most of the time.

- Make sure you exercise regularly and that your job is not incompatible with your in-built stress tolerance capability (which varies genetically from person to person).

- Exercise-wise, if the workout you've picked leaves you in pain, and/or doesn't help you build muscle or flexibility, it's probably not the right workout for you.

Balancing your diet:

- You might wanna consider investing money in a test that tells you how well you digest carbs. Not everyone is intolerant.

- Before you splurge on supplements, make sure you've already got the "carbs/proteins/fat" balance right.

- You might wanna look into the 16/8 intermittent fasting regime.

Improving your sleep:

- If you can power nap to make up for lost sleep, do it. But investing in a good night's sleep is better. 6h of good sleep is the ideal number, in Mathias' opinion.

- Go to sleep at more or less the same time everyday or you'll mess up your circadian rhythm.

- Invest in a good mattress, a good pillow, and black-out curtains.

- Avoid screens in the last 1-2h before bedtime.

Final takeaways:

- Don't sacrifice your health for work performance. A life full of professional failures can still be a rich life as long as you are healthy.

- You can try to stay on top of your health through metrics like your resting heart beat, but at the end of the day qualitative feedback is much better. When you run into someone you haven't seen in a long time, do they tell you you look tired/old/too skinny/too fat? We look at ourselves everyday, so incremental changes can slip below our notice.

Memorable Quotes:

"Successful founders just have an in-built high stress tolerance — otherwise they wouldn't be where they are."

Resources Mentioned:

Der Ernährungskompass, by Bas Kast

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Timestamps:

04:40 - How market dynamics affect young companies

8:38 - Validating the market

20:35 - Why startups should participate in the SEF Growth initiative

22:23 - How SEF assesses companies

33:26 - The UBS growth advisory

About Alexander, Lukas and Tom

Alexander Curiger is the managing owner of the spirits company Silverbogen, which he co-founded in 2010. Since 2010 he has also been a board member at the family business Curiger Immobilien.

Lukas Reinhardt is a corporate finance professional and head of the UBS Growth Advisory. He previously worked at UBS as a corporate finance specialist and M&A analyst.

Tom Schlup is a financial analyst and the head of the SEF Growth initiative. He previously worked at Scout24 as an M&A project manager.

The Silverbogen story began when Alex's younger brother, Raphael, came back from his study exchange in St Petersburg with 4 bottles of Beluga Vodka which both brothers really enjoyed. They started importing bottles of Beluga and selling them in Switzerland, but it eventually dawned on them that selling just one product would be difficult, so they began adding more brands to their portfolio. By moving their business online, they saw some growth, but also had to face the difficulty of getting brands to agree to this different route to market. To test a possible european-level scale up, they have recently expanded to Germany.

Silverbogen participated in the SEF Growth initiative. Tom Schlup indicates the following as the biggest challenges for SEF Growth companies:

1. Cash handling: young companies don't necessarily have a CFO, and are usually always short of cash.

2. Market orientation: young companies don't always understand the market well, even though they may have a very good product.

3. Team: Tom advises you build your team before you actually need it, since growth stages happen fast and require stable structures.

Why should companies participate in the SEF growth initiative?

- There are not many offers for growth companies out there, but mainly early stage or seed stage.

- SEF has a wide network of experienced entrepreneurs.

- SEF companies also benefit from a wide range of partner offerings, namely with their main partner UBS.

Why did UBS choose to be a part of SEF growth?

- They wished to strengthen their position in the SME and startup growth market, where they feel they can be impactful.

- It seemed to them that SEF was offering something truly innovative and beneficial to startups.

Memorable Quotes:

"In every company stage you need different people. At the beginning, it's generalists you want, but as you grow, so does the need for specialized skills."

If you would like to listen to more conversations on successful family businesses, check out our episode with Iman Nahvi.

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:

1:06 - Summarizing your life in 10 year spans

6:32 - Deciding to focus on just one thing

11:11 - What made UNIC special?

19:53 - Escaping the bootstrapping trap

50:06 - Being acquired by Dynatrace

About Mathias Wegmüller

Mathias is an accomplished entrepreneur, board member and investor, with multi-year expertise in digital transformation. Together with Simon Scheurer, Mathias co-founded Qumram in 2011 and led it in different roles - CEO, Head of Business Development and Sales - until the successful exit and trade-sale in November 2017 to Dynatrace.

He met his co-founder Simon at UNIC, one of the mother companies of the Swiss Startup Mafia. Mathias thinks what set UNIC apart was its founder team's commitment to hiring entrepreneurially-minded people who could handle a lot of responsibility. When he first heard about Simon Scheurer's idea to start recording the internet's history, Mathias decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge himself, and so qumram was founded.

During his time at Qumram he learned many valuable lessons, namely:

1. Bootstrap at your own peril: If you bootstrap, you'll be so dependent on your first customers and on your next deal that you will most likely pivot too much, and lose sight of your long term strategy.

2. It's your product: Always making the customer happy is not the way to build a big company. Always be very customer-centric, but don't let your customer own your product roadmap.

3. What not to do: If you've got generalists for founders, your first hires should be specialists, for the sake of focus and strategy — because strategy is less about what to do and more about what not to do.

4. The most important "win" comes from sales — then fundraising, and only then stuff like awards.

5. Having a bunch of money is useful if you want to scale up; otherwise it's not necessarily a recipe for success.

6. When managing the exit, if you go for the best possible price, you might not get the best possible fit, and then the earnout period can be a bit rough.

Memorable Quotes:

"When you move to a foreign country, no one knows you. It's a great time to start finding yourself."

"The 'always make your customer happy' mindset is not really ideal to build a broader company."

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:

3:45 - Die ersten Startup Ideen

7:48 - Wie entstand die Idee zu yamo?

15:30 - Die erste Produktion

22:10 - Tipps an Studierende die etwas starten wollen

30:50 - Gebrandete Kühlschränke im Coop

Über Tobias Gunzenhauser:

Tobias Gunzenhauser ist Mitgründer und CEO von Yamo, einem Startup, welches mit seinen gesunden Snacks für Kinder und Babies den Markt revolutioniert.

Bevor er selbst zum Gründer wurde, arbeitete er im Bereich Purchasing und Marketing Controlling bei Coop und später als Brand Manager bei Gruppo Campari. Parallel studierte er BWL, Marketing und Kommunikation an der Hochschule Luzern.

Durch seine Passion für’s gute Essen bemerkte er während eines veganen Experiments, dass Babynahrung sowohl geschmacklich als auch inhaltlich Verbesserungspotenzial bietet. Da er Spass daran hat etwas aufzubauen, entschied er gemeinsam mit einem der späteren Mitgründer mit einer neuen Produktart in den Baby- und Kindernahrungsmarkt einzutreten.

Für Tobias sind Arbeit und Freizeit keine getrennten Bereiche. Deshalb ist es für ihn enorm wichtig, dass er etwas macht, woran er Spass hat und er etwas verwirklichen kann. Die Zusammenarbeit in einem kleinen Unternehmen, mit tollen, divers aufgestellten Mitarbeitenden, welche etwas anpacken wollen geben ihm Energie und machen Freude.

Memorable Quotes:

"Ich sagte, wir müssen Kühlschränke in die Regale reinstellen. Das war wohl etwas frech oder naiv, aber ich dachte einfach 'Let's do it!'"

Wenn du mehr über SEF startups erfahren möchtest, hör dir unsere Episode mit Sergio Studer, Andreas Lenzhofer, Jörg Sandrock, Martin Stadler, Jeannette Morath, Carlo Loderer, David Gugelmann, Simon Ittig, Léa Miggiano, Freddy Hunziker und Melanie Gabriel an.

Folge uns auf Twitter, Instagram, Facebook und Linkedin um auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben. Wir posten regelmässig über Live Shows, Give-Aways und unsere Founders Dinner Events.

Timestamps:

6:51 - Why invest your money at all

9:53 - Explaining compounding interest

20:46 - How much you should invest

26:14 - What to invest in

40:30 - Whether you can time the market

About Remo Uherek

Remo Uherek is a founder, investor and content creator who has been active since the early 2000s. He co-founded the marketing agency Trigami, a pioneer in Swiss influencer marketing, which in 2011 merged with ebuzzing and in 2014 with Teads to create a global network. In 2012 he left this group and became the CEO at the sharing economy marketplace Exsila, one of Trigami's former customers. He has since co-founded the crypto ATM network Vardex Suisse and been active as an investor, blogger and content creator. He invests in stocks, since VC funds, wealth management and being a business angel bring on too much work besides the investments themselves.

Why should you invest?

You can't become wealthy nowadays just with a good salary and longterm savings. You need to make use of compounding interest. Remo explains this term through a gardening analogy: when you plant a tree and get some seeds, you can either eat the seeds or plant them to grow more trees; from the trees that grow you will get more seeds, and can plant even more trees. This is what compounding your assets means. Remo recommends having 25 times your costs in assets.

Why not just "eat the seeds"?

Here Remo introduces the term "hedonic treadmill": whenever you upgrade your lifestyle, it feels great for 6 months or maybe even a year, but then you get used to it and you want the next upgrade, and then the next, and then the next...

Remo himself does not value material things. Stoic philosophy has taught him to be happy with what he already has, by making him imagine losing it (eyesight, two legs, house...). By comparison, what he already has seems a world of wealth.

Before you start investing, make sure you:

1. Spend less than you earn

2. Pay back any debts

3. Build up a cash reserve

4. Leverage unique skills and personality into more income: maybe build a side business.

5. Also, obviously, learn the basics of investing. Only invest in things that you really understand.

How much should you invest?

That depends on your investment strategy and what you want to get out of it. In Remo's case: except for his cash reserve, he basically invests everything, because cash is a really bad store of value. Your cash reserve should be enough to last you  anywhere from 6 to 36 months.

How does Remo budget?

He periodically compiles a personal financial statement, meaning a profit and loss statement for his personal life. This statement should include things like your tax bill, yearly insurance costs, the depreciation and amortization costs for you car, etc... Based on this, you can make informed decisions when budgeting for the near future.

Which broker should you use?

Remo uses interactive brokers, because they are owner-operated. He recommends that you do your own research when it comes to brokers — namely, that you look up negative reviews. You should also set up intentional barriers: for instance, don't receive constant notifications of stock prices — this will send you into a frenzy and you will quickly burn out.

Memorable Quotes:

"I learned a lot about entrepreneurship from being an investor, and vice-versa."

"Only invest in things that you truly understand."

If you'd like to listen to more episodes about investing, check out our conversation with Thomas Dübendorfer.

Timestamps:

2:09 - Der Weg ins Unternehmertum

Über Melanie Gabriel:

Melanie Gabriel ist Mitgründerin des Schweizer Fintechs Yokoy, welches mit künstlicher Intelligenz den Spesen- und Lieferantenrechnungsprozess von Unternehmen automatisiert.

Bevor sie 2019 die Rolle als Mitgründerin und Chief Marketing Officer bei Yokoy einnahm, studierte sie BWL, VWL und Soziologie an der Universität Basel und absolvierte das Masterstudium in Business Management an der Universität St. Gallen. Während dem Studium gründete sie bereits eine Kleidertausch-App und war mit Leidenschaft in der Musik- und Kulturbranche tätig. Anschliessend arbeitete sie während vier Jahren als Marketing Managerin, später als Head of Marketing bei der B2B Software Firma dizmo.

Nebst ihrer Leidenschaft für Musik und Nachhaltigkeit setzt sich Melanie passioniert für Diversität in Teams ein und fördert dies unter anderem mit ihrem Engagement als Board Member bei We Shape Tech. 2021 wurde Melanie vom Female Innovation Forum als Innovator of the year ausgezeichnet.

Memorable Quotes:

"Auch wenn uns Österreich und Deutschland sehr nahe sind, gibt es doch Unterschiede, welche man durch digitale Kommunikation nicht immer direkt feststellt."

Folge uns auf Twitter, Instagram, Facebook und Linkedin um auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben. Wir posten regelmässig über Live Shows, Give-Aways und unsere Founders Dinner Events.

Timestamps:

5:24 - Starting an influencer marketing agency in 2006

28:39 - Merging cultures

50:03 - Receiving an acquisition notice

54:07 - Burnout, anxiety, depression

1:07:01 - Can you build a startup without burning out?

About Remo Uherek

Remo Uherek is a founder, investor and content creator who has been active since the early 2000s. He co-founded the marketing agency Trigami, a pioneer in Swiss influencer marketing, which in 2011 merged with ebuzzing and in 2014 with Teads to create a global network. In 2012 he left this group and became the CEO at the sharing economy marketplace Exsila, one of Trigami's former customers. He has since co-founded the crypto ATM network Vardex Suisse and been active as a blogger and content creator.

The biggest lesson he learnt during his time at Trigami was that any publicity is good publicity. Trigami's first campaigns, with brands hiring bloggers to review their products, quickly went viral and generated a lot of buzz, though a good deal of it was criticism: they were being accused of bribing bloggers. Remo stood out from the crowd by answering the criticism calmly and truthfully, and all of this publicity ended up working in their favor. From this he surmized that as a startup, the worst possible situation is people not talking about your company at all, and that in crisis situations, waiting things out is not a good idea.

Another big lesson came when in the middle of his entrepreneurial career Remo hit his breaking point. Depression had always been a recurring thing for him, but it was only in 2018 that he completely burned out and had to take time off. He was so miserable that he didn't even want to be an entrepreneur anymore, but admitting this conflicted with what was his fundamental identity. He experienced insomnia, heart palpitations, panic attacks, and a constant feeling of being trapped.

During his 9 months off, he did a lot of traveling and experimented with therapy, but found it didn't click with him, just as meditation never had either. What actually helped him was discovering stoic philosophy, and developing the determination to constantly compare what his life is to what he would like it to be. Nowadays he's doing much better.

Memorable Quotes:

"It felt wrong to study entrepreneurship instead of putting it into practice. A shopify store is a better learning experience than a masters."

"Building something in public is the best kind of marketing."

Resources Mentioned:

Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech

Remo's Reading Lists

Psycho-Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz

If you'd like to listen to more episodes about taking a break for your health, check out our conversation with Markus Okumus.

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: 

2:11 Vom Polymechaniker zum veganen Käser 

7:20 Der Weg zum veganen Käse 

12:53 Traditionelle Berufe für innovative Produkte 

22:00 Wann kommt der vegane Hartkäse? 

27:04 Die neue Produktion in Oberdiessbach 

About Freddy Hunziker: 

Freddy Hunziker ist der Gründer von New Roots, einer Firma, welche nachhaltige und vegane Alternativen zu Milchprodukten herstellt. Bevor Freddy zum Unternehmer mit einer Mission wurde, absolvierte er eine Lehre als Polymechaniker und fuhr halbprofessionell Mountainbike-Rennen. Durch einen Unfall, welcher ihn ein halbes Jahr nur an Krücken gehen liess, setzte sich der Berner intensiv mit den Themen Regeneration und Ernährung auseinander. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt lebte er bereits vegetarisch und entschied daraufhin gemeinsam mit seiner Freundin und späteren Mitgründerin Alice Fauconnet aus tierethischen Bedenken auf eine vegane Ernährung umzustellen. Mit der Umstellung waren die beiden mit der überschaubaren Anzahl von veganen Alternativen zu tierischen Milchprodukten konfrontiert. Besonders die fehlende Alternative zu Käse erschwerte den Schritt zur veganen Ernährung. Daraufhin begann Freddy für sich und seine Freunde veganen Käse in der WG Küche herzustellen. Nach einigem Herumtüfteln und ersten Erfolgen, wurde 2015 New Roots gegründet. Heute arbeiten über 20 Mitarbeitende am Standort in Oberdiessbach an der gemeinsamen Mission nachhaltige und ethische Alternativen zu Milchprodukten herzustellen. Für Freddy hat der Teamzusammenhalt einen enorm hohen Stellenwert, da jede/r einzelne Teil der nachhaltigen Vision von New Roots ist. In seiner Freizeit schwingt sich Freddy nach wie vor oft auf das Mountainbike und verbringt gerne Zeit mit seiner Familie und seiner Freundin. 

Memorable Quotes:  

"Mit unseren Produkten wollen wir zeigen, dass es nachhaltig, transparent, ethisch und vor allem auch lecker geht. Das Ziel ist, dass unsere Kunden auf nichts verzichten müssen!" 

Wenn du mehr über SEF startups erfahren möchtest, hör dir unsere Episode mit Sergio Studer, Andreas Lenzhofer, Jörg Sandrock, Martin Stadler, Jeannette Morath, Carlo Loderer, David Gugelmann, Simon Ittig und Léa Miggiano an. 

Folge uns auf Twitter, Instagram, Facebook und Linkedin um auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben. Wir posten regelmässig über Live Shows, Give-Aways und unsere Founders Dinner Events.

Timestamps:

1:16 - Discovering HIIT training

12:06 - How an injury leads to a company

22:30 - How a 6 min workout delivers results

35:18 - When COVID hit

51:41 - How Aurum stands out in the fitness market

About Julian Massler:

Julian Massler is the co-founder and CEO at Aurum Fit, the data-driven high intensity strength training startup that promises results with just 6 min per week. Before starting his own company, Julian was a junior investment banker at GCA Altium, and he holds a bachelor's in Economics from the University of Konstanz.

Back in his gymnasium days, Julian belonged to Germany's national sailing squad, where he was told he needed to bulk up in order to really be competitive. This was when Julian was first introduced the team to the highly-effective High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT teaches you that the most important thing is not the workouts themselves, but the resting periods in between, since our bodies were built to experience brief and intense bursts of exercise, followed by a lot of time laying around.

After university, Julian started working at GCA Altium as an investment banker, with the ultimate goal of reaching FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early). One day, his cubicle buddy Philipp asked him for fitness advice, and was surprised to hear Julian trained only once a week. Julian introduced Philipp to HIIT and thus a business idea was born.

Julian and Philipp felt gyms were not an adequate answer to people's needs: all they basically do is rent out equipment — which 1. most people don't know how to properly use, 2. has to be set up again and again, and 3. is sometimes quite the safety hazard. The results you obtain are also a pain to properly quantify and keep track of.

Julian and Philipp wanted to build facilities where coaches would always be available and where strength training was done with something better than weights — and so they built automated and highly sophisticated machines which measure the strength you're putting in and offer the same resistance, and which allow you to keep track of your achievements and break them down analytically.

Unlike regular gyms or fitness apps, Aurum Fit targets people who don't particularly enjoy exercising, and don't really know much about it. Their main customer personas are busy professionals, well-off retirees, and people recovering from injuries.

Currently they're trying to scale the company through franchising, and would like to venture further out into elderly care.

Memorable Quotes:

"I have a lot of empathy for people, and that makes me a really good marketer."

"Strength is the most underrated health marker out there."

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:

2:00 - Warum Léa zu Beginn wöchentlich das Auto wechselte

Über Léa Miggiano:

Léa Miggiano ist Mitgründerin des Auto-Abo Anbieters Carvolution, mit welchem Kunden ihr Auto in einem all inclusive Paket zu einem monatlichen Fixpreis abonnieren können.

Heute ist Léa eine der Top 100 Women in Business im Bereich Digital Startups und wurde als Forbes 30 under 30 ausgezeichnet. Bevor sie zur Gründerin wurde, hat Léa ihren Bachelor in Betriebswirtschaft an der an der Universität St. Gallen abgeschlossen. Anschliessend absolvierte sie einige Praktika wodurch sie Einblicke in die Startup Welt gewann, in welcher sie sich heute wohl und gut aufgehoben fühlt.

Die Idee für Carvolution kam Léa aus einem eigenen Bedürfnis. Auf dem Land aufgewachsen, machte sie ihren Führerschein so früh wie möglich. Da sie sich mit 18 noch kein Auto leisten konnte, lieh sie sich immer wieder Autos von Bekannten aus. Ihr Mentor machte sie auf existierende Carsharing Angebote aufmerksam, worauf sie gemeinsam einen ersten Business Case für Carvolution aufstellten und sich anschliessend auf Investorensuche gemacht haben.

Heute zählt Carvolution nebst den drei Mitgründern rund 50 Mitarbeitende, welche sich um die ganze Customer Journey kümmern. Zukünftig stehen der Ausbau des Auto-Angebots sowie die Weiterentwicklung der Customer Experience anhand der Carvolution App an.

Persönlich ist für Léa wichtig, dass sie jeden Tag Freude hat an dem was sie macht. Sie umgibt sich gerne mit inspirierenden, positiven Menschen, welche ebenfalls freudig durchs Leben gehen und mit welchen man anregende Gespräche führen kann. In ihrer Freizeit kriegt Léa den Kopf auf dem Rücken ihres Pferdes frei.

Memorable Quotes:

"Ich bin froh, ging ich mit dieser Naivität und Offenheit an die ganze Sache heran. So konnte mich zu Beginn nichts verunsichern."

Wenn du mehr über SEF startups erfahren möchtest, hör dir unsere Episode mit Sergio Studer, Andreas Lenzhofer, Jörg Sandrock, Martin Stadler, Jeannette Morath, Carlo Loderer, David Gugelmann und Simon Ittig an.