Swisspreneur Show

Timestamps:

1:53 - Majoring in Mathematics, Physics and Sociology

16:36 - Persisting through difficulties

25:55 - From co-workers to co-founders

36:57 - Managing competition

46:15 - Deciding whether you should sell

About Simon Scheurer and Qumram

Simon Scheurer is the co-founder and former CTO of Qumram, a provider of session replay technology for digital compliance. Simon holds a Masters in Physics, Mathematics and Sociology from the University of Berne. He started his career as CTO at the digital agency Unic - the same company as Swisspreneur guest and Fashion Days Founder Markus Okumus. After 7 years in consulting, Simon left the company with the desire to start a product business. He started Milgram Media which at the time was a direct competitor to Doodle. The company struggled to stay ahead of Doodle with its offering and after losing several important deals, the founders decided to exit for a modest sum. Not at all discouraged by the failure, Simon started Qumram. The idea for the product had emerged years prior and he decided to turn it into a business when large corporates started asking for digital compliance solutions. With Qumram, Simon was able to get several renowned investors on board, among them Swisspreneur guest Ariel Lüdi and Investiere. In 2017, Qumram was acquired by Dynatrace for an undisclosed amount.

Memorable Quotes

"When the employee number goes above 100 or so, maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit starts getting really tricky."

"People are very reluctant to change. So you have to be massively better than the tool that they already know, use and like."

Resources Mentioned

The Calorie Myth, by Jonathan Bailor

Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker

Aurum Fit

If you would like to listen to more episodes on leaving the corporate world, check out our conversations with Alisée de Tonnac and Luiza Dobre.

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 out latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

Timestamps:

1:55 - Motivation for taking the leap as a founder

6:27 - Expanding to Sweden

9:20 - Losing investors over Covid

13:18 - The Upscaler experience

18:14 - Shady accelerator programmes

About MyCamper and Michele Matt

Michele Matt is the co-founder and CEO of MyCamper, a peer-to-peer camper rental platform. Michele started MyCamper in 2015 when he realized that his own camper, Charly, sat idle for a large part of the year. What started as a project to rent out his own vehicle soon turned into a two-sided marketplace idea. In spring of 2020, the company was closing their fist fundraising round with the Covid 19 pandemic in full swing. During the course of 2020, MyCamper hit the CHF 1 m threshold in revenue and now boasts 1000 campers on their platform. The MyCamper founding team also participated in the SEF UpScaler Program, which supports companies in accelerating international growth. For the next 3 years, MyCamper wants to drive an aggressive growth strategy, before focusing on profitability. In 2021, MyCamper wants to focus on doubling their numbers from 2020 and becoming the number #1 player in Sweden while keeping their position in Switzerland. From there they plan to expand across the entire Nordic region of Europe, beating their competitors in local markets.

Memorable Quotes

"I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, and it really inspired me. I wanted to have the freedom to explore my ideas."

If you would like to listen to more conversations on accelerator programs, check out our episode with Nicolas Bürer.

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:

2:24 - Gianluca's international background

4:42 - Gregory's academic background

8:08 - Having 8 co-founders

11:47 - The robotics market

27:15 - Getting support as a startup

About Gianluca Cesari, Gregory Hitz and Sevensense Robotics

Gregory Hitz and Gianluca Cesari are two of the 8 co-founders of Sevensense Robotics, as well as CEO and Business Development Lead, respectively. Gregory obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich later continued as Postdoc. Gianluca also received his Masters in Robotics, System and Control from ETH Zurich and afterwards continued as Robotics Engineer at the University's Autonomous Systems Lab. The two worked together with their 6 co-founders on an autonomous robotics project together with two industry partners while still at university. Out of this initial research group, Sevensense Robotics was born. Running a business with 8 co-founders would be a challenge for many. Sevensense decided to mitigate the problem by clearly distributing roles. While some members of the founding team took on managerial duties, others stayed with their passion for engineering and have contributed to developing the product.

Autonomous robots have applications in various industries: Sevensense currently focuses on logistics. By applying Sevensense’s technology, logistics providers can enable their machines to safely and autonomously navigate in dynamic spaces shared with humans, in- and outdoors. To date, Sevensense has been able to work together with several important customers, such as Jelmoli and Wetork.

Memorable Quotes

"Many people are actually really willing to help you — you just have to ask."

Resources Mentioned

Thinking, fast and slow, by Daniel Kahneman

The Harvard Business Review

Venture Kick

Wyss Zurich

If you would like to listen to more episodes on robotics, check out our conversations with Alex Tyropolis and Mina Kamel.

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:

1:49 - From ETH Researcher to startup founder

9:00 - Winning Investor's Choice

10:35 - Clean tech competitors

12:43 - Having a hard time with sales

17:55 - Moving from India to Europe at 19

About Sreenath Bolisetty and Blue Act Technologies

Sreenath Bolisetty is the co-founder and CEO of BluAct Technologies, an ETH spin-off which provides a technology for water purification from heavy metals through milk proteins. In 2020, the company won the Expert’s Choice Award at the Energy Startup Days. Originally from a small village in India, Sreenath obtained his PhD from the University of Bayreuth. He went on to work as a Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich and in 2016, started BluAct Technologies as his first company. BluAct’s purifying system differentiates itself through its high level of effectiveness at a low cost point. Being able to run without electricity, it is the perfect choice for water purification in remote areas - something which BluAct Technologies has proven through their various pilots in remote communities around the world. Their milk protein membranes are suitable both for water purification in individual households and at large scales of thousands of cubic meters of water. With 2 products already on the market, BluAct Technologies wants to expand its offering to cover purification for radioactively polluted water. The company is planning to raise USD 3m in their next investment round to help with the commercialization and certifications of its products.

Memorable Quotes

"A very strong motivation to start BluAct was the fact that I come from India, where water problems are a very real day-to-day issue."

If you would like to listen to more episodes on ETH spin-offs, check out our conversations with Mark Essam and Mina Kamel.

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:

4:18 - Why is culture so important?

16:17 - How to establish a culture

21:39 - Hiring the right people for your culture

37:45 - When employees leave

41:53 - Rapid fire questions

The Episode in 60 seconds

Getting company culture right.

Common mistakes around company culture

- Underestimating its importance: Your company vision makes sure everyone pulls on the same rope. The culture ensures everyone pulls in the same direction. Having a strong culture helps employees take good decisions without always referring to their managers for guidance, therefore making the company more efficient and agile.

- Getting started too late: while a team of 5 might not need an explicit culture statement, it’s easy to miss the right moment to “get started with culture”. This is especially detrimental if you’ve already hired employees who are not a great cultural fit.

Finding and growing your culture

- Company culture is the result of shared values. Most often, these will be the values of the founding team.

- If you aren’t sure what your values are, a good place to start is by observing your feelings in your day to day business interactions. Do you get frustrated when someone doesn’t appreciate the work you do? Maybe appreciation is a value you hold dearly. Do you love to receive candid feedback from others? Maybe openness is important to you.

- Once the founding team is aligned on their values, make them explicit and talk about them often. Base your decisions (particularly around hiring and firing) on these shared values.

Scaling culture

- While you grow, it’s extremely important to stay true to your values and not to accept a culture misfit just because someone is good at their job and/or you struggle to find someone to replace them.

- Everyone is responsible for nurturing company culture and calling out cultural incompatibility. Don’t outsource this important task to a “Chief Culture Officer” or similar.

- Nobody is perfect and employees (and you as well) will sometimes fail to live up to your values. That’s okay, as long as you and the person in question clearly see the problem and a path towards improvement.

Measuring culture

- While there is no “right” or “wrong” culture, there is culture that works and culture that doesn’t. A way to measure the “health” of your culture is via employee happiness and employee Net Promoter Score (NPS).

- To add more color to the employee NPS, consider also measuring the number of employee referral hires you get. Referring a friend is a strong indicator of happiness and a well working culture.

Memorable Quotes

"Establishing a great company culture reduces the amount of time you need to spend handling internal affairs, and leaves that time free for actually helping your customers."

"If your core team does not share your company values, then you're never gonna establish a culture. Culture is established through behavior."

If you would like to listen to more conversations on startup culture, check out our episodes with Cédric Waldburger and Markus Orkumus. 

Timestamps:

1:46 - Developing the next generation of solar modules

7:29 - Does winning awards help a startup?

8:56 - Fierce competition from China

12:03 - The non-liberalized energy market in Switzerland

14:32 - What will 2021 bring?

About Laurent Coulot and Insolight

Laurent Coulot is the co-founder and CEO of Insolight, a photovoltaic startup. Laurent started Insolight in 2015, together with his two co-founders, Mathieu Ackermann and Florian Gerlich. Within 5 years, the company has grown to over 15 employees. With Insolight, the co-founders focus on a very specific area of the photovoltaic market which is not yet well served by mass produced photovoltaic panels - agrivoltaics. Insolight’s solar panels are both translucent and highly efficient. These properties make the panels uniquely suited to be  deployed on top of areas which are used for growing crops - therefore reducing the land use competition between agriculture and photovoltaic by allowing them to coexist in the same space. In 2020, Insolight closed a $ 5m series A and received its first orders from industrial customers. The company was also awarded the public choice award at the Swiss Energy Startup Days. In 2021, Insolight plans to build and ship more than 1000 panels.

Before starting Insolight, Laurent worked as an Applications Engineer at Melexis. He holds a Masters in Micro and Nanosystems from the EPFL.

Memorable Quotes:

"We think market regulations should reflect the fact that solar energy has a pretty much non-existent carbon footprint."

If you would like to listen to more episodes on solar power, check out our conversations with André Borschberg, Anaïs Matthey-Junod, Sébastien Jaffaux and Liliane Ableitner.

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:

2:34 - Why study law and not business?

18:06 - Can you work on a startup part-time?

34:46 - Being motivated by challenges.

48:31 - Having a big client not renew the contract

59:58 - Companies asking for discounts

About Tobias Häckermann and Sherpany

Tobias Häckermann is the co-founder and CEO of Sherpany, a provider of meeting management software for leadership meetings. Tobias started his first company right out of high school. As a long time practitioner of martial arts, he was the go-to person if one of his friends needed a bouncer for a party or other event. Seeing an opportunity, Tobias started PNC security. Through his first venture, he met Nathanael Wettstein, who would later become one of his co-founders at Sherpany. Tobias sold PNC security to a competitor for CHF 70k. He went on to start easyComm, a platform for digital events which he sold to Alphablue Eventmanagement. During this entire time, Tobias was still obtaining his law degree from the University of Zurich. During his semester abroad at University of Siena, the idea for Sherpany was born. Originally, Sherpany was conceived as a communication tool between companies and their shareholders. For nearly two years, Sherpany was trying to bring the product to the market, until the founders realized they were not solving the right problem for their customers. The company pivoted to providing software for agile meeting management in leadership teams and has since grown to a multinational company with offices in Paris, Lisbon, Milano, Wroclaw, Berlin and Zurich.

Memorable Quotes

"It's okay to work part-time on a startup at the beginning. But at some point you've got to start giving it your all, otherwise you're gonna iterate too slow and you're gonna get frustrated, because you're going nowhere."

"I always thought the bigger your company gets, the more things it should be able to do. But it's the opposite — the bigger you get, the more focus you need."

Tobias Häckermann's Favorite Resources

Blinkist

If you would like to listen to other episodes on organizational matters, check out our conversation with Christian Burger.

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 - Why start your own company?

7:29 - Winning Investor's Choice at Energy Startup Day

12:15 - How to stand out from competition

28:24 - Closing a funding round

33:23 - Choosing between Germany, Switzerland and Austria

About Liliane Ableitner and Exnaton

Liliane Ableitner is the co-founder and CEO of Exnaton, a software provider for energy communities, allowing neighbors to trade renewable energy amongst each other. Before starting Exnaton, Liliane was a Doctoral Researcher at the Bits of Energy Lab at ETH Zurich. She met her two co-founders, Arne Meeuw and Anselma Würner, during her work on the research project "Quartierstrom", funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. The project resonated well with all stakeholders involved and the three PhD students decided to spin it out into an independent company in 2019. Since then, Exnaton has signed 2 pilot customers and is currently fundraising. In December 2020, they won the Investor’s Choice award at Energy Startup Days, which helped the company to gain exposure amongst relevant stakeholders. Contrary to some of their competitors, Exnaton doesn’t sell their software to end consumers. Rather, they cooperate with local utility companies and allow them to white label their solution and distribute it to their customers. Exnaton is greatly benefiting from the liberalization of European energy markets because it has been driving competition for innovative products between utility companies. They are hoping to further benefit from an opening of the Swiss market, which has traditionally been very protected.

Memorable Quotes

"If you're in a market with 0 competition, then you're in the wrong market, because either you're on a completely wrong track or you're way too early."

If you would like to listen to more conversations on green tech, check out our episodes with Mark Essam, Anaïs Matthey-Junod, Alessandra Rojas and Sébastien Jaffaux.

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 - Typical pivoting mistakes

5:41 - Finding the right customer

15:32 - Generating your first revenue

18:49 - Maximizing growth

25:19 - Product-market fit

The episode in 60 seconds

Pivoting your business idea to success.

Mistakes to avoid

- Waiting too long to pivot because you have gotten emotionally attached to the solution or somehow locked yourself in too early.

- Iteration cycles which are too long. Building out a finished and polished product for every iteration will make you slow and waste large amounts of resources.

The Startup Pivot Pyramid by 500 Insights

- The Pyramid gives you an idea of how aspects of your product build on each other (customer, problem, solution, tech, growth).

- This helps you understand, for one, which areas you need to define first in order to move up the pyramid, and two, how consequential a potential pivot in one area is for other areas of your business (i.e. a pivot in customers you are addressing is far more consequential than a pivot in the tech stack you are using)

Customers and their problems

- Finding enough customers in a big enough market that have the same problem is always the first problem you’ll want to solve when looking to achieve product-market-fit.

- Talking to potential customers under the pretense of collecting data for a survey can be a subtle entry point to start a conversation.

- Your primary goal in customer conversations should be to evaluate how the problem you are trying to solve for them ranks amongst their other problems and how much they’d be willing to pay for solving it. Ideally, if the problem is big enough, customers will ask about buying your solution once it’s live already at this stage.

- Try to interview 50 to 100 potential customers and narrow down the hypothesis about your customer profile as you go.

- Analyze the results of your conversations based on the $ amount each type of customer is willing to pay to have their problem solved.

- Clarify the 3 whys for your customers in detail: why buy anything, why buy us and why buy now. As for the “why buy now”, it often pays off to have a fix point to create urgency: a product release, a trade show, a board meeting or something else your customer cares about and that encourages them to move the deployment of your product along quickly.

Solution

- Once you think you have an idea of who your customer is and what problems you are solving for them, come up with the simplest version of your product that addresses the most pressing points of the problem.

- You’d be surprised how much can be faked in these early product versions. Don’t worry about having efficient code and well-trained algorithms. Most likely, hardly anyone will be using this first version anyway and you’ll have to rebuild your tech stack anyway as you learn and scale.

Growth

- Today it’s cheap to run growth experiments across different channels, so there is really no excuse not to do it.

- Notice that growth sits at the top of the pyramid. There is really no point in throwing money into growth marketing if you are not certain yet that you have found the problem and solution that really works for your customers.

Timestamps:

2:18 - Being André Borschberg's son

15:45 - The market for voice AI

21:08 - A co-founder leaves the company

26:52 - How to look for advisors

32:59 - Having offices in several countries

About Teo Borschberg and OTO.ai

Teo Borschberg is the co-founder and CEO of oto.ai, an AI-powered voice intelligence solution. Teo started his entrepreneurial career after obtaining his maturité (high school diploma). He relocated to China, where he spent 8 months working in a factory, 6.5 days a week. During this time, he started to resell paintings and furniture from China to Europe, and his first company, Artefact Co, was born. Three years later, upon the completion of  his Bachelor in Hospitality Management at Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, Teo returned to China to start his second company, the media advertising business Good Media. In 2015, he sold Good Media and reoriented himself towards the US. He joined SRI International, a renowned non-profit research institute as Entrepreneur in Residence. In this position, he was tasked with finding business opportunities for the cutting edge technologies the Institute was developing. This is where the idea for OTO.ai originated. Three years later the company has raised $ 5.8 m in seed financing, has analyzed over 10 m conversations and serves 10 large customers globally. While OTO.ai was originally selling mainly to call centers, they - as so many others - had to pivot during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Within a few short months, the company set itself up to offer an API / SDK to its product in order to let developers use it in almost any context imaginable - from wearables to smart home devices, and even telemedicine.

Memorable Quotes

"It's always dangerous to have a technology and be looking for a market, instead of having a market and be looking for a technology."

"I will only say we have a product-market fit the day we have customers kicking down our door to get their hands on the product."

If you would like to listen to more episodes on AI, check out our conversations with Aldo Podestà, David Alain Bloch and Martin Keller.

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!