Episódios
-
Timestamps:
1:49 - Innovation in Asian corporates
5:46 - Meeting your husband at a football game
10:30 - Validating pajamas
17:58 - Building a clothing brand in Switzerland
29:34 - The impact of war and weather on sales
About Catarina Dahlin:
Catarina Dahlin is the co-founder and managing director of Dagsmejan, an innovative and sustainable sleepwear brand. She holds a MSc in Business Administration from Lund University and previously worked at Oriflame Cosmetics and Yves Rocher Group before starting Dagsmejan with her husband, Andreas Lenzhofer, in 2016.
In Catarina’s opinion, the greatest advantage of starting a business with your romantic partner is that you gain a co-founder who truly knows you — who’s right there beside you during the highs and the lows, and who understands your “obsession”. The disadvantage, however, is that if you don’t set up proper boundaries, it can sometimes feel like there’s no escaping the business. That’s why Catarina and Andreas occasionally make it clear that they want to steer clear of business topics at home.
On the first day they met, Catarina and Andreas discovered that they shared the dream of someday starting a business. Years later, they took the plunge, and Dagsmejan was born. Their sleep products are based on natural materials, enhanced with technology to give it unique functional properties, namely dual moisture management: evaporative cooling to cool us down and moisture wicking to keep us dry. Thus, they tackle a very important factor when it comes to sleep quality: temperature! Other factors include our stress levels, whether we just ate a heavy meal, how much we exercise, alcohol consumption, and whether we use the computer just before bed.
Dagsmejan is currently present in Switzerland, Germany, the US and the UK.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
4:00 - The true difference between marketing and sales
5:15 - The first DeinDeal customer
9:05 - Google search and Facebook as sales channel
13:23 - Mixing data with intuition
20:41 - Customer development
Resources Mentioned:
The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Steve Blank
The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick
This episode was co-produced with UBS and ETH Zurich, as part of the Entrepreneurial Backpack Series.
About Flavio Rump:
Flavio Rump is one of the co-founders of DeinDeal, the famous Swiss eCommerce scaleup acquired by DeinDeal in 2011. He’s also a startup investor, board member and growth expert. He holds a BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from ETH and has co-founded companies like Pigeon Apps Inc, Blue Chocolate Inc, and Bio2040.com, and the Student Biolab Zurich.
He credits DeinDeal’s success and quick growth to their early realization that sales do not equal profits, and to the fact that their team possessed a large number of extremely competent “specialists”. Here is a summary of some of the sales and marketing tips that he shared with our host Silvan:
The difference between sales and marketing is that marketing is a long-term endeavor to build trust and credibility, whereas sales is a shorter-term process where you understand customer needs and fit your product to them.
The sales channels that worked best for DeinDeal were Google Search, Facebook and Hyperlocalized Advertising. For this last one they created individual landing pages for certain queries (e.g., hairdressers in Zurich, restaurants in Zurich), in order to reduce the number of clicks a customer has to go through to get from query to conversion. Their conversion rates increased 50%.
A great way to start getting closer to customers and better understanding their needs is to create a live chat on your homepage.
Customer development should start as soon as research and product development start. Talking to customers while building your product helps you know which product to build in the first place, as well as which markets to go into.
Don’t be afraid to get candid with prospects during sales calls. Phrases like “Help me out here” are effective in getting people to open up and to explain how your product falls short.
Don’t be afraid to ask your prospect to close the deal if your sales call is going really well. And if your sales call went well but you haven’t heard from your prospect since, don’t assume this means disinterest — often people are just quite busy. Follow up continuously unless they clearly state that they no longer intend to buy your product.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Estão a faltar episódios?
-
Timestamps:
8:17 - Building a startup during COVID
16:17 - AI predicting unpredictable climate changes
29:20 - Mindmapping customer problems
44:36 - Bootstrapping when you have to
1:00:11 - Valuing the skill of communication
About Miller Mendoza Jiménez:
Miller Mendoza Jiménez is the co-founder, CTO and Latin America Regional Manager at Grundo, a technology advisory and analytics startup aimed at tackling sustainability challenges globally that can be solved using open data systems, technology-based tools, and services. He holds a PhD in Physics from ETH and worked there as a research assistant, senior research scientist and lecturer before starting Grundo in 2020.
Grundo aims to solve the issue of food security, which will become more and more relevant in the coming years due to climate change. This is because changes to the climate equal extremely unpredictable weather, ranging from heavy rains to heavy draughts. Weather instability is in general bad for crops, and heavy rains in particular damage the fertility of soils through erosion. Add to that the population increase, and it is estimated that by 2050, we will need to increase the agricultural output between 50-70% to have enough food for the global population.
Grundo answers critical food security questions like “How much wheat and corn can we expect from Germany in three months? How about in Europe, Asia or Africa?” They uncover the answers by building AI algorithms and using satellite data to provide insurance companies with data on which to tailor premiums for crop insurance, and to provide governments with data which enables them to efficiently subsidize sustainable farming practices.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
6:32 - Race car driving & building a business
11:55 - How NordPass stood out in the market
23:10 - Catering to customers vs staying focused
31:32 - From Lithuania to the world
43:54 - Is Lithuania a startup-friendly country?
Resources mentioned:
Blackbox Thinking, Matthew Syed
Click here to enjoy three months of NordPass Business for free with the code “swisspreneur”.
About Jonas Karklys:
Jonas Karklys is the co-founder of Nord Security, and the CEO of its password management company NordPass. He holds a BA in Business Administration and Management from Vilnius University, but before his university studies he was already an accomplished race car driver and had also run Infosport, a Lithuanian sports news website. After university, Jonas went on to co-found 50Garage and invest in F-1.LT before co-founding Nord Security and launching NordPass.
NordPass is a password management solution, part of Nord Security, the world’s leading
cybersecurity company and the creator of NordVPN, NordLayer, NordLocker, and other well-
known products in the market. Currently with offices/representatives in 26 markets, Nord Security offers its services globally, and is Lithuania’s second unicorn.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
4:09 - Obstacles to innovation in corporates
10:53 - Starting a startup in your 40s
17:00 - Learning to endure pain
19:40 - Financial planning for your startup
27:36 - What if your startup fails?
About Danny Chatziprodromou:
Danny Chatziprodromou is the founder and CEO of REOR20, a company developing the next generation of models providing highly accurate flood hazard information at a significantly lower cost. He holds a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Mechanical Engineering from ETH. He worked for companies like Swiss Re and SAM Sustainable Asset Management before starting REOR20 in 2017.
The model Danny’s team developed is 100 000 times faster than traditional models, and his realization that the typical models were that simplified was precisely what motivated him to look into the issue. He also claims that his long and uneventful stay in corporate gave him the arrogance needed to believe he could build a business by himself. Reality, as it turns out, was more challenging, but REOR20 managed to be successful regardless.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
5:20 - Making a business out of free water
8:12 - Competition in the advertising world
10:00 - The decrease in the quality of online advertising
13:09 - Distributing 25K bottles
17:21 - Fundraising through the Swisspreneur Syndicate
About Christoph Bertschy & Gaël Riesen:
Gaël Riesen is a co-founder and the Head of Production/Distribution at Gratiswasser, and his co-founder Christoph Bertschy is the owner of the company. Gratiswasser is a startup placing ads in free water bottles to be distributed in stores, at festivals, cafés and in general around town. They aim to offer companies a cost-effective advertising opportunity that also has a positive impact on the community.
Gaël and Christoph were motivated by a belief that water as a commodity should be free, and by the motivation to make this possible in a market economy: so they decided to use water bottle labels as advertising slots! One of their partners, VIU eyewear, receives the water bottles at their stores and distributes them to customers who drop by.
Placing ads in free water bottles has the benefit of associating the advertisement to the positive feeling of getting free stuff, instead of to the frustrating 30 second wait before you can watch a video on Youtube. It also is a more trustworthy form of advertising than online advertising, which nowadays seems to have become riddled with deepfakes and other shady ecommerce practices.
Gratiswasser is currently fundraising CHF 500K, part of which is being done through the Swisspreneur Syndicate (the 2M mentioned in the episode is a goal for future funding rounds). Click here to learn more about the deal.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
1:30 - Working for neon
10:22 - Why you should start investing
15:41 - Start investing with findependent
21:44 - Fee structure
36:26 - 5 principles for personal finance
Click here to enjoy three months of NordPass Business for free by using the code “swisspreneur”.
About Matthias Bryner:
Matthias Bryner is the founder of findependent, an app to make investing transparent, easy and beneficial for everyone, regardless of prior knowledge. He holds an MA in Banking and Finance from HSG and interned at Credit Suisse and at neon before starting findependent in 2018.
findependent allows you to open an account online within approx. 15 minutes, easily select an optimally-tailored investment solution and get started with as little as CHF 500. Thanks to their investment app, findependent users are always informed transparently about their investments, earnings and fees.
But first things first: why should you start investing? Basically, because of inflation and the compounding effect. Inflation rises at least 1% or 2% every year, which means that over the long run your savings will be significantly devalued. Similarly, if you start investing now, even if you invest only a little bit each year, this compounds over time and will make a significant difference in your life later on.
findependent encourages its users to invest in ETFs, which is basically like buying a very small percentage of the world economy, instead of investing in a specific stock. This derisks your investment. And even if the numbers in the market fluctuate daily, their overall historical tendency is upwards, so you can rest assured that your money is being put to good use. findependent currently has 12'000 customers.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
8:49 - Pivoting your marketing
12:17 - The key ingredients for sports recovery
17:43 - Distributing through several channels
23:22 - Importing CONDA to Switzerland
33:25 - Developing crowdfunding momentum
This episode was co-produced with CONDA.ch. If you want to invest in CONDA.ch with preferential conditions, contact them at [email protected].
About Pedro Schmidt & Linus Gabrielsson:
Pedro Schmidt is the founder and CEO of KaEx, the world’s first sports-recovery drink to significantly reduce the stress hormone. He holds a MSc in Management, Technology and Economics from ETH Zürich, and previously worked for companies like Siemens Management Consulting, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Teva Pharmaceuticals before founding KaEx in 2016.
Linus Gabrielsson is the managing director at CONDA.ch, the leading platform providing Swiss startups access to crowd investment capital as well as community building and campaigning opportunities. He holds a MSc in Technology Management from ETH and previously worked for companies like IBM Business Consulting Services, PwC and HSBC Private Bank before founding CONDA.ch in 2021.
KaEx was the result of many years of research for Pedro, whose undergraduate education is in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He originally branded it as a hangover remedy, and that’s how it began to be sold in pharmacies and at Coop supermarkets. At some point, Pedro and his team started getting messages from people who swore on the benefits of drinking KaEx post-workout. Pedro ignored these messages at first, since as a resource-constrained founder he couldn’t afford to split his focus — but then pro-athletes started contacting him as well, asking if drinking KaEx could be considered doping (which it couldn’t). This made Pedro and his team seriously question whether they should pivot their product’s branding and focus. They eventually did do so, and nowadays KaEx is known primarily as a sports drink, though it is of course also useful for hangovers or after a particularly stressful day.
In 2021, CONDA.ch was already one of the most successful crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany. Rather than try to compete with them, Linus and his co-founder Christian Klumpe decided to strike a franchising deal with their DACH counterparts in order to bring CONDA to Switzerland. As a crowdfunding platform, they focus on startups, SMEs and real estate, and allow users to invest as little as CHF 100. CONDA.ch always runs a 2 week pre-round with preferential conditions open only to VIP investors: that way, when the deal goes public, it never starts at 0, which helps it gain momentum.
KaEx has crowdfunded on CONDA.ch several times.
-
Timestamps:
5:15 - Having a co-founder pass away
10:33 - Drug resistance and cancer patients
18:24 - Clinical development
23:17 - Raising a series A as a biotech
26:43 - Striking partnerships
Check out the LinkedIn event for our livestream with Aurelio Perucca on May 22nd.
About Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual:
Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual is the co-founder and CEO at TOLREMO Therapeutics, a biotech startup on a mission to prevent non-genetic cancer drug resistance. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Translational Biomedicine from ETH and worked there as a Postdoctoral Researcher before starting TOLREMO in 2017 together with Wilhelm Krek, who has since tragically passed away.
There is no shortage of cancer therapies in biotech and medtech, and one common problem that they face is drug resistance: even if a certain therapy is at first successful in reducing the tumor’s size, patients sometimes develop a resistance to it, whether it be genetic or non-genetic, and the therapy stops working. To use a tech metaphor, genetic drug resistance is akin to a hardware problem, whereas non-genetic drug resistance is more similar to a software malfunction. Since non-genetic resistance is much more dynamic, it’s harder to measure and combat — this is what Stefanie and her fellow researchers have been studying for the past few years. They discovered a pivotal mechanism that governs critical transcriptional resistance pathways, i.e., that stops cancer drug resistance as it emerges without interfering with cancer-unrelated pathways.
TOLREMO recently completed its Series A financing, bringing their total amount raised to USD 39M. Their ultimate goal is to prove the efficacy of their treatment and join forces with a larger pharma company.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
1:45 - Leaving Batmaid for Holistiq
8:52 - Holistiq’s incredible traction
10:05 - The healthcare market
12:10 - Hiring the right people as a startup
13:58 - Raising funds through the Swisspreneur Syndicate
Click here to apply to join our 2024 Lausanne Scaleup Cruise.
About Eric Laudet:
Eric Laudet is the founder and CEO of Holistiq, a startup offering an organic and personalized approach to healthcare which aims to solve health issues at their root, instead of just treating symptoms. Eric holds a master’s degree in Business Management from HEC Paris, and previously co-founded Batmaid and was active for 6 years as its CFO before starting Holistiq in 2022.
Holistiq’s approach combines different healing systems to create natural therapies that are tailored to the needs of patients and backed by research, lab tests and data science. They operate a digital platform and urban health centers with a team of complementary medicine therapists, life & health coaches, nutritionists, and functional medicine doctors, to support the healing of chronically-ill patients and help others find optimal health.
During his chat with us, Eric placed Holistiq’s offering between that of regular doctors, which are in his opinion currently better suited to treat acute disorders than chronic disorders, and the offering of longevity startups, which often only help people with the prevention of disease, not with treating existing diseases. He also criticized longevity startups for sometimes tracking biomarkers which do not move the (health) needle, merely for publicity’s sake. Eric added that Holistiq’s offering is partly covered by health insurance, and is meant for the masses, not just for the wealthy few.
Despite being in operation for only 2 years, Holistiq already has impressive traction: CHF 400K in revenue (with a 50% gross margin), 1000 paying patients, and both offline and online offerings. They are currently raising a seed round of CHF 3M, CHF 250K of which they’ve already raised from business angels, and CHF 250K which they expect to raise through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. The remaining CHF 2.5M will be raised from healthtech VCs. Click here to learn more about the deal.
-
Timestamps:
1:42 - The food industry
11:20 - Ensuring quality across suppliers
16:41 - Maintaining a high shelf life
26:10 - Markets Planted is tackling next
33:20 - Small pivots over time
About Pascal Bieri:
Pascal Bieri is the co-founder of Planted, a startup creating healthy plant-based meat alternatives. He holds an MA in Informations-, Media- and Technology Management from the University of St Gallen, and previously worked in companies like SweetWorks Confections and DeepTech Capital AG before starting Planted in 2019. He also co-founded the Green Liberal Party in Lucerne when he was 21, but the slowness of politics soon dissuaded him from getting further involved.
So what’s wrong with livestock farming?
From a cold, technocratic point of view, not taking into account the environment, animal well-being or workers’ rights, current livestock farming practices were great for the meat industry, since they allowed it to achieve a fantastic production ration, super efficient supply chains, pay almost no taxes and deliver very low margins to everyone involved. Meat became cheap and accessible to almost everyone. However, this came at the cost of…
Destroying acres and acres of land to build livestock operations;
Establishing intensive monoculture farming operations which deplete soils of nutrients in order to feed livestock, which requires 25x the amount of those crops than we do to meet their nutritional needs;
Emitting 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is about the same as the amount emitted by the entirety of the transportation system.
Planted makes meat alternatives mainly out of pea protein, which can be grown locally and gives great taste. In 100 g of planted.chicken Nature, for example, there is 23.7 g of protein, which is about the same amount as found in conventional chicken meat. planted.chicken Nature consists of no more than four natural ingredients and a healthy portion of vitamin B12. What scares Pascal in the meat alternative market is not companies trying to produce equally healthy and tasty alternatives, but the companies making unhealthy products that taste terribly, which deter people from ever trying out a vegan product again.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners.
-
Timestamps:
3:49 - Startups & IP rights
8:56 - Trademarks and patents
17:45 - Startups getting into IP trouble
25:58 - Protecting your IP globally
33:34 - Open source code
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click here to purchase your ticket.
About Matthias Kaech & Adrian Riedo:
Adrian Riedo is the founder and owner of RNX, short for Riedo Networks, a provider and distributor of energy monitoring and control solutions which began back in 2005. Matthias Kaech is a Senior IP Trainer at the Institute for Intellectual Property.
Matthias and Adrian have a few IP recommendations for startup founders:
Never discuss (the intricacies of) your (tech) invention in public. Once the information is leaked, your patent may be ruined;
Look into the different types of IP protections and figure out which one is best for your company: patents for tech, trademarks for services, copyright/trademarks for software/apps, design rights for luxury products, etc..
If you want to file for a trademark, the only register you have to be in is the National Trademark Register. Any other registers that contact you are private registers, and you’re not required to be listed on them, so don’t waste your money;
Figuring out IP protection early on will give investors a positive view of your startup, partially because they know your product/service is protected, and partially because they see you took the trouble to make sure you had freedom to operate, and this shows competence;
You have to apply for IP protection in each and every country. As a resource-constrained startup, you should think about which countries are your main markets and where your main competitors operate, so that you don’t waste money.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
1:48 - Getting into the insurance business
8:47 - The potential of digital insurance solutions
19:50 - The health insurance market
29:24 - Collaborating with other insurance companies
32:57 - Convertible loan over equity rounds
Check out the LinkedIn event for our livestream with Aurelio Perucca on May 22nd: https://www.linkedin.com/events/makingmoneyfromalternativeinves7191374767680057345/theater/
About Anina Lutz:
Anina Lutz is the co-founder and CEO of Calingo Insurance AG, a digital insurance company. She holds a MSc in Business & Economics from the University of Basel and previously worked at Helvetia before starting Calingo in 2020.
As a digital insurance company, Calingo offers personalized insurance coverage at the point of sale in a hassle-free and digital way, for your home, your pets or your business. Their home insurance offer is 25% cheaper than market average, since they do not charge high commissions and have easy, low cost operations. Their pet insurance comes at a higher price at first, but since the premiums remain constant regardless of the pet’s age, the lifetime value ends up cheaper than other pet insurances.
They’ve partnered up with insurance companies like SwissRe to have them as risk carriers. Thus far they’ve decided not to delve into health insurance, since it is a rather saturated market. Instead they plan to use next year's series A funds (provided that the round closes successfully) to set up a system of vet video calls and bring their services to Germany.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
1:25 - Starting a business with your twin
5:19 - The PetTech market
9:46 - From prototype to finished product
15:33 - Building a startup as a student
19:00 - Fundraising through the Swisspreneur Syndicate
Click here to apply to join our Founders Dinner in Bern on May 30th.
About Oliver Widler & Denis Widler:
Denis Widler is the co-founder and Head of Business Relations at Flappie, a startup building an AI-powered cat door with integrated prey detection. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Innovation from HSG. Oliver Widler is Denis’ twin brother and the co-founder and Head of Technology at Flappie. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from ETH.
Denis and Oliver started Flappie together in 2022 motivated by their personal experience growing up with furry friends who would bring “gifts” home. This got them thinking about a product that could prevent such unpleasant surprises, and with his engineering background Oliver devised a cat door which immediately recognizes when your cat tries to bring presents (e.g., mice, birds) into the house. Once recognized, the cat door locks automatically, and the cat (including the prey) stays outside until it returns with no prey.
The Widler brothers think the time is ripe for their product, considering that ⅓ of households globally have cats and that 81% of Gen Z live with cats. It seems they’ve been proven right: their product has been featured in over 200 media outlets since inception.
They’re currently raising CHF 1M in funds, 500K of which they already have in soft commitments, and 50K of which are being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our deal flow page to learn more.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
5:10 - Starting a startup right after university
9:06 - Hesitation & entrepreneurship
13:09 - Knowing if you’re ready
18:15 - Practicing to be ready
25:00 - Giving up on a project
Click here to apply to join our Founders Dinner in Bern on May 30th.
This episode was co-produced by the Female Founders Initiative and recorded at the Female Future Festival.
Resources mentioned:
Positive Intelligence, Shirzad Chamine
Positive Intelligence assessment
Untamed, Glennon Doyle
Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us episode on FFTs (Fucking First Times)
About Melanie Kovacs:
Melanie Kovacs is an award-winning entrepreneur, business coach, TEDxspeaker, and startup trainer, dedicated to supporting people to find and not lose joy on their entrepreneurial journeys. Through her podcast “The Joypreneur” she encourages entrepreneurs to do their thing, thereby making a positive impact.
Previously, she created the Joy Accelerator program, a 12-week course for women aspiring to build sustainable businesses without burning out. Prior to this, she founded Switzerland's first coding bootcamp, Master21 Academy.
Melanie studied International Management, Human-Computer Interaction Design and Creative Leadership.
During her chat with our new host, Merle, Melanie shared some of the insights that she provides her coachees, ranging from identifying the critical voices in your head, to exploring your fear of failure, to adequately valuing your time, resources and intuition.
For more information about Melanie and her work, visit her website.Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners.
-
Timestamps:
1:32 - Interning at Namics
14:31 - What GotCourts does
22:34 - The paddle tennis boom
28:25 - Building traction outside Switzerland
36:58 - Getting acquired by a competitor
Click here to enjoy three months of NordPass Business for free.
About Diego Seitz:
Diego Seitz is the co-founder and former CEO at GotCourts, a social network for racket sports players and marketplace for booking courts and coaches. He holds a MSc in International Management from CEMS as well as a MSc in Strategic Management from the university of St. Gallen and previously worked at companies like Namics and Accenture before joining GotCourts as a late co-founder in 2017.
Founded in 2013, GotCourts was the first platform to provide everything a player needs in a single marketplace. Finding a partner or a coach, booking a court nearby or competing for a place in their leaderboards and tracking your progress, GotCourts is your "virtual global club". For court facilities and clubs they offer a capable club management system and a platform to engage with the community. This means they receive revenue not only from the SaaS subscription but also from the racket sports players themselves.
Coming into the fitness industry with an innovative approach, the GotCourts team often found that they had to educate potential SaaS customers on the benefits of online demos and how to set up a video call, so as to drive down acquisition costs. Their internationalization process began in Germany, where they at first bet on the traditional route of ads, email marketing, cold calling, and simply offering the product in euros, only to later find out that the German federations were the true door into the market, and that a freemium model for the app was much more suitable for their German users. Nowadays GotCourts is the racket sports app in the DACH region.
GotCourts was acquired in 2021 by Spanish competitor Playtomic for an undisclosed amount. Diego remained on board as the regional manager of Central Europe. Currently he is also working on a new venture, alfred.ch, which provides legal and strategic consulting services to early stage ventures, entrepreneurs and investors.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners.
-
Timestamps:
1:39 - What changed from 2020 to 2024
4:06 - 8 co-founders from start to finish
7:36 - Finding the right focus
13:33 - Selling to robot manufacturers
19:58 - Getting acquired by ABB
About Gianluca Cesari:
Gianluca Cesari is a co-founder and the CBDO of Sevensense Robotics, a robotics ETH spin-off which empowers mobile robots to move into public and dynamic spaces, supporting humans in the execution of dirty, dangerous and dull tasks. Gianluca holds a master’s degree in Robotics, Systems and Control from ETH Zurich and afterwards continued as Robotics Engineer at the university’s Autonomous Systems Lab, before officially founding Sevensense in 2018.
In Gianluca’s opinion, Sevensense’s biggest challenge was finding the right focus, which is a challenge universal to all tech startups: they develop great tech, but what needs to be sold is a product, not a technology — so what use should their tech be put to? The solution to this conundrum is to start talking to customers. Eventually Sevensense landed upon two verticals: automated material handling, and automated cleaning.
They were acquired by ABB in 2024 for an undisclosed amount.
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click here to purchase your ticket.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
12:02 - Breaking down crypto
17:50 - B2Banks and financial institutions
29:23 - Being a solo founder against your will
38:35 - Hiring senior people for a startup
42:00 - A USD 250M exit
About Adrien Treccani:
Adrien Treccani is the founder and CEO of Metaco, an enterprise technology company whose mission is to enable financial and non-financial institutions to securely build their digital asset operations. He holds a PhD in Finance from the SFI (Swiss Finance Institute) and previously worked for companies like Gottex Brokers Alternative and Swissquote before starting Metaco in 2015.
Metaco’s founding date turned out to be much too early: back in 2015, very few people were thinking of tokenizing everything, like Adrien thought would happen — but still the team managed to pull their startup through, perhaps at least in part due to Adrien hiring very senior people early on. The most important of these hires was a CCO, to complement Adrien’s engineering mind. Nowadays Metaco provides software to banks and other financial institutions which enables them to manage their clients digital (crypto) assets at very large scales.
In 2023 Metaco was acquired by Ripple, a leading enterprise crypto company, for US$250M. Adrien remains at Metaco as founder and CEO.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
1:17 - Brought together by wine
3:21 - Declining fertility rates in Europe
8:12 - How the team came together
10:38 - Guys working on women’s health?
17:58 - Fundraising through the Swisspreneur Syndicate
About Daniel Gutierrez & Francois Smuts:
Francois Smuts is the co-founder and managing director of BioNexus, a healthcare company focused on creating cutting edge wearable diagnostics. He holds a Global Masters of Public Health from Imperial College London and was a Medical Affairs Manager for companies like Merck Pty, Abbott and Mirum Pharmaceuticals before founding BioNexus in 2023.
Daniel Gutierrez is a customer and supporter of BioNexus. He holds a PhD in Cardiac Physiology from the University of Bern and currently works as Head of Site Network Engagement at Clinerion.
BioNexus is committed to developing diagnostics which tackle women’s health issues by monitoring hormones in live time. According to a recent McKinsey study, there is a 1 trillion dollar gap in the women’s health sector, so the time for technologies like theirs is definitely upon us. Francois also derives motivation from his personal experience of witnessing his mother struggle with menopause and be told by doctors that she ought to conform to her loss of quality of life.
They are developing a wearable patch with microneedles that measures your hormones continuously, which would be helpful not only for menopausal women but also for couples struggling to conceive.
BioNexus is raising CHF 900K to boost their product development, part of which through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our deal flow page to learn more.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. -
Timestamps:
2:57 - What Girls in Tech is
6:35 - Deciding to become a female engineer
11:40 - The importance of role models
24:20 - The benefit of having a female network
25:44 - The future of Girls in Tech
About Lisa Stähli & Fabienne Lorenz:
Lisa Stähli is a board member and Head of Press at Girls in Tech Switzerland, a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating the gender gap in tech. She holds a MSc in Geomatics Engineering from ETH and is currently a Product Engineering Lead at the Esri R&D Center Zurich. Fabienne Lorenz is the co-managing director at Girls in Tech Switzerland, holds a MAS in Marketing Management from ZHAW School of Management and Law, and is currently the Head of Academy at Synpulse.
The Swiss chapter of Girls in Tech was started with the vision of creating a community of like-minded women who could support and encourage one another in Switzerland. It’s part of a larger community of more than 120K people around the world. They provide community, skill workshops and role models to motivate women in their professional journeys.
The conversation in this episode was recorded in April 2023, and was co-produced together with the Female Founders Initiative.
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin, 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 giveaways or founders' dinners. - Mostrar mais
