Startupolic

The Swiss Ice Hockey national team - a role model

If you are a fan of ice hockey (as I am), you may have lived two amazing weeks watching and following the Swiss national team. Not being ranked in the top 8 of ice hockey nations, qualifying itself to quarter final would have already been considered as a success. But that was before… before the tournament which happened in Sweden. Which was magic!

Switzerland won every game, beating top ice hockey nations like Sweden, Canada and Czech Republic (twice, with quarto final). And then, USA in semi-final. Unfortunately, Switzerland lost the final against the host country, Sweden (BTW: congratulations to the Swedish team).

It’s an authentic exploit for Switzerland and will remain in mind of everyone during years… or not. Because what we have been able to observe is a deep mentality change. Some years ago, everyone would have been more than happy with a quarter final. This year, everyone is disappointed not having won the gold medal! These guys are hungry, extremely hungry. And they will probably surprise us often in the future. This impression was well illustrated by Reto Suri, a few minutes after the end of the game:

We don’t know if we have lost the gold medal or if we have won the silber one.

This Playstation generation now doesn’t only ambition to be a well-paid professional player in Switzerland. They want to shoot the stars (that means, in ice hockey, play in NHL) and don’t take “easy” money: players now refuse lucrative offers from Swiss clubs to seize the opportunity to play among the bests. With no guarantee to even play a few games in NHL. Ambitious. You named it!

What has surprised many observers is that even without some of the best Swiss ice hockey players (because they were still involved with their NHL club in playoffs), Switzerland played a world class hockey. Sean Simpson, the trainer of Switzerland, deserves a big credit for the journey of the team. He has been able to build a rockstar team. It was amazing to see so much solidarity among players. Everyone put his ego aside and provided his maximum in benefit of the team. And its ambitious goal. They believed in their capacities and were empowered by the certainty that everything is possible.

This exploit will probably inspire lots of young ice hockey players, and other sportsmen/-women. And also every Swiss citizen! It’s also inspiring for every entrepreneur. Stereotype is that startup founders in Switzerland often have to little global ambition. What is completely wrong, or at least, has totally changed in the last decade. Swiss startups are not the best funded startups (Swiss players are not the best paid players), but it doesn’t mean they can’t succeed. Money helps, but… realizing that if you believe in you and work hard, everything is possible… with a bit of luck! But you also need to put yourself in a position to provoke luck… and once you’ve gained momentum, you’re kind of unstoppable… or only on the last step!

Where to find new startup talents?

Now that you’ve gone through the first steps of your startup, from building product to getting customers and hopefully some liquidity to staff up, one of your current challenges is to find great talents you need to bring your startup to the next stage. Where do you go?

Yes, you can go on Linkedin (for every kind of profile). Or GitHub or Geeklist, for software developers. Or Dribbble for designers. Or even headhunters or work agencies (but they are mostly too expensive for startups). Or you can also go to unemployment offices… yes, it’s less glamorous, but that could be a great (and potentially cheapest!) way to recruit talents you can boost!

Even in the digital age, with all the available online tools, nothing replaces a physical meeting. But how do you find people who are really interested by the startup world? You may have heard this statistic before, but not more than 5% at the greatest maximum are entrepreneurs. Or can be. People with a desire to work for a startup are fortunately more numerous. 10%, 15%? Hard to say. To build a great and solid startup, the ten first employees (including founders) have to be rockstars of their domain. Or with the potential and the willingness to be. Curiosity, proactivity and ambition are 3 important characteristics you need to have to embrace the startup journey.

Swiss universities and high-schools are organizing for years recruitment forums, where you get a chance to meet young graduates. But how many have special initiatives dedicated to startups? Alongside HSG St. Gallen (with its Start Summit back in March) and EPFL, with Start-up Day @Forum EPFL, I don’t know any other.

For the 4th time startups will have the opportunity to present themselves in October (on the 11th to be precise) in Lausanne. This year, no coaching agency or technology park will be accepted.

Stands will be available for free but will be distributed on First come, First served manner (to avoid empty spaces - because you know, some startups register but are there just 1 hour during the day. Or not at all).

Again, you’ll be able to buy the “CV Book” by section for CHF 100.- (whole database is available for CHF 900.-, for non-startups). So you can choose “Computer Science” and “Communication systems” (the ones which interest most web & mobile startups) for CHF 200.-.

And there will be a startup pitch competition (maybe with a prize money, which could be motivating!).

Last year, around 60 companies had a booth and organizers hope to overcome this number in 2013!

A warm-up session will take place on Thursday evening, with 2 keynotes. One will be about “why to start up” (done by… me) and the second by a successful entrepreneur (be patient… we are in the process of bringing you an amazing guy).

Update: Dominik Grolimund, serial entrepreneur (Wuala, Silp) based in Zürich, will give the second talk. So bookmark the date!

Deadline to register is 31st of August. Even if you’re not planning to recruit until next year, you should attend. A great CEO is always on a hiring mode. And moreover, Start-up Day has become the biggest truly startup event of Western Switzerland, where you can also meet fellow entrepreneurs.

A personal interview (in French)

Last week at Festival of Media Global 2013 in Montreux, I was introduced to Stan Pic, known as “The interviewer”. Stan is a friendly guy, passionate about Public Relations video blogger and former journalist. He is blogging (in French) about what’s happening in Western Switzerland and sharing his thoughts about social media, entrepreneurship, etc.

He’s a passionate guy with a extrem talent to make people comfortable… So I’ve easily given away: I gave him a video interview (in French). Normally, Stan records 5-minutes interview… but you know, “I couldn’t stop talking” and he didn’t interrupt me!

It was a funny experience (and I love having fun!) and I thought I could share it with you - hope you will appreciate it. And otherwise… I will be back soon with some non-personal stuff.

10 questions to the founder of the Festival of Media’s Hot Company of the Year… 2012!

Last week, the Festival of Media Global 2013 happened in Montreux. I was fortunate enough to be invited as an official blogger (again!) and I had the chance to interview Mr. Risicato, winner of the startup competition M.A.P. (but in 2012) with his startup VideoHub. Many thanks to Anthony to answer my few questions. Here they are!

Could you introduce yourself with a few words about your career so far? Why did you start Videohub, what was the Eureka moment (if any)?

I’ve been a digital native for 18 years, working at the intersection of marketing and technology. I was fortunate to work at DoubleClick (now part of Google) starting in 1998, just as the digital economy began to take off. That experience, of bringing Brands to Technology, got me “hooked” on this whole Internet fad… My interest in VideoHub was spurred by seeing the opportunity to solve real challenges for marketers and publishers and to move the video ecosystem forward quickly.

Can you tell me a bit about your journey so far?

One of my favorite quotes is from Arthur C. Clark, circa 1961:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Much of what we do at VideoHub is fairly sophisticated, and that can often seem like “magic” to our clients. The critical work for us is to create a bridge for clients from what “is” to what is “possible”. The journey to date has been a successful one, as we see brands embrace video (and VideoHub) as their path to understanding the true value of video.

For most people, starting a video ads platform could seem quite crazy with ubiquitous presence of video giants like Youtube or Vimeo. You know, you’ve probably faced the silly question “What if Youtube…?”. What would you like to tell to people who face these questions and who are afraid by potential huge competitors?

We love a strong market! In the end, if you, or any company, can build and market solutions that resonate with clients, the rest takes care of itself. However, we do make sure that what VideoHub provides from an analytics standpoint can coexist easily with whatever systems/tools clients currently use. For example, if you already have an ad server, that’s great and we can just plug VideoHub into that workflow. On the other hand, if you need a full “stack” solution, our platform can handle that. The trick is flexibility.

How long have you been working on the project before getting customers or investors? And what did you get first?

We spent about a year doing market trials, product testing and beta tests. This allowed us to appropriately package a solution that the market wanted, rather than us just guessing at the market needs. I am fortunate in that VideoHub is a “startup within a startup”, and a separate division of Tremor Video, Inc. so everyone from our investors to our employees are aligned.

What is your best souvenir so far? And the worst?

Winning the Festival of Media’s Hot Company of the Year was really great for us! I have a very short memory for “worsts”, so NONE!

What are the key challenges for a startup in the media industry?

As I mentioned, being able to have a product that fits into a client’s workflow, solves a pressing need and focuses on the long-term value of the product tips the scales in your favor as you bring a new product to market. Marketers and publishers have limited time and bandwidth, and you must be able to show them that what you do has both immediate AND long-term value. Missing either one makes for a difficult hill to climb.

Can you give us tips and tricks to deal with big brands, as a startup?

One thing I learned long ago, is that big brands have a way of doing business, and you must respect that. If you believe you can change the worldview of a Fortune 500 brand with a PowerPoint deck, you may want to reconsider your approach. Building trust and credibility with big brands is key to having a long-term relationship and a rapidly scaling business. Don’t get me wrong, large brands will test here and there, and push some time and attention into a specific project. But if you want a brand to say, “you are my solution, let’s go”, you better understand their business, how you fit and create champions within the organization.

And about internationalization? How tricky is this?

International is super hard to do right. Many US startups believe that if they just drop a few bodies down in a country, sales will magically happen. Doesn’t really work that way, as too many international clients have seen that movie before, and suffer from a lack of support after the deal is done. My advice is to choose careful which markets you want to enter, ones that are strategic to your business. These are not necessarily the largest markets, by the way, they are ones that are a good fit from a product, business and culture standpoint. Once you have a foothold in those key markets, then you can look to expansion.

What did the award “Hot company of 2012” by M.A.P. change for Videohub?

Suddenly, we started receiving inbound requests to understand what VideoHub is and does and how to use it at their agency or site. That had a meaningful impact on our sales and marketing efforts. It’s always nice when your phone rings as a startup!

What was the best advice you’ve received so far?

Best advice I ever received was,

“Don’t mess up. But if you do, FIX IT.”

This simple guideline drives home 2 really key concepts:

Set the bar really high and strive for excellence without compromise.
However hard you try, you will miss the bar occasionally, so own the mistake and get busy correcting it immediately.

If you live by that simple guideline, you are putting yourself in a position to succeed. Now you just have to do it!

Discover 8 web & mobile startups on 13th of May!

On Monday 13th May, the first ICT Investors Day in Romandie will take place. Kindly hosted by Debiopharm Group, the event will start at 17:00 (door opening at 16:30). Event is open to anyone interested by startups… but especially if you are investing in startups! You can register until 11th of May, so hurry up to secure your seat now!

8 web and mobile startups from Western Switzerland have just been published. The selection was hard, as 16 high quality startup have applied. The 3 main criteria applied for this event were

reasonable chance to raise money;
team is more or less complete;
still looking for a first financing round.

As always, criteria are highly subjective and the non-selected startups should no be worried: it doesn’t mean they are not good! And there will be new events to apply.

Applications for an event are sometimes strange to see. There are people out there who register to an event and don’t give really a sense of what they do. Sure, not disclosing your magic sauce is absolutely understandable. But just filling your application with 3 sentences? I’m not keen at all on the rigid registration processes we see most of the time. Entrepreneurs can better use their time as filling forms (!). But applying without taking a (little - 20 minutes?) time to complete a form professionally is an even bigger waste of time. For both parties!

But enough blabla, here are the 8 startups you will see pitching soon!