You’ll fail… so what?

If you’re planning to start a business, you probably know that the odds are big that you’ll fail your venture. Or if you don’t know it, wake up. There are many smart guys out there who did many things right and finally failed their startup. You’ve probably heard about these statistics: on 10 investments, only one will be a big success, 2-3 will reimburse the investment and all the other ones will be worthless. What can be scary is that it only takes into account the funded startups. But how many get financing? One on ten?

If we take these (probably wrong) numbers as a basis to evaluate your success chance, we can assume that you have a 3-4% of beeing financially OK with the company you’re putting in so many efforts. OK, here, I’m consciously neglecting lifestyle business (you’re bulding a viable company where you don’t need investors and you don’t want / care growing big and fast - what is ABSOLUTELY OK, too!).

With this in mind, why do people start a company? You have to be a bit crazy to build a startup, that’s true. That doesn’t seem rational and you better should find a safe job in a bank… but hey, who told you there are still safe jobs? Except if you’re working in the administration or governmental companies (and even there…), there are no more safe job in 2013!

I think, and most of fellow entrepreneurs I’ve talked to, that the journey is so exciting and rewarding that it’s worth the potentially painful outcome. If you never try, you will never know if the amazing concept you’ve developed (with you and yourself) even has a chance to succeed. As well as it intellectually exciting and rewarding to brainstorm about game-changing concepts, it’s even more to take the next step: implementing it.

Even if you fail your startup, you will have learnt so many things that you can’t consider it badly (OK, financially speaking, it could be disastrous).

11 months ago, I’ve blogged about success tolerance  and failure acceptance (“What we still need to change”). I wasn’t thinking that this simple post would trigger guys to start something. Following the post, French startup activist and blogger Roxanne Varza commented and asked me if I didn’t wanted to launch a Fail Conference in Switzerland. And then we started the discussion with some of my readers.

David Butler, a startup activist and great networker based in Zürich, took the leadership to organize the first FailCon Switzerland, which will happen on 16th April in Zürich! David has assembled a little team to organize it and together, they’ve convinced some well-known Swiss entrepreneurs (like serial entrepreneur Dorian Selz) to share their experience. The one-day conference will gather a few hundreds entrepreneurs, investors and innovators. There are many aspects of failures and this uncommon event will bring you an opportunity to learn from guys who failed and recovered.

This event is a first step in the change of mentality we need to see here in Switzerland. Failing should be widely accepted and seen as it is: a huge opportunity to learn and become stronger!

So… what are you waiting for? Spread the word and register!

Don’t know any female entrepreneurs from Switzerland ? Now you do.

It’s a coincidence this week that the 2 posts published on startupolic are on women in tech… as you’ve probably seen my post on Wednesday about Lady Pitch Night happening in Paris in April. Most of us, startup founders, has already seen that tech entrepreneurship is rather populated with men. We could debate the reasons, but that could be a subject for another post. 

I’ve asked some time ago charming tech blogger Roxanne Varza to write me a guest post… what she has kindly done today. Roxanne, a French girl but Silicon Valley native, is pretty engaged on the European tech startup scene and is currently serving Microsoft France as Startup Lead. She is the former Editor of TechCrunch France, co-organizes the annual Failcon Paris conference and has cofounded Girls in Tech in both Paris and London. She shares her thoughts on entrepreneurship in France/Europe on Techbaguette.com. So here’s her post!

In honor of March 8th, which is International Women’s Day, I naturally wanted to celebrate female entrepreneurs. Now, there are many top level females working in tech around the world – before writing this post I could name a few in a handful of different countries. But when it came to Switzerland, I stalled. So for anyone who – like me - didn’t know any female entrepreneurs from Switerland, now you do.

1.     Stella Viktoria Scheiffer, BringBee (Polyport)

Founded in 2011, Zurich-based BringBee (by Polyport) is a little bit like carpooling sites Blablacar or Lyft, except it lets drivers carry parcels instead of people. Not bad for anyone who would rather get a package instantly than wait for the post. You can see Stella (who has a degree in engineering) pitching the startup at Venture Leaders pitch.

2.     Eileen-Monika Schuch, Coolbrandz

In a way a bit like Betalist, Lausanne-based Coolbrandz has developed an online community that she describes as a « word of mouth » platform. In other words, it lets users try products and give provide feedback to brands.  Fun fact : based on her Linkedin profile, she started out her career as a restaurant manager at the Hazlewood Castle in the UK.

3.     Annick Mokoi, Upper East Style

Geneva-based Upper East Style is founded by Annick Mokoi and Antoine Mathys. In many ways similar to France’s InstantLuxe, the platform serves as a market place for users to buy and sell high end second-hand fashion and accessory items. The 2 twenty-something cofounders have grown the company to 6 people within a year.

4.     Olga Steidl, Talkbits

Names by The Moscow Times as one of the 10 Russian entrepreneurs to watch in 2012, Olga is now based in Zurich running the show at Talkbits.  The company develops a voice messaging application and service that allows users to send, receive and discover voice messages (it’s been called the Twitter for voice messages by CNET). Prior to her role as CEO of the reinvented walkie-talkie, Olga worked for a number of impressive establishments – including Russian Internet empire Yandex. If you’re a startup, you may get a chance to run into her as she’s mentored at both Seedcamp and Springboard (now Techstars).

5.     Jasmin Samsudeen, Parkit

26-year-old Jasmin has developed Parkit, an iPhone application similar to Be Park, ZenPark or Kurbkarma that lets users share and monetize their private parking spaces with others in an Airbnb type way.

There are definitely more impressive Swiss female entrepreneurs out there, so if you know of one be sure to list them in the comments.

Lady Pitch Night 2013

For the third year, Girl in Tech Paris and Orange partner to organize the only European startup competition dedicated to female entrepreneurs.

There is a few days left to apply (deadline: 10th of March) and be selected to the final event happening in Paris on 4th of April 2013. 

Conditions of participations are wide open to every European (yes, Switzerland-based companies too!) startups which is (co-)founded by at least one girl. And which is less than 36 months and developing a tech product/service (that is: web, mobile, game, electronic).

image

It’s not clear to me what you can win at the competition, but the 5 selected startups (on 60 applications last year) will be offered accommodation & the flight to Paris by Orange. Last year, for instance, the winner has been granted a ticket to the tech conference LeWeb (which, as you probably know, is quite expensive). And there are probably many other useful “goodies” that will be granted to the 5 selected startups (hey, Roxanne, will Microsoft offers some Windows Phones?).

If you don’t want to pitch yourself, but desire to attend this event, you can register now. No discount, no free ticket to win… it’s simply free!

So, who are the Swiss girls in tech who will rock the event on 4th of April?

Eileen (coolbrands), Stella (BringBee), Annick (UpperEastStyle), Olga (talkbits), Jasmeen (parkit)… who else? There are probably many more that I’m forgetting or whom I don’t know, so please share the info with every girl in tech!

 

Top