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).

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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!

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.

Does Switzerland exist on the European tech startup scene? (Part III)

After one week interruption (sorry for that), I have the pleasure to publish the third post of the serie (you can read Part I and Part II).

Dimitris Kalogeropoulos, an engaged Greek blogger that I’ve met last year at Next Berlin, is sharing his thoughts today about Swiss startups. 

I have to be honest here; when Sebastien asked me to write a blog post about Swiss startups and if Switzerland exists on the European startup scene, I was a bit puzzled: I didn’t have any Swiss startups in the top of my mind. I made a research and I came across some very interesting results.

First and foremost: there ARE Swiss startups. The two most popular of them are paper.li and Doodle. Paper.li is a service that goes through all your social network accounts and creates an online & interactive magazine with the most interesting articles, videos and photos. Doodle is the easiest way to create polls and share them among specific friends and colleagues. Although it may sound like a simplistic idea, you have to know that it is very popular in the corporate world.

My second finding about Swiss startups is that they are technologically advanced and they are focusing on R&D. Zurich is the city of ETH, one of the best universities in Europe when it comes to science. It is not a coincidence that Google chose Zurich as the center of their engineering headquarters in Europe. Contrary to common belief, startups are not only about fancy social networking services, cloud and big data. Startups can produce actual and tangible products. In that sense, Swiss startup scene is Europe’s equivalent to what Elon Musk is trying to build in the States.

However, Swiss startups face the same problem that all non-Berlin startups are facing: they are not based in Berlin! And that is a big deal as everything in the European startup scene is happening there. Sure, Amsterdam has a unique vibe and London is.. London.But still, when it comes to European startups, the place to be is Berlin, with its extremely vibrant and developed ecosystem. Founders’ clubs, conferences, seed investors, VCs and some of the most successful European startups are based there (e.g. SoundCloud). Practically, this works as a setback for all of the Swiss startups that have not yet relocated.

The other problem of all the newly-bred startup ecosystems is that an amazing startup is needed to attract the lights. If a Swiss startup gets bought from Apple or Google for a billion or two, then there will be more and more Swiss people that will try this entrepreneurial path. This shining example will create a huge traditional media buzz and more Swiss people will be “jealous” of this success. This “jealousy” will fuel the people to become more creative and question themselves “Why not me as well?”.

The last, but probably the most difficult problem that Swiss startups are facing is the lack of communication with the rest of the European startups. Contrary to the US, which has only one startup ecosystem with numerous hubs (e.g. Silicon Valley, NYC), in Europe there are many ecosystems; actually, one per country. The many different languages and the diversity of people in Europe works more against the Swiss startups rather than in their favor.

However, Swiss people have a great advantage as most of them talk 3-4 different languages, so they could easily communicate with people around Europe. Swiss startupers have the unique ability to become the connectors of Europe; this will beneficiate both the local startup scene but it will also give a great boost to the whole ecosystem in this side of the Atlantic ocean..

Swiss people, European startups need you, please help us!

Does Switzerland exist on the European tech startup scene? (Part II)

Last week I’ve started a blog post serie from international bloggers to get their view on Swiss startup scene (see Part I). You’ll find in this second post the impression of Fred Zimny, a Dutch blogger specialized in services design and management.  

The Next Berlin 2013 event was the trigger for an Internet encounter with Sébastien. He wonders if  Switzerland really exists on the European tech start-up scene. He is investigating how Switzerland is seen from an outside, neutral perspective.

As a blogger I am not that neutral. I do have my believes and these beliefs will be shared with you in this post.

Yes, it is true, the Global Innovation ranking index puts Switzerland at the first place worldwide, but how relevant is this index? I always appreciate these kind of reports and outcomes. However, often one may notice that there is a preference for institutional characteristics.  

As a Dutch blogger, I see similar reports about how well the Dutch society is performing from an institutional perspective.

But do these reports reflect innovation capabilities, the right cultural attitude for entrepreneurs and start-ups and the required ecosystems? I severely have my doubts and scanning the index through the drill-down options (an excellent option) confirms this thesis. I do not believe that the next Google, Apple, Oracle or SAP will be created in the top-9 of the index (US being number 10).

What are my associations with start-ups from Switzerland?

Being a big fan of paper.li and that is it. Some desk research revealed nice initiatives in Bern and - through a Swiss LinkedIn-connection - I got a nice overview of Swiss start-ups.

Which one might become a successor of paper.li for me? I do have doubts if there are any.

After accessing even more data I am able to outline my thoughts and impressions.

It is my sincere belief that there is an urgent need for a  societal fabric for user-centric innovation. Especially for  services in the private and public service sector. As stated recently, the knowledge-intense services will be the key for the creation of new growth beyond the economical and partly societal turmoil we are currently in. However, to deploy these service one needs to have a common market. Especially in a country that has 4 native languages. The negative vote of 06.12.1992 will limit the reach of innovation initiatives for the Swiss start-ups. On the other hand, it had, has and will have many benefits.

I also belief that start-ups only can thrive in complex, adaptive ecosystems. To deploy start-ups one has to create these kind of organizations as a complex entitity with relationships and possible relationships. Designing such start-ups implies focus on the ecosystem, on longevity (3-5 years to decades) and accepting complexity. Given the geographic position of Switzerland my working assumption is that startups should start connecting with either Germany (Rhein-Ruhr area, Berlin) or Paris, being the urban city areas of 2025.

madamedevereshideaway:Not the outfit to play shy inPhoto of Suzy Parker in dress by Norman Norell, by Milton Greene

EU-member or not,  all countries in Europe get more and more connected. In 2011-2012 many of us realized how complex the networked, interdependent financial economy has become. Assuming that these interdependent networks are also emergent in the field of services (energy, healthcare, education and so on) flexibility and connectivity should be embedded in the design of any start-up.

Considering the position of Switzerland, here are my final words.

You may be acquainted with the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland:

“…in our country”, said Alice, still painting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else-if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!”, said the Queen. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”.

From my perspective, this the challenge for Swiss (but also for Dutch) start-ups: Get connected!

Does Switzerland exist on the European tech startup scene? (Part I)

National media and politics often congratulate themselves about the success of Swiss innovation. For instance, the Global Innovation ranking index puts Switzerland at the first place worldwide, but how relevant is this index? You have to know that it is based on the number of patents regarding to the country population. Maybe it’s a good indicator of patentable innovation like in pharma, mechanics, etc. But what’s about the ICT sector? By definition, ICT code is really difficult to protect. And if yes, will cost millions to defend with not much certainty of winning, even if you were copied. 

But does Switzerland really exist on the European tech startup scene? To have objective opinions, I’ve asked some of my fellow international bloggers on how they see Switzerland from an outside, neutral perspective. I hope to have a serie of post coming from “all” the corners of Europe. First to express her impression is Romanian ubiquitous blogger Adelina Peltea, which I’ve already mentioned here (author of Customer Seduction startup book).

Although a big economical power, Switzerland seems a bit absent on the tech startups scene, at least for the international eyes. You don’t get to see many of Swiss tech entrepreneurs at European conferences, neither read about them in the media. So from the outside it is a bit unclear: there are not many of them, they just stay local or they just don’t communicate enough about themselves? In any case, there is a spark there seen from outside as well, and I can only encourage its development and internationalization. A good bridge to the Swiss startup scene is the Facebook group that counts 600+ members. Quite active, written in English and welcoming foreigners. It is a good beginning, with plenty of space for development. And interactivity with other startup scenes can only do good. Sebastien’s blog (here! startupolic.com) is also a great bridge between the local scene and the international one. I met him at a conference in Berlin and since then we’ve kept in touch. He is very active in promoting Switzerland in the tech and entrepreneurship world. For example, it is from him that I know that the great entrepreneur and investor that helped the rise of Berlin startup ecosystem, Christoph Maire, is a Swiss citizen. Also, not so long ago I was contacted by an Alumnus of a youth entrepreneurship network I was a member as well - Michael Weber is planning to build a business accelerator in Switzerland (SeedStars) and he was reaching out for international advice. This openness to what is happening in the world can only put them on a good track and I wish them all the best. As far as I understand, the fact that the employee life is a good one in Switzerland (with great opportunities and high salaries) makes entrepreneurship less appealing. But those who have the spirit to do it should think about the chance to do something truly disrupting. By doing the worldwide interviews with founders and investors for my book, I can only notice that entrepreneurs don’t live in countries anymore. They all live in the global online world. Today access to information and connectivity is insanely easy. They all seem to be in the same ecosystem, we are no longer limited by geographical borders.

And here is my advice to Switzerland: be more active on international level, connect with people abroad, know what other entrepreneurs are doing in any corner of the planet. They are your potential partners and competitors.

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