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

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At Lift Conference, I had the chance to meet Trista Bridges, the co-editor of the English-written (!) French blog Rude Baguette.With the slogan “Pardon my French”(you know, it’s very uncommon to write in English in Paris), they cover the Internet and technology sector in France, combining breaking news with in-depth analysis. If you’ve never heard about it before, give them a read, really worthful! I’ve asked her if she could jump into our startup serie topic and publish her thoughts on the Swiss local scene. Although this post has already been published on Thursday (with the title What I learned at Lift13 about the Swiss Startup Scene), I think it’s a pretty good match with this serie! Last week I attended Lift13 in Geneva, which was a great experience, offering all kinds of interesting insights, debates and experiences around technological innovation. Although innovation …

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

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 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 …

NEXT top 100 digital influencers – time to vote!

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Last year, I had the chance to be invited to NEXT Berlin 2012 (I’ve posted about it). I’ll attend again in 2013… What a lucky guy I am! Berlin is one of the top startup hub in Europe (the only real rival is London I think) and beeing there is an opportunity to meet prominent actors of the European startup scene. As you maybe remember, Next Berlin is looking for the NEXT 100 top influencers of the digital industry in 2013. As not many Swiss people were nominated (you can nominate who ever you want: the crowd decides! If you happen to suggest a Swiss entrepreneur or investor, please add him in the comments below!), Marina asked me to suggest people who are major actors of the Swiss (and European) tech scene. Here are the entrepreneurs I’ve nominated: Mehdi Aminian, …

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

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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. …

The internet of energy

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A current hot topic in the innovation world is the Internet of Things, which was in the center of LeWeb last December in Paris. Every object will be (is already) able to connect with other objects, and simplify your life! The apparition and the rapid penetration of smartphones have definitely changed how we behave. Information is now ubiquitous and we can consume everywhere, anytime. Some of you have maybe already heard about smart grids, which is according to Wikipedia, an electrical grid that uses information and communications technology to gather and act on information, such as information about the behaviors of suppliers and consumers, in an automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity. Innovation in cleantech has been discussed so much these last years, but without really showcasing how ICT can help …

What is the influence of social media on the music industry?

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This interesting topic will be discussed on 21st of January in Lausanne. The young Swiss Community Managers Association (SCMA), started in May 2010, is gathering social media enthousiasts around every 2 months around a specific area of interest. Representative of the famous Paléo festival and musicians will discuss how social network dynamics have changed their way of doing business and what they could or should do to efficiently use them. Online music platforms like MX3 (powered by the Swiss French public radio-television RTS) and repreZent (focused on Suisse Romande and specialized in the hip hop music segment) will also bring their knowledge and share their experience. I’m really looking forward to this event as it couldn’t better match with what I’m working on currently: social networks and music. As community management is still a new term for many people, I’m …

Build your Minimum Viable Product in 3 weeks… and get early funding!

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A new interesting early stage startup support program was launched a few weeks ago and will probably attract a lot of wannabe entrepreneurs: the International Create Challenge (OK, the name isn’t so sexy, but keep reading!). This challenge is taking place in September 2012 in Martigny and is started by “Idiap Research Institute” and the “Association for Interactive Multimodal Information Management”. Think on it as a Startup Weekend lasting 3 weeks (so you have to be in a good shape!), where you also have the possibility to get early stage funding at attractive conditions in the end. Focus will be mainly on the development of a Minimum Viable Product (that is, a first working prototype you can launch in order to test the market… before iterating until reaching the market fit) and has to be correlated to human-computer interaction, research …

DeinDeal.ch Launches an e-Commerce Incubator

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Adrian Locher, one of the 3 co-founders of the Swiss daily deal platform DeinDeal.ch, presented his company and announced a new incubation program during Swiss Startup Camp 2012 Saturday in Basel. Before explaining the program, let’s take a moment to learn a little about DeinDeal.ch’s journey. In January 2010, he and his co-founders were observing Groupon’s success (started just around 15 months ago in the US) and noticed that nobody was doing something similar in Switzerland. A Business Plan written, a 18m2 office rented, 2 employees hired, an investment of CHF 25’000.- and the first version of DeinDeal was launched mid-March 2010. The startup sold 95 coupons during the first 24 hours… number of coupons that are now sold in just 3 minutes (!), which is representative of the fast and amazing growth DeinDeal experienced during its 24 months of …