A sector often forgotten when we talk about startup ecosystem in Switzerland is that we already have kind of a “Silicon Valley” of the watchmaking industry here. From Geneva to Basel, there are dozen of thousands people who work in this industry and we have some of the most famous brands like Rolex, Omega, Patek Philipp and hundreds of other ones. We have high-skilled people who can produce microscopic parts and make watch work. But moreover, we also have rockstar marketing people who have experience on an international level. There are a lot of amazing branding and marketing stories that everyone can learn from it. For instance, the most known is Swatch, which revolutionized the concept of the watch itself in early 80’s (that was a total disruption – an affordable watch you can change given your mood or the event …
Seduce your customers… learn how!
My fellow blogger Adelina Peltea, a young actor and supporter of the tech entrepreneurship in Europe, started some weeks ago a new book project: Customer Seduction. Based on more than 100 interviews of entrepreneurs, growth hackers and investors, the goal of the book is to provide first time founders (and also the others!) some practical customers development knowledge from people who have done it before. Book will cover most of the aspects of customer development spirit: how to handle customer feedback, the iterative process until market-fit (when your product seems ready to be launched massively), when you should try to scale (raising money to attract users before having found market fit is dangerous… and often ends up to disastrous results), how to learn from your metrics and finally, how to build a strong team to boost your growth. Wisely mixing theory and …
Swiss investors start to think mobile!
In tech industry, it’s traditional to observe massive disruptive change. Before the rise of internet, the tech cycle time was often lasting decades. Change cycle times are happening more and more often. The last one was the web 2.0, also called the social web. You also hear web 3.0 for some years. It’s not a well-defined concept, but it is mostly referring to internet of things or semantic web. The revolution is now happening on mobile. Mobile web or applications are transforming the life of people and represent many untapped opportunities. Until last year (in my opinion), most people thought before launching a product: web first, mobile second. And there are plenty of poor adaptation of the web pages on mobile. But mobile is different, you have to rework completely the User Experience of your product. And for a growing …
HOW TO contact someone you don’t know
Some of you probably know that I’m a big fan of Guy Kawasaki, one of the rock star of startup world and former Apple evangelist. I’ve spent part of my holidays this Summer reading his book ”Enchantment”. This is again a goldmine to help you in your startup journey. In this book, you’ll learn a lot about how to motivate people to join your cause, or evangelize your cause. But there are also a plenty of tips and tricks you can use directly. One of them is how to contact people you don’t know, technically named “cold call” or “cold email”. I’ll mention here the last one. Guy advises to be highly effective when you’re contacting someone who doesn’t know you, if you’d like to get a response. In 5-6 sentences, you can do it and hope to have an answer. But …
Planning my networking at Dublin Web Summit
What’s the goal of tech conferences for entrepreneurs? N-E-T-W-O-R-K-I-N-G! Some guys will tell you they just come to learn about what’s going on. But as a startup founder, can your really afford to “lose” time? And to make your attendance at a tech conference valuable, the key is preparation. For Dublin Web Summit, I was late to discover the guys I need to meet. To much going on currently and having to set priorities… that’s a pity, but that’s not the reason of this post! I’d like to explain you the networking tools proposed by DWS (yes, every good tech conference has a networking tool). Some conferences display the whole list of attendees (like LeWeb, Lift Conference, Next Berlin), but DWS took a different path. On the event website, you can download the list of exhibitors, speakers, VC, etc. But not the …
Startups on fire!
The first edition of Startup Weekend in Neuchâtel took place from Friday to Sunday at the new HE-Arc campus. Around 80 innovative guys participated to this event, 34 ideas were pitched and finally 11 teams presented their project to the public and a 7-people jury (which I had the honor to be part of). According to the organizers, Cyril & Alexis, it was an excellent edition… during which a world premiere for Startup Weekend happened: a fire alarm interrupted the 8th pitch and everyone was evacuated… Finally, the fireman discovered the source of the smoke: the preparation of the aperitif! But here are the 11 projects pitched! Berrybiz would like to develop a desktop (do web-based software, please!) application to help SME’s control their financials. It will help you manage your billing and display an intuitive dashboard. VisEar addresses the problem of …
My Top 4 VC Investors to Follow
When you’re a first-time entrepreneur, you have very few knowledge about raising money and convincing investors to bet on you. Even if you have a MBA or are graduated from a top management school, your financial skills are… not so adequate, as startup and Venture Capital are really different. Fortunately, there is a lot of blogs online to educate yourself quickly and hardcover books on the topic, like for instance “Venture Deals: be smarter than your lawyer and your Venture Capitalist” (which is a MUST-READ for everyone involved in a startup business – I’ve read it during Summer!). But you can also follow some prominent investors on twitter, mostly US-based (I don’t know many European investors who blog so regularly, but I’d be please to discover – please comment below if you have some): Fred Wilson is a seasoned Venture …
Last days to register for CHF 100’000.-!
Yearly since 1987, the W.A. De Vigier foundation awards 5 innovative startup companies with CHF 100’000.00 (à fonds perdus). Which is really not bad for a startup! You can read more about the 2012 winners here. William A. de Vigier was a successful Swiss entrepreneur, who has transformed the building industry. He started the foundation with one simple idea in mind: give back and help young entrepreneurs to realize their dream. “Never spend seed money – spend income”. W.A. De Vigier Wise quote still relevant… that entrepreneurs have to keep in mind. Investors’ money is not a goal, it’s a mean… to help you try to seize a market opportunity. For last year edition, 202 startups registered, with a dominance of ICT companies (36%), followed by biotech&medtech (32%). Average age of applicants was 35 years, with a massive proportion of …