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 the 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.