There are a lot of startup conferences happening. From Next Berlin to Web Summit, from LeWeb to Pioneers Festival, you could spend almost all of your time at conferences. How do select the ones to attend as an entrepreneur? It’s hard, really hard. And I’d argue that if you’re an entrepreneur who want to make real business, you’d better go to conferences related to your industry, where you can find customers. But you still have to attend startup conferences to meet potential investors and partners. Most events are open to anyone, but a few are invitation-only, like DLD Conference and NOAH Conference. I’ve attended the former earlier this year (which was pretty good) and NOAH Conference is happening next week in London (13-14th of November). Having a look on the program and the list of attendees, it really seems to …
Meet 8 promising startups from Switzerland!
Swiss startup scene is lively, even if you don’t read a lot on international blogs. Maybe because a lot of startups bootstrap a long way before possibly raising a ton of cash (you know, that’s often what interest big startup blogs – a financing round is often seen as a success, but I’d argue that’s only an often necessary milestone to grow faster and which may lead to success). But the point is that there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there building interesting tech startups. On November 4th, 8 of them will have an opportunity to present their concept! I’m organizing the 2nd ICT Investors Day in Western Switzerland, at Chambre Vaudoise de Commerce et d’Industrie in Lausanne, at 17:00. After a presentation of the innovation promotion agency Innovaud, the following 8 startups (which were selected by our jury among 23 applying startups) will …
Startup competitions, don’t waste entrepreneur’s time!
If you’re a first time entrepreneur, you’re discovering new startup competitions on an almost daily basis. Some reward startups with money (sometimes great, sometimes just… ridiculous), some with a business travel and finally some with prestige. You get some press coverage, local, national or sometimes international, with every competition when you’re among the lucky nominated or awarded startups. You think that you wonderful amazing project will convince the jury, without any doubt. Yeah, you would not living your startup every minute you breath if you were not convinced you’re on something with a great business potential! But, the maths are simple. You have often a 1% chance (or even less for international competitions) of getting selected. And everyone who has ever filled an application form knows that it’s extremely time consuming. Every competition has another, different application form. Yes, everyone is reinventing …
21 ICT startups to meet on June, 18th
Lausanne is pretty well known for its Swiss Federal Institute for Technology (EPFL). And more and more for its tech startups, which find a welcoming home at Scientific Park. There are also big names of the industry to find there (Samsung, Nokia, Logitech, to name a few). On June, 18th, Lausanne will welcome for the second time a one day-event gathering selected tech startups from the Alpine region (from southern France to South Germany) and investors from around the world. The Alpine Venture Forum (formerly known as the Swiss Venture Forum) will happen at Starling Hotel, a few meter away from Lake Geneva (in matter of fact: the official name of the lake is “Lac Léman”). 49 startups from Life Sciences, to clean tech and Information technology, will present throughout the day. Here are the 20 software startups: 3BaysOver: B2B …
10 awards to fund your early stage idea
So you have an idea? And you’ve not yet incorporated your company? And you only rely on your own savings. You need some money to transform your idea on paper into a product. Where do you get money? Most of the time, you won’t find any financing with just a “paper prototype”… Except if you’ve already built successful startups who made a lot of money to your previous investors. Don’t dream, you’re not there yet! There are plenty of awards in Switzerland, but to have a chance to win, you need to be already running your business with a bit of success. Yes. But there are also a few other awards which specifically target non-incorporated projects. Here there are! Coaching organization Genilem and Yverdon-based high-school Heig-VD partnered to launch a business plan competition: prize money (in cash): CHF 20’000.00 additional …
Discover 8 web & mobile startups on 13th of May!
On Monday 13th May, the first ICT Investors Day in Romandie will take place. Kindly hosted by Debiopharm Group, the event will start at 17:00 (door opening at 16:30). Event is open to anyone interested by startups… but especially if you are investing in startups! You can register until 11th of May, so hurry up to secure your seat now! 8 web and mobile startups from Western Switzerland have just been published. The selection was hard, as 16 high quality startup have applied. The 3 main criteria applied for this event were reasonable chance to raise money; team is more or less complete; still looking for a first financing round. As always, criteria are highly subjective and the non-selected startups should no be worried: it doesn’t mean they are not good! And there will be new events to apply. Applications for an …
A new opportunity to pitch your startup in Lausanne!
In Switzerland, many people think you have (too) many opportunities to pitch your startup. A recurring comment I’ve been hearing for a while is that there are not enough valuable/promising startups… I can only disagree to this! If the condition for a valuable startup is to be enrolled in CTI Startup program or beeing a spin-off from ETHZ or EPFL, yes, it’s probably right. But in Switzerland, too much emphasis is put on startups coming from academia (that could be the topic of another post!). My opinion is that you neither need to be from a technology institute nor part of the CTI Startup program to be successful, at least when you’re moving in the web and mobile space. Here, you mostly don’t need patents to protect your innovations. What make the difference for web and mobile startup is EXECUTION …
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 …