entrepreneur
-
You'll fail… so what?
.
funded startups. But how many get financing? One on ten? If we take these (probably wrong) numbers as a basis to evaluate your success chance, we can assume that you have a 3-4% of beeing financially OK with the company you’re putting in so many efforts. OK, here, I’m consciously neglecting lifestyle business (you’re bulding…
-
Where to get the skills you need for your startup journey
.
Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI – the federal agency of Switzerland) has decided in 2012 to split the national training program into regional programs, supervised by CTI… As well as the academic entrepreneurial programs (venture ideas and venture challenge) are still managed by venturelab, the formerly called Venture Plan program has stopped in 2012. Thanks to the…
-
And so suddenly, your startup is “on the map”
.
This is a guest post from Christophe, CEO and co-founder of the the e-commerce startup Kireego. A couple of weeks ago, we participated to the London WebSummit, where our little venture was nominated amongst the 25 Startup Award finalists. The news came quite as a nice surprise in January, while we had still our hands…
-
London – some learnings
.
London is the older European startup hub that everybody is talking about, even if Berlin, Dublin and Stockholm are gaining a good reputation to launch businesses. As well I’ve heard and read a lot about London, I’ve never been there (except half a day as I was in language school in Brighton!) and I’ve seized the opportunity of London Web…
-
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…
-
My Top 4 VC Investors to Follow
.
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…
-
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…
-
HOW TO deal with your early stage valuation
.
There is a recurrent question coming to me for really early stage startup, who haven’t incorporated: how do we get investors without giving the majority of shares in my startup from day one? For people who already have gone through the process, or for experienced people, that seems easy and obvious (so you can skip…
-
Recruit fresh hungry talents at Start-up Day!
.
Shortage of start-up talents in Switzerland (and everywhere, maybe except in big startup hubs) is widely known. Fortunately, as the startup spirit is growing in Switzerland, high schools have understood this and several initiatives have been launched to help startups recruit among young graduates. In Lausanne, the students association «Forum EPFL» (for my readers outside…
-
17 inspiring quotes that drive my action
.
As a fanatic about startup and innovation, I read a lot. And I think I’m not the only one keeping some quotes out of books or articles that inspire you or help you build yourself. Here below are some quotes I’ve selected over time and that I find particularly good and that represent a lot…