Swisspreneur Show
Swisspreneur Show

Swisspreneur Show

Swisspreneur

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The Swisspreneur Show is a podcast series of in-depth, candid conversations with some of Switzerland’s most successful founders, business leaders and innovators. By getting to the heart of these leaders’ stories - their successes, their failures, their must-have advice and greatest regrets - we hope to both inspire and guide the next generation of Swiss entrepreneurs. Each episode deconstructs and showcases one person’s personal and professional background and provides advice and recommendations for existing and aspiring entrepreneurs in Switzerland.

Recent Episodes

EP #477 - Simon Michel: Swiss Politics & Running a Large Medtech Business
FEB 23, 2025
EP #477 - Simon Michel: Swiss Politics & Running a Large Medtech Business

Timestamps:

7:55 - Is Ypsomed just an insulin company?

10:12 - Selling B2B and B2C simultaneously

18:33 - Doing an IPO in 2004

20:20 - How to make your stock 7x

22:47 - Getting into regional politics


This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 14th 2025. Click ⁠here⁠ to purchase your ticket.


About Simon Michel:

Simon Michel is the CEO of Ypsomed, the leading developer and manufacturer of injection systems for self-medication. He is also the head of Swiss Startup Supporters, a new startup days initiative. Simon holds an MA in Media and Communications Management from HSG and worked for the consultancy Arthur D. Little and the telecommunications company Orange Communications SA before joining his father’s company, Ypsomed, in 2006.

In 1984, a company named Disetronic was founded by the brothers Willy and Peter Michel (Willy being Simon’s father), in Burgdorf, Switzerland. Disetronic was the first company to introduce a micro insulin pump to the medtech/pharma market. Besides its infusion systems, Disetronic also specialised in injection systems. In 2003, co-founder and main shareholder Willy Michel sold Disetronic’s infusion business to Roche and kept the injection business — that’s how Ypsomed was born.

Simon first joined Ypsomed as a Business Development Manager of Diabetes Care, and rose through the ranks until he became CEO in 2014. He credits this gradual rise, based on concrete achievements within the company, as the reason for his easy integration in its team. 

Nowadays Ypsomed focuses on the treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, polyarthritis, Alzheimer and migraines. On 22 September 2004, Ypsomed was registered on SIX Swiss Exchange under the ticket SWX:YPSN.

Simon is also affiliated with FDP (The Liberals party) and is a member of Switzerland’s National Council. When asked about Switzerland’s political strengths and weaknesses, he identified the following strengths:

  • Strong majority support: Switzerland takes an average of 6 years to get a new law approved. This makes its political system quite slow, but this slowness has the advantage of ensuring majority support for many of the laws approved.

  • Strong R&D: The Swiss government invests CHF 10B per year in education and research, out of a CHF 90B budget. This results in a robust education system.

  • Independence and neutrality, which give Switzerland international credibility.

Simon also identified 2 weaknesses in Switzerland’s political system:

  • Speed: This system is, indeed, quite slow, and unnecessarily so, in Simon’s opinion.

  • Left vs Right disagreements: Simon opposes the Swiss left’s ideas of rebuilding Switzerland as a state-run operation less reliant on private enterprise. He considers this a political weakness.


The cover portrait was edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.smartportrait.io⁠⁠⁠

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40 MIN
EP #476 - Thomas Schori: How to Recycle Plastic & Save the Oceans
FEB 19, 2025
EP #476 - Thomas Schori: How to Recycle Plastic & Save the Oceans

Timestamps:

5:15 - When tide ocean became a full-time project

14:50 - What happens to tide ocean when we run out of plastic?

28:26 - Plastic vs glass or paper recycling

32:36 - How tide ocean pays and incentives employees from developing countries

46:51 - Do startup competitions actually help startups? 


This episode was co-produced with SEF.Growth, the Swiss Economic Forum's Growth initiative to support Swiss startups and SMEs with growth plans free of charge.


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About Thomas Schori:

Thomas Schori is the co-founder and CEO of tide ocean, a startup turning 100% ocean-bound plastic into safe, useful products. Thomas worked for his family’s business, Braloba Group, before co-founding tide ocean in 2018.

Originally linked to the Swiss watch industry through its mother company, Braloba Group, tide ocean was founded when Thomas investigated the possibility of using recycled polyester yarn for watch straps. Nowadays, tide ocean has teamed up with multiple partner organizations to collect and reuse what already exists. The result is an award-winning material that comes in the form of recycled plastic pellets for plastic injection, recycled polyester yarn for textile applications, and recycled plastic filament for 3D printing.

Already when founding the company, Thomas and his team realized that their business model could not be founded solely on fixing the damage of plastic pollution, but must also strive towards preventing it. This means they not only clean oceans and rivers, but they also prevent plastic from ending up in the ocean by employing plastic collectors in developing countries (like Mexico and Thailand) and paying them by the kilogram.

This plastic is brought to tide ocean’s ecohubs, where salaried employees sort the plastic, so that it can then be shredded, washed and reshaped, resulting in a new plastic of 97% virgin quality — quality so high that consumers can’t tell the difference. These employees also get health insurance and support with language learning, IDs (which are not as common or as easy to obtain in developing countries) and education.

tide ocean’s opportunity is huge: 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, and if we recycled merely 1% of it, we would run a turnover of 300M. Not to mention, of course, the social and environmental impact. tide ocean currently counts among its customers brands like Migros and Tom Ford. They recently raised money through the Swisspreneur Syndicate.

The cover portrait was edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.smartportrait.io⁠⁠⁠

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57 MIN
EP #475 - Manuel Hartmann: Why Trust is Broken in Sales – And How to Restore It
FEB 16, 2025
EP #475 - Manuel Hartmann: Why Trust is Broken in Sales – And How to Restore It

Timestamps:

4:48 - What is ‘speed of trust’?

7:40 - Why AI is a trust-breaker

12:35 - Cultivating customer trust

23:15 - Hubspot taking market share

33:43 - Learning from other people’s mistakes


This episode was co-produced by the SalesPlaybook, DACHs' leading B2B Sales & HubSpot agency for fast-growing 7-8 figure entrepreneurs to increase pipeline, revenue & sales efficiency. 


About Manuel Hartmann:

Manuel Hartmann is the founder and CEO of SalesPlaybook, a sales agency with 7-figure annual revenue helping clients like bexio, Beekeeper, Skribble, Brame & Urban Connect. He holds an MA in Business Innovation from HSG and worked for companies such as Tesla, Accenture and Onedot before founding SalesPlaybook in 2019.

During his chat with us, Manuel discussed “speed of trust”, a concept first developed by Stephen M.R. Covey in his book of the same name. Speed of trust is the speed at which trust is established with clients, employees, and all stakeholders. Manuel applies this concept specifically to sales, where, according to him, trust is currently rather broken, due to practices like sending mass AI-written cold emails and email-bombing prospects who have not opened a salesperson’s previous emails. 

It’s easy for us to understand and recognize trust in our personal lives: we do not need a 17 page contract to move in with our best friend — we simply trust that it will work out fine. But how can we scale this, especially in a field where trust needs to be restored? Manuel recommends doing things that don’t scale: send postcards, meet people in person. He is also a fan of the 4/7/11 framework, according to which salespeople need to meet a prospect in 4 different locations, spend 7h with the prospect in total (not necessarily consecutively) and have 11 touchpoints with them (email, whatsapp, etc). This framework has been proven to work at a neurobiological level when it comes to creating trust. Finally, Manuel urges salespeople to ask for referrals. Only 10% of salespeople do so, when 90% of happy customers would gladly give a referral — so there’s an 80% gap that is ours for the taking.



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44 MIN
EP #474 - The Successful Contovista Exit & Building NORM
FEB 12, 2025
EP #474 - The Successful Contovista Exit & Building NORM

Timestamps:

7:35 - The successful Contovista exit

12:30 - Contovista investors getting a 33x return

17:17 - How do you reach product market fit?

31:05 - Why Gian started NORM

42:10 - Energy efficiency and climate change


Resources Mentioned:

The 4 Levels of PMF, First Round Capital


About Gian Reto à Porta:

Gian Reto à Porta is a serial entrepreneur and business Angel. He co-founded and successfully exited Contovista, a 2013 fintech pioneer, and nowadays is active as a co-founder and CEO atNorm, a startup which wants to help drive the decarbonization in the building sector. Gian holds a MSc in Computer Science from UZH.

Gian started Contovista in 2013, and the company quickly garnered so much success and media attention that he had to quit his corporate job. Despite its very small number of employees, Contovista began working with most of the banks in Switzerland. They were acquired by Aduno Group in 2017 for an undisclosed amount, and Contovista’s early investors received a 33x return on their investment.

After working a few years solely as a business angel, Gian descended once more into the startup trenches by founding NORM, a company which assesses the energy efficiency, CO₂ emissions and renovation costs of buildings. They saw a need for this product not only because Swiss banks will soon have to mandatorily discuss energy efficiency with clients when issuing mortgages, but also because there was no “centralized” way to improve the energy efficiency of your home outside of finding an energy consultant, who may or may not be acting in their clients’ best interest. 

The NORM co-founders, of which there are 6, started their business because they wanted to work with tech which had a positive impact on society. They’ve certainly hit the nail on the head with NORM, considering that in Europe 30-40% of all CO₂ emissions come from the building sector.


The cover portrait was edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.smartportrait.io⁠

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54 MIN
EP #473 - Alessandra Agnello: Investing In Swiss Founders Across The Globe
FEB 11, 2025
EP #473 - Alessandra Agnello: Investing In Swiss Founders Across The Globe

Timestamps:

1:54 - Doing a master’s degree in China 

17:25 - Is VC money right for every startup?

23:30 - How to get Alessandra’s attention as a startup 

33:32 - What makes Alessandra invest

42:10 - Investment red flags


This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 14th 2025. Click⁠here⁠ to purchase your ticket.


About Alessandra Agnello:

Alessandra Agnello⁠ is the principal at⁠ACE Ventures⁠, a VC fund backing early stage Swiss tech founders across the globe. She holds a MSc in Energy and Nuclear Engineering from Politecnico di Torino and worked as an oil trader in Zug and Geneva before joining ACE in 2021.

Looking back, Alessandra thinks many of the lessons she learned in oil trading have been useful to her as a VC investor, namely:

  • Having a keen understanding of risk-reward profiles;
  • Being comfortable with losing money;
  • Moving with conviction. As an oil trader or a VC, you’ve got to be confident in your bets.


During her chat with Silvan she stressed that VC money is not compatible with every company’s journey, but only with those companies who have a real shot at and are structured for achieving exponential growth, and can therefore deliver “fund returns”. Alessandra has also noticed that founders in Switzerland tend to focus too much on investors, and not enough on customers; she suggests doing the opposite, instead: delivering value, making customers happy and showing traction. If all of that is achieved, says Alessandra, investors will take it upon themselves to reach out to the founders, instead of it happening the other way around.


The cover portrait was edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.smartportrait.io⁠


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56 MIN