Exclusive interview : Fernand Kaufmann - Venture Kick jury member.

From your long business experience, how would you describe the entrepreneurial scene in Switzerland?
 
FK: Key to entrepreneurship is, in my eyes, an excellent science education and research structure, a society open to the outside world, a gene pool of successful small and medium companies, an adequate availability of capital and the support by public and private financial grants. Switzerland has all this and the start-up scene is active and reasonably strong. It would be desirable to provide a yet stronger education in the basics of business skills and entrepreneurship at ETH/EPFL level and allow for more early business experiments by students.
 
What would you recommend to future entrepreneurs?
 
First, have an idea and/or innovation of substance, an original idea not based on me-too thinking or with a marginal customer value improvement only. Today I see many imitative social network or e-commerce system projects with only marginal added value. Value is only created if the project shows a significant, at least 20%, benefit improvement.
 
Second, structure your project in terms of value creation opportunity (explain why your smart innovative idea or product potentially has a large market and a good margin) and value capture opportunity (explain how your team will gain and keep paying customers). Quite often the innovation is good in terms of value creation, but the start-up team cannot capture the value in the market place. Reasons can be many: its own insufficient experience, the competitive environment, too big a capital need, too long a time to market and more.
 
Third, spend a lot of time upfront getting outside validation. To succeed, even the best innovative idea needs external expert validation and the confrontation with the marketplace. So, get early customer and market validation, and then get it again and again over time. A continuously refined external perspective is key to value capture.
 
Finally and not least, present your business plan in a clear, concise, compelling and convincing manner. Base your working hypothesis of the business plan on validated external fact sources. Show passion, but no hype; show conviction, but stay humble.
 
 
What areas do you find particularly interesting as an investor?

Materials, smart devices, biotechnology products or platform technologies, biomedical devices, renewable energy and sustainability technologies. In general I believe the app and social networking software era has peaked, at least for now. Physical devices and products are the new Eldorado, again at least for now. Examples are 3-D printing, robotics, drones, connectivity devices, biomedical devices, renewable energy products and more.
 
What are the main arguments that you consider when investing?
 
I need to gain the conviction that the team has a real ability and competency to create value and to capture the value for the company. The combination of skill-set of the team AND the quality of idea-innovation need to be compelling.
 
 
What tips can you pass along for startups which are in the process of securing their financing?

Get your facts right, avoid unnecessary hype and distractions.
Remember that you are talking to experienced people who have seen and lived hundreds of business cases; so no sense in being too smart for your own good or in taking shortcuts. Also remember that their attention span can be somewhat short.
Refine your presentation, practice it, then refine it again and practice again. Keep it as clear and short and simple as possible, but prepare back-ups for potential questions.
 
 
What motivated you to become a Venture Kick jury member?
 
In my business life I had the opportunity and luck to gain a lot of different experiences around the world, in large and small companies. As a retiree I now have the time and the desire to give back to society. Venture Kick is a valuable cause and a well-structured undertaking, so it is worth the support.
 
 
What is your impression on the Venture Kick process?
 
It has the right balance between the business-plan process questions and the underlying entrepreneurship philosophy. The quality of the coaching activity however is absolutely key.
 
 
What do the startups get from such a program?
(excluding the financial aspect)
 
They get a reasoned point-of-view by experienced business people, who have seen many business successes and failures, many combinations of good/bad business plans associated with more or less skilled teams implementing them; in short, it is a valuable, diverse and knowledge based coaching and counseling structure.
 
 
In your opinion, what impact does Venture Kick have in the Swiss startup-scene?
 
Venture Kick is an important building block in the overall start-up scene. It provides a good forum for a start-up not only to gain early financial support, but also to receive early public recognition. The overall communication and outreach activity works well. And Venture Kick appears to be well wired into the overall Swiss investor, public funding and educational structure.

Many thanks !