“My strategy was just to talk with passion and coherence”: Interview with L.E.S.S. CEO Yann Tissot
18.06.2014
The jury has decided: out of 141 business plans submitted, the venture leader and venture kick winner L.E.S.S. from EPFL won the »venture» 2014 award! Above all 9 from 10 finalists were venture kick and venturelab alumni. Now we wanted to know from Yann Tissot, co-founder and CEO from L.E.S.S. how they prepare their pitch and what are their plans in China, because they will fly with the venture leaders to this rapidly growing country in September.
 L.E.S.S.: Dr. Simon Rivier (CTO), Dr. Yann Tissot (CEO)
|
 |
Yann, L.E.S.S. won the venture 2014 award. How it feels like?
“Good.”
What was the hardest part of developing your pitch?
“I guess the challenge was two-fold. First we needed to make our complicated technology and product easy to understand without making it simple and common. Today everybody is using the word 'revolutionary', such that it loses its meaning. We took the challenge not to use it, but still made the message revolutionary, indeed.
Second we hit a fabulously big and difficult market and for this aspect our only chance to get credibility was to mention the continuous feedbacks of our customers. We actually started building the pitch around these feedbacks rather that presenting a case with potential interest. By chance and choice we talked with many potential customers around the world at a very early stage such that the pitch was pretty coherent at the end.”
Did you have a pitch strategy?
“My strategy was just to talk with passion and coherence. For me pitching is to try to inspire the audience. And you can only do this if you are strongly convinced and passionate about your case.”
You are part from this year`s venture leaders China. Why did you decide to begin to explore China and take this trip?
"We are already selling products in the market of industrial vision and China, as the "workshop of the world", is huge in this market. It is important for us to understand early how to address this market from the cultural and strategy point of view. We already entered the Japanese market and we had to rapidly understand the different codes and business culture before being able to sell products inland. We believe this trip can give us keys in making successful our future market entry in China. In addition, a part of the supply chain of our target market of LCD backlighting is in China and we want to network early in this area as well to close the loop of the supply chain of our customers."
What are the next steps for your growth into China?
"We plan a market entry in China in Q2'15 with products in high volume. We hope we might speed it up thanks to the participation in the venture leader program."
You won venture kick 2012. How the program helped you?
"In this business you have to be extremely fast. Because of this, we needed as much money as possible, as fast as possible, in order to be able to stay in the game. venture kick trusted us at the very early stage, at that time we didn’t have a lot of concrete results to show, it has just been incredible support."
About L.E.S.S.
Designing flexible, low-power consumption and colorful displays comes within reach thanks to the innovative lighting technology developed by L.E.S.S. – a ultrathin, -bright, and -uniform lighting systems.
“Good.”
What was the hardest part of developing your pitch?
“I guess the challenge was two-fold. First we needed to make our complicated technology and product easy to understand without making it simple and common. Today everybody is using the word 'revolutionary', such that it loses its meaning. We took the challenge not to use it, but still made the message revolutionary, indeed.
Second we hit a fabulously big and difficult market and for this aspect our only chance to get credibility was to mention the continuous feedbacks of our customers. We actually started building the pitch around these feedbacks rather that presenting a case with potential interest. By chance and choice we talked with many potential customers around the world at a very early stage such that the pitch was pretty coherent at the end.”
Did you have a pitch strategy?
“My strategy was just to talk with passion and coherence. For me pitching is to try to inspire the audience. And you can only do this if you are strongly convinced and passionate about your case.”
You are part from this year`s venture leaders China. Why did you decide to begin to explore China and take this trip?
"We are already selling products in the market of industrial vision and China, as the "workshop of the world", is huge in this market. It is important for us to understand early how to address this market from the cultural and strategy point of view. We already entered the Japanese market and we had to rapidly understand the different codes and business culture before being able to sell products inland. We believe this trip can give us keys in making successful our future market entry in China. In addition, a part of the supply chain of our target market of LCD backlighting is in China and we want to network early in this area as well to close the loop of the supply chain of our customers."
What are the next steps for your growth into China?
"We plan a market entry in China in Q2'15 with products in high volume. We hope we might speed it up thanks to the participation in the venture leader program."
You won venture kick 2012. How the program helped you?
"In this business you have to be extremely fast. Because of this, we needed as much money as possible, as fast as possible, in order to be able to stay in the game. venture kick trusted us at the very early stage, at that time we didn’t have a lot of concrete results to show, it has just been incredible support."
About L.E.S.S.
Designing flexible, low-power consumption and colorful displays comes within reach thanks to the innovative lighting technology developed by L.E.S.S. – a ultrathin, -bright, and -uniform lighting systems.