Congratulations, Wuala, on 100 million files and on a new office!

We also moved offices this week. Luckily, we only moved one floor downstairs (this is our incubator). Still, it is always a disruptive moment for the team – packing, throwing things away and seeing the place you’ve spent so many hours totally empty; at the same time it is exciting to move in at the new place, with more or less a clean desk. Besides this and the view from your window not much changes for a web start-up. Your computer is still the same. Everything should be running the same way. Moving offices is a good moment to move on and to implement new processes, new structures and new habits. This is just psychology, this is how we act.

Wuala is doing really good, as far as I can assess. It was a nice coffee break this morning. Thanks for having me and I hope you enjoyed the Grittibänz. Have fun working in this spacious, great office. We’re staying tuned what interesting products you’ve got in your pipeline!

Pictures by Wuala, click here for more

The Awards Night will be held on July 9th in London. 400 start-ups from Europe and EMEA were voted on by users and 19 experts. Among the 400 entrants, there were several Swiss startups, namely Amazee, Doodle, NewsCred, RouteRank, Poken, Wuala, Zattoo and Kooaba as well as the Swiss Venture Fund Index Ventures and three start-ups with Swiss co-founders, precisely Amiando, Busuu, Kyte.

I was very happy to see now some many of these companies still in the running after the vote. They are represented in 6 out of 14 categories. Being among the top five and therefore nominated for the Europas is a fantastic accomplishment. Congratulations!

Here are the nominees:

Nominated for Best Application or Service

Nominated for Best Bootstrapped Startup

Nominated for Best Social Innovation

Nominated for Best Cleantech / Environmental Startup

Website: www.routerank.com

Nominated for Best European / Real World Gadget

Nominated for Best Investor

If you’re asking these questions as a father-to-be, I suppose it’s too late to pull back. As an entrepreneur-to-be your live is still a bit more maneuverable. Last Friday, I had the pleasure to speak in front of a group of exchange students about entrepreneurship and our company Cassiber. Nextech Venture, a venture fund in early-stage healthcare, and Télésonique, a Swiss telecommunication operator, presented as well. During the Q&A sessions and the subsequent panel discussion, the students’ questions remembered me of the time when we started.

I’ve put together a list of useful links and advices you might find interesting.

Let me know, if you want to read more about a specific point:

When is the right time to start?

Sometimes it’s just time to decide: “yes, we’ll do it.” However, you should be very sure of what you do before you quit your job or invest any money. My advice is: try to find a way to have a second income at the beginning. This way, you’ll have the possibility to think over your idea again and again. Talk to potential customers. Program a mock-up and organize some product testing. Work this way as long as possible. This way you’ll be asking yourself dozens of questions all day and work all night. Eventually you’ll know two things: am I made for entrepreneurship? Will they like my product (and pay for it)?

Do I really need to write a business plan?

Hell yeah! This way you’ll have to bring your thoughts down to paper. Don’t write more than 20 pages. The less pages you need to describe your business in details, the better. In addition to that, a business plan helps you to realign your short-term actions wiith your long-term strategy.

How can I find funding?

Firstly, I would talk to your friends and tell them about your idea. I guess, they will challenge it again (which is not bad). Afterwards you should ask them if they know an investor. This way, I am sure, you’ll get introduced with some businessmen who will listen to your elevator pitch. You won’t be successful the first time. But the more you pitch the better you get. Start reasearching  professional investors and contact them. You’ll most probably have to hand in a powerpoint presentation with a few slides. If you get invited, they’re interested in what you’re planning to do. So be passionate, know your figures, know your estimations and assumptions. Good luck!

How much money will I need to run my business?

There are several ways without spending too much on marketing your product. Try to spend your money wisely until you get the first revenues in. Think about it: the less money you spend and bring your product to market, the less money you will need in total (and the less shares you need to give away at a first instance). You don’t need to go global within the first months . As soon as you proof that your product is a bestseller, you’ll find enough money to expand your business for sure. Until then, keep it simple and cost-effective.

You’re ready? Hesitating?

It’s like becoming a parent: there are a lot of books you can read. You’ll talk alot to your (business) partner about it. Everybody around you gets excited. You’ll love to buy the (un)necessary stuff to start off. You can try to be as well-prepared as possible, but eventually you’ll have to give it a try.

Now, why don’t you start with this great speech of Guy Kawasaki. He’s talking about the core thoughts you should go through yourseld before starting a venture:

Some good articles:

- When is the right time to start a business?

- Quitting your job for a start-up?

And two must-reads by Guy Kawasaki:

Start-ups think differently

If a large company moves its headquarters, it evaluates different locations by their hard and soft location factors. These factors influence the companies decision-makers’ reasons why to move to a specific place. Start-ups think differently . In fact, Switzerland is one of the most competitive locations world-wide and has become the favorite country for European headquarters of multinational companies. This doesn’t mean, though, that Zurich or any other Swiss city has to be automatically as attractive for (technology) start-ups.

Minor factors: Quality of living, infrastructure and social stability are three factors, which are more important to large companies, because they plan 10 years ahead. Often, a garage start-up does not care about these factors at all. Neither needs it to look at the taxation levels, because it won’t be profitable for the first five years (let’s remain realistic). In addition to that, technology start-ups sell the longer the more online or in a niche, which forces them to sell world-wide. The location factor market size isn’t that important any more. For those who sell into a market (and therefore by its definition to a part of Europe and not to whole Europe), will have to focus on one linguistic region for the first few years. These companies will search a local cluster in a market they know best.

Important factors: quality of communications network, access to well-educated people, proximity to capital, wage costs, legal stability and the enterprise friendliness of the public administration. These factors are important, no matter what business a start-up is in.

Compared to other continents, I would say that almost every country in Europe offers the necessary level for all minor and important factors. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK have a large domestic market. Smaller countries instead have often a competitive advantage as far as the other location factors are concerned. However, as I mentioned, the soil for start-ups is fertile enough from Madrid to Helsinki. Since most entrepreneurs start a small basis first, they’ll start where they are, because they speak the local language and know local culture best. They’ll expand at a later stage. Hence, Europe won’t grow a Silicon Valley. It will get silicon freckles.

A slight chance for disproportional clusters

As the four largest countries in Europe not only have a large domestic market but also belong to a large linguistic area, they automatically grow a larger start-up cluster. Berlin and London are those capitals with the largest potential of an disproportional cluster in Europe – followed by Paris, Madrid, Warsaw, and Stockholm.

But this isn’t it. I’ve taken the most important factors out of the equation until now.

There are three key-factors that play a key-role in attracting entrepreneurs

• image of the location
• proximity of ancillary industries
• and proximity to research, education and development mechanisms

These key-factors are important for both, a large corporate and a start-up. In my view, they are crucial to the latter. If the important factors are given, the chances to grow a start-up cluster to a significant size comparable to Silicon Valley, it will need to fulfill these key-factors.

The Silicon Valley attracts geniuses, passionate people and investors. Why? Because of the famous success stories like Apple, Google, and Yahoo. Because they know that they will find like-minded people. Because they have a dream and hope to build another success story. If a small European cluster can gain a similar image, it will grow vastly. It will not reach the size of the Valley, but it can grow a high-tech cluster in a specific technological field, in which it can have a dominant influence world-wide. Success stories will help most – do something great and talk about it!

In addition to that, a specialized cluster is a multiplier itself. Other start-ups, large companies and universities nurture knowledge exchange, cross-industry ideas and people exchange. Therefore Google and Microsoft will accelerate the growth of Zurich’s cluster with their local presence of more than a thousand employees. Facebook showed how to lure great engineers away from Google.

So, will Switzerland be the next Valley?

Switzerland is developing well so far. If you look at this year’s Red Herring Europe 100 rankings, 14% of the winners are located in Switzerland (9% in the year 2008). To answer the question above, though, I would say: no, it won’t.

A lot of small tech-spots will be spread all over the continent. Market size is an advantage. Image and specialization of a cluster are however more important. Therefore, large countries like Germany, UK, and France will have a concentration of start-ups in their capitals. Other Countries like Switzerland, Estonia, Poland, and Romania will develop a specialized cluster for high-tech products or near-sourcing services. As the world flattens the longer the more, globally acting start-ups can operate from San Francisco to Shanghai. For this reason, I think each silicon freckle in Europe has now the chance to grow a significant tech-hub.

Many factors speak in favor of Switzerland to grow its tech-hub even bigger. But so do they speak for Denmark, Finland, Estonia, and many others.

Sources

IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook

Global Competitiveness Report

US Companies in Switzerland

European Headquarters in Zurich – List of Companies in Zurich

Location Zurich in Detail

Promotion Agency Greater Zurich Area