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#scs09 Swiss startup camp Basel

I promised to take you to the Swiss startup camp in Basel this weekend.
The day kicked off with a really excellent keynote talk/interview of Suhas Gopinath CEO and president of Globals Inc a multi-million dollar international company that he started at the age of fourteen without any money in India and took global.
His truly inspirational story of how he used his pocket money to fund his first proposals in business at his local internet cafe because did not even have access to a computer had everyone enthralled.
Suhas Gopinath born in Bangalore, started his company at 14yrs old in 2000. He founded in San Jose California as the law did not allow him to set up in India. His story was trully inspirational. I asked him in question time where he got the guts from to approach and even take on big business at that young age, and he answered he had the courage of a young man who took the chance because no wasn’t an option.
Mr Gopinath was announced as the Young Global Leader for 2008-2009 by the World Economic Forum Davos. In this position he would be involved in development programs around the world, and would be studying leadership at Harvard University. He is the youngest Young Global leader in WEF history.

WATCH THE VIDEO OF HIS INTERVIEW at #scs09.

Watch FB video Startups networking at the event

Startups then gave their pitches and then presented in sessions on different subjects of which I was one, and I presented on “Personal Branding The face of your company”.
Successful Start-ups from 2008 were present Wuala, Poken and Amazee all of whom I wrote about as startups here, attended the event. Poken did great business selling their poken for eveyone to connect with. Tech Bloggers were in attendance and will no doubt blog on the event. Many Tweets were sent from the event #scs09 on Twitter.

It was a productive day with Nicolas Berg of Red Alpine who I interviewed here on wisequeen.com and other startup Angel investors presenting on what angel investors want from startups. Many meetings and much networking took place. The food and facilities were great, as was the wifi. People came from all over Switzerland, myself from Italy and some from nereby Germany. Thanks to all the sponsors and to Amazee, Sun microsystems and Amiando for the organization.
Leave a comment or ask a question.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

Wisequeen Interview with Nicolas Berg- Swiss tech Guru

Well I promised you an interview with Nicolas Berg from Redalpine venture partners who has been behind many successful startups in Switzerland and is now widening his start up net.
So here goes.

1. Where is your home town?
Gstaad, Switzerland

2. Where are you living now?
In Solothurn, Switzerland.

2b. What are you doing now?
I co-founded Redalpine Venture Partners with partners in August 2007 to invest in highly scalable European start-ups. It’s one of the few venture funds that focuses on the finance gap («valley of death») of investments in the range of €200k to €2m.

3. What were you doing before this?
Since 1984 I have been a serial entrepreneur. I initiated eight start-ups, among others the financial platform borsalino.ch in 1998 and sold it to Switzerland’s leading publisher Ringier in 2000. Since that trade-sale I spent seven years as a full-time angel investor investing in 16 start-ups such as Genevalogic or XING, the leading European platform for business networking that went public 2006.

3b. So you have been an entrepreneur from the start?
No, in between I checked out how it is to work as an employee: 1986-87 I was working as a sales coach in Norway, 1989-90 as a part-time human resources lecturer at the University of Berne, 1992-98 as an editor for a daily newspaper.

4.What did you study after school?
1980-85 I studied law and business administration in Berne. At the same time I competed in alpine ski races with the Swiss university team, travelled for three months in the USA, supported political activities of social democrats and a green party, and I started my first company that sold PCs, software and networks.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to become an architect, a painter, a writer of screenplays or a theatre director.

6. Tell me how your present company came about?
After seven years as a full time business angel I searched for a better business model to fill the European early-stage finance gap. Together with my closest co-investors we had several successful exits with half a dozen «disruptive» companies but we were stressed due to no regular income, and we often lost time for syndicating with other investors. By starting Redalpine we wanted to create a new mix by combining best practices of professional angels (speed & gut feeling) and VC funds (investment power & coherent investment process).

7. Explain Redalpine Venture Partners to me?
As serial entrepreneurs and investors Redalpine’s partners have a strong network. It provides a deal-flow of more than 1000 early-stage business plans annually. We select about 20-30 truly talented entrepreneurs with a disruptive and scalable business model that seem to fit best in our pro-active investment strategy. Then we discuss how we might achieve success together. We end up with about eight investments p.a. – some as a lead investor – negotiating deal terms & active member of the board –, some as a co-investor –leveraging our network by door opening. The investment goal is always to sell the company within two to five years and realising a two-digit valuation multiple.

7b. Who invested in Redalpine?
We are three full-time investment managers and at the same time General Partners (GP) of the fund. The GP is the biggest investor, but we also raised funds from three dozen successful entrepreneurs and financiers in six European countries. These Limited Partners add a lot of value by leveraging our capital and network.

8. What is your vision for it?
We want to be the most successful European early-stage high-tech fund by 2014. If we achieve a high profit we will also have continued to contribute to the creation of thousands of new jobs. And the disruptive technologies of our portfolio will improve the health of the over-all economy.

9. What would you like to do next?
Redalpine II. Maybe it will again finance ICT and science based companies, maybe we will go for green technologies. Personally I would like to do more sports or become what I originally wanted to be: a screenplay writer or director.

10. What does your family think of your job?
My kids (9 and 11) tell friends that Nicolas is working in the Internet and that he «buys» companies cheap and sells expensive. They like that I now am more often at home than during my days as a dotcom founder. When I say no to some of the «investments» they propose they suggest: «You better go and find a job with a real salary, man!»

11. What are you most proud of professionally?
I am most proud of a few good stories as a journalist. And I am proud of some of my start-ups that changed the way of doing things such as social networking, recruitment fairs, speed executive search, super-learning or premedical coaching. The top exit with borsalino.ch was nice as well because I suddenly had enough money to build a house and to learn the profession of a full-time venture investor.

12. Which book are you reading at the moment?
On my bedside locker you will find half a dozen Norwegian, Swedish and Danish detective novels, a biography on German-Sicilian Emperor Frederick II von Staufen (1208-1250) and a book from last year that predicts the financial crisis.

13. What other profession would you like to try.
To become a professional athlete I should be a little younger. So I have to go for actor, movie director, novel writer or painter.

Interview copyright Wisequeen
- link to it yes, Digg it here steal copy? No.

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

So what do you think ? Do the Swiss Tech start-ups rival Silicon valley? Is Switzerland the new Silicon valley? Let’s debate this with intense debate.
Tell us what you think - comment above .

Interview with Sky Sister Studio -innovative startups

I’ve been writing on startups and entrepreneurs initiatives on wise queen this year and met Nina Pilar who started her own business with Sky Sister studio. Here is my interview with her. The thing that always strikes me with interviewing startups and business owners, struck me again on this occasion.
What makes a business bloom and grow from that planted seed? Innovative thinking, not taking no for an answer, having a passion for what you invision and want and the courage and commitment to see it through. These are the qualities I always see whenever I talk to entrepreneurs. Visit Nina’s great site and be inspired to use her for your business launch and image. She’s also recently started a blog which is sure to be an interesting initative. I particularly enjoyed her post on making the recession irrelevant
Sky Sister Studio is featured as most glamourous biz on startup nation visit and vote

Interview with Nina

Where is your home town?

Raised in Newark, NJ (Brick City!!)

Where are you living now?

I recently relocated (back!) to Newark; I lived out of state for about seven years.

What were you doing before Sky Sister Studio?

I was in college, studying Airport Management and Flight Operations.

What did you study after school?

During and after college, I studied Graphic and Web Design.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I’ve always wanted to be a pilot. I would usually pair flying with other things (I want to be a pilot and a dentist, a pilot and a doctor, etc.) In the end I finally decided to become a professional pilot.

Tell me how Sky Sister Studio came about?

Sky Sister Studio was the result of a lack of jobs in the region where I studied. I’ve always liked to draw, and I learned how to apply technology to this. Over time I learned HTML and some of the higher level programming languages. I realized I couldn’t learn them all alone – the one -woman operation wasn’t working at a certain point, so I hired a team I refer to as my “SkyCrew.”

Explain Sky Sister Studio to me.

Sky Sister Studio is a full service design house that helps Innovators tell their stories. We make branding, campaigns, and other creative media simple and chic. We take your brand and make it visual. We like to take the tech and show how everyone can apply it in their business. How can authors promote their work at minimum cost and maximum effectiveness? How can a community leader stay connected to everyone, hold successful events, and communicate with as many interested people as possible? An online presence, social media skills, and beautiful and logical design are the necessary combination – and that’s what Sky Sister Studio provides.

What is your vision for Sky Sister Studio?

I would like Sky Sister Studio to solve even more problems than it currently does. At this point, the technologies available are numerous to say the least! We are working to provide new applications that solve real problems and make online communications, buying, selling, and other activities enjoyable and fast!

What would you like to do next?

In addition to growing Sky Sister Studio, I am working on the last ratings needed to fly professionally. And, I am happy to say that I’m in the process of launching a community initiative for my hometown called Let’s Barter Up (letsbarterup.org) - Newark’s premiere Green-conscious barter organization.

What does your family think of your job?

They are incredibly supportive, and they always have been. They find it ironic that I’ve had this business for over two years because growing up I completely shunned the idea of having my own business! I didn’t think it was for me!

What are you most proud of professionally?

I’m happy with where I am taking the business and the community project. I am really excited about the opportunity to help my community in ways that can provide an immediate benefit. I guess what I’m saying is that I am realizing a dream to become a social entrepreneur. It’s an awesome feeling.

Which book are you reading at the moment?

Some book about Web 2.0 project management and workflow…ooh how exciting ? I’m really more into reading articles online right now due to time constraints; my Bloglines list is incredibly long!

What other profession would you like to try?
Flying, design, and community – that sums up my interests!

Cate to comment on how you started, or how someone insprired you? leave your comment below
Wisequeen.

home office freelancing, eagle or turkey?

In these times of greater flexibility, many desire to work at home.

Some giant companies have been started in a garage somewhere like microsoft and yahoo and grew to giants, while others just make a freelancer a living, and some are simply dismal failures.

Is there a special kind of person who can work freelance from a home office without a boss cracking the whip?

Are some of us destined to always drive 50km to work and sit in an open plan office with a boss watching us from his corner glass-walled office for ever?

In previous posts I’ve interviewed hot new start ups and  I asked what you would do with 20,000 seed money to work on your own business. I’ve asked this question of many people and it’s surprising how few really have a clear vision or dream of what they want. They can tell you what they don’t want, but can’t sketch out their desired future. Can You?

Here’s a great competition you can enter. I’ll be interviewing one of the contestants here. so watch this space.

What work do you do as a freelancer? write, design, sell, manage?

How do you keep yourself motivated and on target?

Do you hang around with turkeys or eagles?

Do you use use others success to motivate you or depress you?
SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG AND GET THE LATEST CLICK HERE

Wisequeen’s Home office

Another Swiss startup, this time in Wine

Heres another intervew from Zurich startups, this time about wine tech with Fabienne Steiner of a new start up in Europe, winecellarbook.com
Now some of you may know I’m passionate about wine,and collect it. Please click on the link to go to my highly popular and rated wine blog!
Wine

Where is your home town?
Lucerne

Where are you living now?

Zurich, since 8 years, my new hometown!

What were you doing before Winebook?

I worked in Marketing and Sales for such Companies as IBM. After that I started my own start-up during the work for Blogwerk of famous Peter Hogenkamp.

What did you study after school?

Marketing

What did you want to be when you grew up?

No joke: a lawyer. I still think I would have ambitions. But would also going crazy about all the injustice in our world.

Tell me how winebook came about?

Wincellarbook was an idea to make more out of our hobby. After some time we didnt have a clue what we find in our winecellar nor what we thought about the tasted wines some time ago. Therefore we had to find a solution ! And our friends have always been asking for advice, so the solution had to be online for them to look up.

Explain winebook to me.

Write tasting notes for you and your friends and find every wine which you ever did taste. Manage your winecellar with our winecellarbook.com and find your wine in oue hugge database. More tools will be online soon.

What is your vision for Winebook?

To get a really big wine community J but really big!

What would you like to do next?

I have lots of dreams, in business as well. But first I have to bring forward winecellarbook.

What do your family think of your job?

That I am a bit crazy to give up a „secure“ job. Personally I think nothing is secure in our world an definetly not a job as an employee.

What are you most proud of professionally?

To cut of boundaries. My goal is to do what I like to do and not to service people I dont like only for money.

Which book are you reading at the moment?

The kiterunner from Khaled Hosseini. Despite working online all the time I am crazy about books since I was a child!

What other profession would you like to try?
Helping other people to be successful in their lives, however they they define successful, it can be everything.
Fabienne Steiner - winecellarbook.com

If you had 20,000 to start a new business idea

So let’s suppose you won 20,000 dollars, Euro, pounds, francs whatever you prefer. What would you do with it?

Do you have a hot business idea you think no one else is doing? What sector would that new business be in.

Just tell us the basic idea, we know you are probably scared someone will steal your idea, so don’ give us all the details just the idea. I’m just curious to see how many peoples’ dreams are on ice because of lack of seed capital.

Is it a grand idea like yattoo free TV on your computer, or laptop, a new gadget or simply to set up a home office and work freelance from home?

Write in and tell us we’d like to share your vision.

Wisequeen

moving in small spaces with vision and vivacity

big companies rethinking
moving in small spaces with vision and vivacity. This is what start ups must do, last month I had the pleasure of interviewing Tech startups at a meet up in Zurich at Techcrunch.
There were 40 startups there and some really stood out like amazee where you can manage collaborations and projects online.
Watch video interviews

Wua.la social network storage solutions, Yattoo free TV on your laptop, W2ML a simple writing platform, Poken a new social, virtual gadget, Yes.com music sharing and voting for your site, and an opportunity to win 100,000 dollars by downloading itunes.

So many brilliant tech ideas from the sharpest minds in the business.
I’ll be featuring some of their interviews here over the following weeks. So subscribe to Wise queen on the RSS feed

Here’s the Yes.com interview with

Daniel Goldscheider

Hi Daniel

Where is your home town?
I was born in Vienna, Austria

Where are you living now?
I live in Lachen, Switzerland

What did you study after school?
I left University of Economics in Vienna

What did you want to be when you grew up?
Crane Operator
Austrian Prime Minister
First directly elected President of Europe

Tell me how yes came about
YES was conceived as a simple way to get the song you hear on radio and grew into a social medium after that.

Explain yes.com and radio reborn to me?
Radio has recently celebrated its 100th birthday. It’s old and it hasn’t changed much. YES adds a number of dimensions:

- see music videos that are synchronized with what you hear
-meet other people listening to the same broadcast
-vote for songs and influence the listener charts
-buy 4 songs from iTunes and win $100,000 if you match the station’s 4Tunes of that day.

What is your vision for this company?
I believe that YES will be a leading platform to enjoy broadcasts

What would you like to do next?
Something completely different.

What do your family think of your job?
My father is an advisor to the company, my mother would prefer a less demanding job offering more security

What are you most proud of professionally?
I am not proud yet.

Which book are you reading at the moment?
“God is not great” by Christopher Hitchens

What other profession would you like to try?
Too many including architect, lawyer, politician

Thanks,good to meet you at techcrunch.
Absolutely!

I hope to see you soon again,
Daniel

Why do some startups soar and others nose dive? Do you know? Have you initiated a startup and seen it succeed or fail. We’d like to hear from you good or bad. We learn more from failure than success
sometimes.

Write to us with your story well publish your site and story if it’s useful.
Wisequeen

Wisequeen.com launches! Forthcoming attractions

So we’ve launched! and what’s in store here on Wisequeen.com?

Interviews with some of the best startups in business,
Discussions about what not to do with your money,
How would you handle this situation?
we discuss readers questions on issues as varied as disloyalty, partnerships, managing your career, networking, publishing your book, manners, online, phone and dating etiquette and how to handle your success.

Have a burning Question? Write in under comments under any name you like with an e mail address. (No foul language or content and zero spam ) and Wisequeen and associates will give you an opinion.

Have you been caught by a financial scam on the web?
Let us know and be informed on what others are doing about it.
ADDING VALUE

We show you how to be safe on line, what not to do online.

If we don’t have the answer, we’ll find it, we are well connected
Humour and wit are the currency here click here for example to get your comment heard.
We’d like to hear your opinions or experiences anytime, so send us a comment.

Our launch party is on the 1st August and we expect you here, our vistor list must show you’ve been here under comments. To be eligible for a prize.
Wisequeen

Well here are two blog-warming presents and a write up for our big launch today I received from Sean the big business writer Wisequeen, couldn’t have said it better myself, Sean. Copyright