Where founders get fired up and make valuable connections

On June 8th at the SEF.Founder Conference in Interlaken, 200 entrepreneurial minds assembled. The event was characterized by participants who majorly come from start-ups of different growth stages – leaving room for sharing best practices and experiences among them. But also the supporting partners are here to join the start-up community and help with expertise that they gladly share.

An opportunity to make connections in and out of the start-up scene

One is Switzerland Global Enterprise, which has partnered with SEF to support Swiss start-ups with their internationalisation.

«We appreciate that the founder conference is combined with the Swiss economic forum as it also opens doors for start-ups to talk to an internationally active corporate world. It enables them to make connections within and outside the start-up community, which will boost scaling start-ups double», states Felicitas Gartmann, consultant for start-ups at Switzerland Global Enterprise.

Panels spreading know-how from experience

To further enhance founders' entrepreneurial knowledge, the Founder Conference covers a well-selected range of topics, such as finding a good way to fund and finance one's start-up and building and preserving a good company culture from the start until growing the team significantly. The topics were dealt with in discussion rounds in which the panelists covered the topic diversely and densely through different backgrounds, experiences, and points of view.

Founders inspiring founders

Inspiring the participants with keynotes has enriched the program additionally. Swisspreneur host Silvan Krähenbühl, moderator of the Founder Conference, interviewed Urs Hölzle, Employee #8 at Google, to find out about how Google and Hölzle's live have developed throughout the company's tremendous growth. «There is not one solution that lives forever. At a certain company size, you need to operate differently than how you did when you first started. Then you need to let go of old patterns and permit the change to evolve», Hölzle wisely said.

And Gian-Mattia Schucan, Founder & Co-CEO of FAIRTIQ, gave raw insights into what is behind the success story of a start-up. One of his key insights on his journey as a start-up founder was: «I have to be with people I care about to do something that people care about.»

A valuable place for founders of all stages

Early-stage start-up founder Oliver Kress is especially eager to meet people and learn about other companies as well as chase opportunities of getting to know potential investors. «At events like this one, I can be sure to stay in contact with a handful of supportive people beyond the event who can help me and my start-up progress,» says Kress. But even start-ups such as Yokoy that already have tremendous momentum and high-level in-house knowledge, participating in the event is worth it.

«When I attended three years ago, I was especially interested in networking with potential customers. While this is still a small part of my motivation to come here, it has also shifted towards a greater interest in taking care of the customer relationships we already have as well as seeing what ideas other young companies are bringing to the table», says Markus Sommer, Country Manager Switzerland of Yokoy.

The founder community was on fire

With this, the third edition of the SEF.Founder conference comes to an end.

«We had great discussions on stage as well as off stage. I was delighted to see how lively the community is and how connections fired up the entrepreneurial energy, » were the final words of Lukas Frösch, Director of Entrepreneurship at the Swiss Economic Forum, before opening the outdoor networking dinner.

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