- 45 minutes 6 secondsBreaking the Developer Bottleneck: Ruxandra Spita & Miša Vučković (EP#583)
Timestamps:
02:57 – Why the Old Microsite Process Was Too Slow12:12 – Where AI Helps and Where It Doesn’t23:52 – What Changed After the New System37:12 – When the Website Becomes a Company Problem
This episode is sponsored by Webflow. Webflow is the agentic marketing platform for modern marketing teams, helping organizations build and scale high-performing web experiences that drive predictable growth and strengthen brand trust. To learn more or book a demo, visit www.webflow.comEpisode description:
Ruxandra Spita is Senior Specialist of Web Operations at Checkout.com, where she moved into web operations after initially joining through SEO work. Miša Vučković is Head of Growth at Flow Ninja, which had already been working with Checkout.com for several years and helped migrate its website to Webflow.
In this episode, they break down how Checkout.com changed a microsite process that had become too dependent on developers. Regional marketing teams needed personalized pages for prospects, but every new build required development time. That made the process slower than the business needed and could mean missing opportunities altogether.
Ruxandra and Miša explain how they built a reusable system that gave marketing teams much more independence without sacrificing the controls a global fintech company needs. They also discuss where AI can genuinely speed up web work, why growing companies often outgrow the way their website is managed, and when the website stops being just a marketing concern and starts affecting the wider business.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
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14 October 2026, 5:54 pm - 33 minutes 25 secondsHow Long Should Founders Keep Selling?: Jonas Wüst & Rosendo Mañas (EP#582)
Timestamps:
06:02 – When Founder-Led Sales Stops Scaling
10:53 – What Founders Should Hand Over First
19:58 – Turning Sales Into a Repeatable Process
25:16 – When It’s Time to Build a Sales Team
This episode was co-produced by Founders Hive, a community of successful startup founders, industry experts, and investors promoting entrepreneurship in Switzerland and helping early-stage business concepts get ready for seed-stage investment. Founders Hive is a partner of the Entrepreneurship Training programme, empowered by Innosuisse, the Swiss innovation agency supporting SMEs, startups, research institutions and other Swiss organizations in their research and development activities. Click here to find out more about Founders Hive, empowered by Innosuisse.
Episode description:
Rosendo Mañas is Co-Founder and Partner at Resilio, where he works directly with clients on sales and growth. Jonas Wüst is Co-Founder and CEO of Tethys Robotics, which sells complex underwater robotic systems to industrial and public-sector customers. Both still play an active role in sales, but their companies are at different stages when it comes to building a commercial team around the founders.
In this episode, they discuss the shift from founder-led sales to a more structured sales organization. Rosendo explains why having the founder in the room can still make a big difference when trust and expertise are central to the sale. Jonas shares how Tethys started handing parts of the process to a wider commercial team while keeping founders involved in strategic deals.
The conversation also looks at what founders need to understand before they can delegate sales effectively. They talk about when it makes sense to bring in more people, how to build a repeatable process, and why founders often stay involved for much longer than expected. The key takeaway is that the transition is rarely a clean handover: strong sales teams are usually built on top of what the founders have already learned themselves.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
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7 October 2026, 10:40 pm - 59 minutes 34 secondsCan Vertical Software Survive the AI Shift?: Marc Maurer, CHAPTERS Group (EP#581)
Timestamps:
10:00 – Why Vertical Market Software Works
20:29 – Cake Growers vs. Cake Dividers
33:12 – AI Is Melting the Iceberg
49:21 – What Winning Software Companies Will Do Differently
Episode description:
Marc Maurer is COO for Vertical Market Software at CHAPTERS Group, a publicly traded German holding company that invests in small and medium-sized software businesses and holds them for the long term.
In this episode, Marc explains why vertical market software can be so attractive despite operating in very small niches. He talks about businesses serving customers such as orchestras, fire departments and public authorities, and why limited competition can create highly defensible companies with loyal customers. He also explains how CHAPTERS approaches acquisitions and what changes once a company joins the group.
The conversation then turns to AI and how it could reshape the economics of software. Marc argues that software may become dramatically cheaper to build, which could weaken some of the advantages that protected vertical software companies in the past. At the same time, he sees a major opportunity for existing businesses that already have strong distribution and established customer relationships. The challenge is whether they can transform quickly enough to benefit from that position before the market changes around them.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
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30 September 2026, 5:06 pm - 46 minutes 41 secondsFrom 80,000 Scooters a Day to Building Microlino: Wim Ouboter & Oliver Ouboter, Microlino (EP#580)
Timestamps:
04:39 – 300 Factories Copying the Product
15:43 – 500 Reservations in Two Days
25:57 – Building a Company as Father and Son
37:10 – What Comes Next for Microlino
Episode description:Wim Ouboter is the founder and CEO of Microlino, the company behind the micro scooter. Oliver Ouboter is the COO and Co-Founder of Microlino. Together, they have taken a family business that started with scooters and pushed it into a much more ambitious category: building a small electric vehicle for everyday mobility.
In this episode, Wim looks back at the rise of the micro scooter and how quickly success turned into a wave of copycats. Oliver shares what it was like to grow up around the business and eventually become part of the next generation building Microlino. They also explain how the Microlino idea started, why the first prototype was nearly destroyed before launch and how 500 reservations in Geneva turned what began as a PR experiment into a real automotive project.
The conversation also covers the much harder side of the journey. Wim and Oliver talk about a failed joint venture, the decision to build their own factory and what they learned about working together as father and son. They also discuss why Microlino sits in its own category, the fight over CO₂ credits in Switzerland and where they want to take the company next.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
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23 September 2026, 6:34 pm - 45 minutes 46 secondsThe Hidden Cost of AI Context: Kamel Charaf, Compresr (EP#579)
Timestamps:
04:14 – Why Context Management Matters
10:34 – How Compresr Works
20:07 – Getting Into Y Combinator
36:03 – What People Get Wrong About AI
Episode description:
Kamel Charaf is the Co-Founder and CPO of Compresr, a company helping AI teams reduce the amount of context they send to large language models. Instead of building another AI application, Compresr sits one layer lower: it decides what information the model actually needs before the request reaches it.
In this episode, Kamel explains why context management is becoming a real infrastructure problem for AI companies. As more teams use agents, company brains and large document workflows, the amount of text sent to models keeps growing. That can make AI slower, more expensive and less reliable.
Kamel also talks about building Compresr out of the EPFL orbit, joining Y Combinator, moving between Switzerland and Silicon Valley, and learning to shift from a research mindset to a more commercial one. The conversation gets into token costs, enterprise pilots, on-premise deployment, Swiss talent, YC’s “bro style” advice and why the next layer of AI may be less flashy than the apps everyone talks about.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
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16 September 2026, 6:33 pm - 42 minutes 2 secondsShould Founders Stop Following the Plan?: Luca Bortolani & Özgür Genç (EP#578)
This episode was co-produced by Founders Hive, a community of successful startup founders, industry experts, and investors promoting entrepreneurship in Switzerland and helping early-stage business concepts get ready for seed-stage investment. Founders Hive is a partner of the Entrepreneurship Training programme, empowered by Innosuisse, the Swiss innovation agency supporting SMEs, startups, research institutions and other Swiss organizations in their research and development activities. Click here to find out more about Founders Hive, empowered by Innosuisse: https://innosuisse.founders-hive.ch/
Episode description:
Luca Bortolani is the Co-Founder and CEO of Twiliner, a startup rethinking overnight travel with lie-flat bus seats. Özgür Genç is the Co-Founder and CEO of Translation-X, a biotech company developing precision therapeutics for autism spectrum disorders. In this Opposing Views episode, they discuss a founder dilemma that sounds simple until the stakes get real: should you keep executing on the plan, or change course?
The tension looks very different in each company. For Luca, pivoting is expensive because Twiliner has to deal with hardware, operations and the reality of putting buses on the road. For Özgür, the question is shaped by science, clinical uncertainty and the responsibility of building for patients with real unmet needs. In both cases, changing direction is not something you do casually.
The conversation gets into what founders should keep fixed, what they need to stay flexible on, and how to know when new information should actually change the plan. Luca and Özgür talk about unit economics, customer willingness to pay, patient subgroups, investor expectations and the moments when execution alone is no longer enough. It is a very practical look at the difference between being persistent and being too attached to the original idea.
Timestamps:
14:07 – Sticking to the Plan vs Pivoting
21:03 – Unit Economics in Hardware
27:11 – Finding the Right Patient Group
39:32 – What Should Never Change
Don’t forget to give us a follow on Instagram, Linkedin, TikTok, and Youtube so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly giveaways or founders' dinners.9 September 2026, 9:41 pm - 56 minutes 20 secondsIs Switzerland Entering a Bigger-Round Era?: Laurent Decrue & Sophie Lamparter (EP#577)
Timestamps:
02:42 – Physical AI’s Moment
05:41 – Gravis Robotics’ CHF 200M Series A
19:39 – SWISSto12’s CHF 70M Series C
29:12 – Adaptyv Bio’s CHF 40M Series A
Episode description:
In this Swisspreneur Briefing, Sophie Lamparter, Founding Partner at Vitamin°C, and Laurent Decrue, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Holycode, join Silvan to look back at an unusually active summer for Swiss startups. After a weaker first half of the year, August brought several rounds that felt much larger than what the ecosystem is used to seeing.
The discussion starts with Gravis Robotics’ CHF 200M Series A and what it says about physical AI, ambition, and the old Swiss habit of selling too early. Sophie and Laurent also look at SWISSto12’s CHF 70M Series C and Adaptyv Bio’s CHF 40M Series A, asking what these cases reveal about deeptech, commercial traction, and the kind of capital needed to scale.
The episode then widens into a bigger question for the Swiss ecosystem. Switzerland has the talent and the technology. The challenge is whether enough capital, operator experience and ambition can come together to turn more of these companies into global champions. The conversation also touches on the future of SaaS, the rise of AI-native software, and why the next phase of startup growth may look very different from the last one.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
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7 September 2026, 10:29 pm - 47 minutes 46 secondsScaling AI Through Pharma’s Bottlenecks: Martin Keller, Acodis (EP#576)
This episode is part of the Swisspreneur Scale-up Circle content, our curated community of Swiss Series A + founders and operators where you can get operator grade insight.
Episode description:
Martin Keller is the founder and CEO of Acodis, a Swiss scale-up helping life sciences companies turn document-heavy processes into structured, usable data. What started with a mountaineering app idea and a pile of PDFs eventually became a company working with global pharma players on one of their most persistent problems: making complex documents understandable for machines.
In this Scaleup Circle episode, Martin talks about the long path from a broad data extraction idea to a much sharper focus on pharma and life sciences. He explains why regulated industries need more than a generic AI solution, how Acodis narrowed its market over time and why go-to-market scaling looks very different when sales cycles can take more than a year.
The conversation also goes into the founder side of scaling. Martin shares what he learned about timing, focus, VC money, and keeping a founding team aligned over many years.It is a clear look at what it takes to build an AI company in a market where trust shapes the pace of growth, and the path to scale is rarely as clean as it looks from the outside.
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Timestamps:
01:20 – What Acodis Does
06:35 – Finding the Pharma Niche
19:20 – Knowing Where You Are on the Journey
25:54 – Scaling Go-to-Market in Pharma
2 September 2026, 10:14 pm - 33 minutes 31 secondsGo Global or Win Local First?: Habiba Alami & Milan Kuzmanovic (EP#575)
This episode was produced by Founders Hive, a community of successful startup founders, industry experts, and investors promoting entrepreneurship in Switzerland and helping early-stage business concepts get ready for seed-stage investment. Founders Hive is a partner of the Entrepreneurship Training programme, empowered by Innosuisse, the Swiss innovation agency supporting SMEs, startups, research institutions and other Swiss organizations in their research and development activities. Click here to find out more about Founders Hive, empowered by Innosuisse.
Episode description:
Habiba Alami is the founder and CEO of HappyPot, a Swiss startup making group money collection easier. Milan Kuzmanovic is the founder and Chief AI Officer of Nextesy, an AI-native business administration platform built to reduce repetitive back-office work. In this Opposing Views episode, they discuss a question many founders face early on: should you build for global expansion from day one, or focus on becoming strong in one market first?
For Milan, the ambition was global from the beginning. The problem Nextesy tackles exists far beyond Switzerland, but the company still chose to prove itself at home first. Habiba sees it differently: the problem HappyPot solves may be global, but trust, payment habits and user behaviour change from market to market. That makes Switzerland less of a limitation and more of a demanding testing ground.
The conversation gets into the real trade-offs behind international expansion. Move too late, and the market may move without you. Move too early, and you risk spreading the company before the product is strong enough. Habiba and Milan also share what they are working on next, and what founders should ask themselves before deciding whether it is time to expand.
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Timestamps:01:18 – Global vs Local Growth
02:51 – Building With Global Ambition
11:05 – Why the Solution Has to Be Local
24:31 – The Risk of Expanding Too Late
26 August 2026, 7:09 pm - 41 minutes 1 secondBuilding on Top of the AI Giants: Jonas Kamber, Mono (EP#574)
Timestamps:
00:45 – Building Mono on Top of the AI Giants
05:23 – Is Mono Just an AI Wrapper?
09:08 – Building in Public to Build Trust
25:25 – Growing Mono Through a Viral Loop
Episode description:Jonas Kamber is the founder of Mono, an AI tool that brings different models into one place and helps users get the right model for the task. After years in product, UX and startups, including co-founding Silp, Jonas is now building Mono as a one-person company from Switzerland.
In this episode, Jonas talks about the AI wrapper debate and why he believes Mono’s real edge is not just model access, but user trust. He explains how memory across different AI tools can make the experience more useful, why accessibility matters when new models appear so quickly, and how he thinks about building in a market dominated by names like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
The conversation also gets into the founder side of building in public. Jonas shares why he is open about revenue, costs and product progress, how LinkedIn became an early distribution channel, and why he is now working on a viral loop for Mono. He also talks about bootstrapping, staying small on purpose, and why Swiss founders might benefit from being more open to business models that do not follow the usual VC playbook.
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19 August 2026, 11:24 pm - 43 minutes 43 secondsSME Succession as an Entrepreneurial Path: Lars Sager, ENEX (EP#573)
Timestamps:
00:24 – Buying a Business as a Founder Path
05:54 – Starting at One Instead of Zero
17:17 – Why Succession Deals Fall Apart
24:59 – The First 100 Days After the Deal
Episode description:Lars Sager is the co-founder of ENEX, a company helping ambitious entrepreneurs take over established SMEs and navigate the succession process. He grew up around a family business that goes back to 1882, later built and exited Contactify, and eventually found his way into one of Switzerland’s biggest entrepreneurial questions: who will take over the thousands of companies looking for a successor?
In this episode, Lars explains why starting from scratch is not the only way to become an entrepreneur. For some people, buying an existing business can be the better path. You are not beginning with a blank page. There is already a company there, with something banks can understand and a future owner can build on.
But succession is very different from the startup playbook. A new owner cannot just come in and break things. The first months are often more about earning trust than proving how much you can change. Lars also shares why bank financing is such a crucial part of the process, and how AI could make traditional SMEs more attractive for a new generation of entrepreneurs. For him, the real test is not whether the deal closes. It is whether the company is still alive and doing well ten years later.
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