PORTFOLIO
AN UMBRELLA ENTITY FOR INITIATIVES BENEFITING THE SWISS STARTUP AND TECHNOLOGY COMMUNITIES
MASTERCLASS: COFOUNDING AND FUNDRAISING FUNDAMENTALS
- Are you the founder of a start-up or thinking about launching one?
- Are you preparing for a funding round?
- Do you have the right cofounding team?
Startup Grind Zurich
Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting 1,000,000 entrepreneurs in over 350 cities. We nurture startup ecosystems in 105 countries through events, media, and partnerships with organizations like Google for Entrepreneurs. The cornerstone of our global community are monthly events featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Founded in Silicon Valley, Startup Grind has now hosted 5,000 fireside chats since its founding in 2010. To date, Startup Grind has helped millions of entrepreneurs find mentorship, connect to partners and hires, pursue funding, and reach new users.
Our Values
- We believe in making friends, not contacts.
- We believe in giving, not taking.
- We believe in helping others before helping yourself.
Join our monthly fireside chat: www.StartupGrind.ch
Exit Accelerator
Our mission is to foster & accelerate successful Swiss exits
Exits can benefit startups and SMEs with new resources, investors get a higher IRR, cash is liberated, often to be invested in new projects. Founders may also become investors, reinforcing the ecosystem, creating new job opportunities, and helping other startups succeed.
Liquidity:
Helping connect new investors, such as multinational corporates and private equity funds, with Swiss companies.
Awareness:
Sharing contacts, experience, and knowledge among Swiss founders, board members, and Angel investors.
Culture shift:
Exits can be a fast track for Swiss innovation to gain the world, and pave the way for more to come from here.
Living Startups
A reality film series that gives an authentic look at startup ecosystems, talks to the heroes about the challenges and successes, to promote the innovation happening outside Silicon Valley.
What does it really take to follow your dreams?
Learn from the people who are doing it!
Failcon Switzerland
There’s an old adage that says the only things that are sure in life are death and taxes, which seems particularly true in Switzerland. We’d like to add a third though: If you don’t try you can’t win. The hockey great Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.” This holds as true in life and business as it does in sport.
Great leaps in science, technology, business, and society have occurred when people dared to try something new — to take that shot. The most successful experienced feelings of failure and saw attempts at the realization of their goals thwarted. Success cannot exist without failure and those who have never lived through at least one failed attempt cannot experience the highs of true success. Like Edison striving to create the electric lightbulb – each unsuccessful result eliminates a potential option for the expected result and brings us one step closer to that which we hope to create and sometimes even gives us something quite unexpected and worth infinitely more. The only real failures in life are the chances that are not taken because of fear.