memonicOfficial Blog

The Netzwoche, a Swiss ICT trade journal, asks how the current economic crisis impacts startups in Switzerland. Conclusion: If you have good idea and a solid business case, there is always a glimmer of hope and a chance to succeed, even in difficult market environments.

We couldn’t agree more!

Article as attachement (pdf, 180KB)

Yesterday we launched a limited technical test version for subscribers of our newsletter (1).

Just a bit over ten weeks after our start, we are proud to ship what we call “Easy Clip” tool. It is just only the first part of our three-step vision Clip-Organize-Share.

The Easy-Clip tool, allows you to mark, copy and store parts of any webpage for later re-use and sharing.

The goal of this limited test is early bird user feedback. With vigour we work on our next goal: The visual user interface, steps 2 & 3 of our vision.

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(1) Get in contact with us if you feel like testing, too: info (at) nektoon.net

In sports there are a number of exceptional talents who win big early. Switzerland is proud to have after a number of dire years again ski super stars in the beautiful and gifted Lara Gut or the brilliant Carlo Janka. But the season’s dominators are trusted names such as Aksel Lund Svindal, Didier Cuche, Didier Defago or Benjamin Raich. They’re part of the ski world cup for a number of years already.

This weekend was the Alpine World Cup final in Are. Aksel Svindal won the big crystal globe. It’s Aksel’s second globe after 2007. And he’s a top league skier since at least the 2002 junior World Cup Championships.

The small crystal globe for best Giant Slalom skier went to Didier Cuche. He’s in the World Cup for even longer since his phenomenal win of the Hahnenkamm downhill race in Kitzbühl back in 1998 (he won again in 2008).

(2)

Watching the races I was reminded of some comments during the World Championship in Val d’Isère. Time and time again the commentators spoke of the missing championship experience of the younger athletes, implying somehow that this lack of experience is negatively correlated with their chances to win big.

Why?

It might be pressure; knowing this is the World Championships, so Mom, Dad, the family and the entire home town watching, it might be a slightly different race procedure, and so on. And suddenly the cool from previous races is gone, giving way to nervousness. A little glitch here and 10 hundredths of a second are gone, so is a medal rank.

Sure also experienced athletes produce such hiccups. But less. Experience matters.

Experience is not a given. It’s rather something like time times exposure.

E = T*Ex

Experience equals Time multiplied with Exposure (1).

Some say, and I agree, that you need to spend 10’000 hours to become really good at something. Yet, spending 10’000 hours training the Hahnenkamm downhill race will not guarantee you a win, probably not even a rank in the top 10. The race day is something quite different. So there is a second element: Exposure. Exposure to the actual race atmosphere. You need that feel of the heartbeat accelerating, the crowds cheering, the lore of the real thing. Irreplaceable.

The same applies when building a business.

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(1) The equation has some particular specifics. The equation is not a one off. It’s the sum of what you’ve done so far. Early exposure will increase your experience and will give you an edge. If you are late to the game you’ll have a hard time unless you manage a lot of exposure in a relatively short time. A lot of exposure to different situations over a (hopefully) compact span of life will prepare you well for your challenge.

(2) (c) & Source: Flickr / Blog sportif française

When founding a company in these dire times a lot of people unbeknownst to you congratulate you. They congratulate you on our audacity, on our defiance; they wish us all the best for our challenge and pot loads of money earned. Of the later all of the correspondents of course want a share. They offer services ranging from office products, to rubber stamps, to lunch checks, to insurance policies, to letterhead paper, to marking equipment, to “free” consulting, to… name it.

For instance we received four different offers from for different field offices from the same insurance company we took out insurance a few days earlier (Folks, you have a CRM issue here).

The worst, however, are all these non-official commercial registries. We received about a half dozen letters all posing as official register of some sorts with a pay-in slip attached reading at least CHF 593.50 [1, 2, 3]. It’s a total fake. There is just one official register in Switzerland for each canton. So these guys basically count on unsuspecting clerical employees to clear the bill and pay. Cost of producing the bill (including postage) they sent us: max CHF 1.10 (1)

So basically they need every 500th company to pay to produce a healthy profit. Same business model as those spammers. Just the delivery method differs: It’s snail mail.

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(Okay there is this one company that copied our entry in the official Swiss publication (SHAB) and glued it to the bill. Folks, you have an efficiency issue here.)

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As a sidekick to our current gig, we perform a bit of consulting. A fiddly way to preserve cash (What do I do at 8am? Work for my client thus creating a chargeable hour thus neglecting the actual reason of being of our company, or work full speed for the glory of our startup and burning cash. A wicked choice at times.)

The other day somebody contacted me to get a bit of advice for her new startup idea (anyone else interested in no-nonsense, hands on counsel, please contact us at “info at nektoon dot net”). It’s something about – ouch, I am not allowed to tell you. As a matter of fact she required me to sign a weird legal document lovingly referred to as Non-Disclosure Document (NDA) first.

The basic mechanism is easy: Before talking about your grandiose invention with somebody else, you let that party sign a document stating that all discussions and materials disclosed during those discussions remain confidential under the threat of heavy fines.

In principle a fine idea. In the context of a startup there are just a number of little snags.

For starters: Basically you want somebody to sign a NDA who you don’t completely trust. Well if you don’t trust somebody, then don’t do business with that somebody.

A NDA also rests on the assumption that the opposite party has droves of idling people hanging around and waiting for the moment that you disclose your brilliant idea to steal it and implement it on their own. Well that is not the case. The other company is either in an adjacent or tertiary business. They have other things to do and no company can afford hordes of clever people on the beach. And lastly: If you go straight to your competitor – your fault.

Plus, as a startup you anyway don’t have the means to enforce a NDA and pursue a breach of contract. You simply don’t want to invest the time and the money litigation would require.

Sure, large corporations fancy these NDAs but mostly for altogether other reasons: Some middle manager wants to cover his ass.

Clearly, there are instances where you should make your opposite party sign a NDA. In the moment you talk to any banker or lawyer. They are used to this paperwork and should you forfeit your chance of a bit of small talk over the signing of the NDA, you will miss out later. The others will definitely miss something and make you feel it.

Talking of banks: A couple of years ago we developed Website solutions for a number of large banks all sitting atop each other at a quite small place. Each made us sign such a NDA with lots of penalty clauses included if we ever talked to one of their competitors about that bank’s particular setting. Each of the banks asked us immediately after signing what we can tell them about internal matters at the other banks…

In the end, protective paranoia is not the answer. A reputation built on trust and hard work protects your idea better. Getting a successful product to market should give you all the profits you need to defend yourself via litigation if it should be necessary. If it won’t, you are probably proceeding with the wrong product idea.