Andy Kollegger, Head of Institutional and Multinational Banking, opened the event in the elegant halls at UBS headquarters in Zurich, showing a strong conviction for the importance of support and collaboration with Swiss start-ups. "Start-ups are our future, and investing in the future is certainly a good thing to do. Also, working with start-ups keeps us agile and young." His number one piece of advice to start-ups is: "Don't shy away from corporates because of their size and complexity. Instead, build personal relationships with the people working there over a longer period."

Building business relationships is like dating

Johannes Tiefentaler, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at neustark, did that when starting conversations with Ueli Bötschi from Holcim. "It's like dating in Switzerland. You meet over a longer time to get a concise picture of your counterpart", Johannes describes it.

And just like in dating, Ueli got frustrated when he first got a "no" from Johannes. After proceeding with the conversations, even a second "no" followed, perfectly demonstrating that neustark was confident enough only to consider such collaboration if trust, shared goals, and mutual benefits were crystal clear. "I needed to be sure that we have a shared vision and people who want to drive this," Johannes says.

Meanwhile, Holcim was committed to fighting for this partnership. "For us, it was clear that it felt good to partner up with neustark and that Holcim would do a strategic investment, too. We were convinced that we would bring much more benefits than issues. When the first answer was a no and the second one was a very clear no, we had to think of how to make that no to a yes." This could be solved by sitting together and working on a roadmap to 2030 that would enable high transparency and well-aligned goals and eventually turn the no into a yes.

Key takeaways for start-ups and corporates who are considering a collaboration

Julia Ehrler from Holcim MAQER Ventures and Christian Mähr from UBS Switzerland joined Johannes and Ueli on the panel. Many valuable tips and insights were shared:

Start-ups collaborating with an corporate benefit from entering markets faster due to the sites and networks the corporate can share.
Start-ups need to fulfill the high-quality expectations of corporate clients. This, however, helps the start-up accelerate its learning curve on the product development side, and therefore, it is more of a benefit than a downside.
When a start-up builds a partnership with a corporate, it's important to not just have one contact but invest time in multiple relations. This reduces the risk of losing progress if that person leaves the company.
Corporates should have someone on their side who can help the start-up to maneuver through the corporate environment.
Make sure that the interests align. Start-ups need to know what they want to get out of the collaborations and what their interest is. Be clear on that, and don't be shy.

SEF.Growth Event with UBS

Strategic Partnerships: Unlocking Potential Through Start-up-Corporate Collaboration