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Life in general and titles of blog posts in particular should be positive. But let’s have an honest look at how bad ideas are separated from successful ideas in your portfolio. Or, in other words, let's talk about the importance of validation to reduce risk in corporate innovation. We all agree that disruptive innovation starts with the user’s needs and benefits. But at the same time, we all love our ideas, and we don’t want to fail. Thus, starting an innovation journey with an idea I don’t want to let die may be successful. But usually, it’s the wrong approach. Because we can't know in advance what will succeed, at Kickstart we are strong believers of fact-based validation and rigid innovation processes. Let’s take a hypothetical innovation project where financial projections look reasonable, traction seems plausible, and the timeline looks achievable. But the project doesn’t move a lot, nothing is proven, and the inventors skillfully argue again and again, how they will pivot to success. How should I manage this? Let’s ask Dave Hengartner, Co-Founder and CEO of rready, a company that specializes in scaling corporate innovation processes. Question Corporate innovation needs freedom and rigid processes at the same time. How do you productively establish this? Answer We provide every innovator, with an idea (or a problem) in mind, a controlled space of freedom. This means the innovation leader in the company knows exactly how many ideas are currently being validated. They get visibility to find relevant experts and potential sponsors. Additionally, the innovator is given time and support in a predefined setup. Only limited support by a coach is given in this very first phase due to the high insecurity of the raw idea. The goal is to prove that this idea is feasible, desirable, viable, and has a strategic fit for the company. During this process the innovator is supported by online tutorials, methodology, (s)he can reach out to peers, and book service from different providers. After the predefined timeframe is over, the innovator needs to present if and how (s)he wants to move onward toward a proof-of-concept or what has been learned and why (s)he doesn’t want to move onwards – a learning pitch is equally important than a pitch targeted to get funding. Question Is this agnostic to the sector the company works in? Answer Yes, in the last years, we’ve been working with companies from insurance such as CSS, to banking (LGT, VZ), to industrial companies such as ZF, CLAAS, and Hekatron, and many more industries. Naturally, the program needs to be adjusted to the innovation strategy and setup of the company. But the gamified way of our methodology, KICKBOX, turns out to be a strength in any case leading to tangible results such as cost-savings, new products, or new services. Question I mentioned a hypothetical project type we call “Zombies”: Everything looks sort of okay, but success doesn’t lurk around the corner. How should a company detect and treat them? Answer In my past years, I observed projects backed by a solid finance base and a strong team. In the beginning, however, the rigid process of structurally validating the hypothesis is essential. Only after having validated the most critical assumptions, a bigger team should be staffed and money be spent. This is exactly the value of the Kickstart program: The teams learn how to check on their main hypothesis in a lean and efficient way and during this process, are de-risking their idea. On our platform, we measure the ‘time-to-retire’ ideas since keeping resources on the ‘wrong’ ideas is costly. Question And what’s the role of the project portfolio versus a single project? Answer If a corporation is focusing only on 2-3 innovation projects per year, then the approach has similarities with a casino. If you pick the team wrongly or you have the wrong gut feeling about those raw ideas, it is hard to get to a success case. That is why we have built a scalable way to test simultaneously many ideas within the company in a data-driven way. Approaching corporate innovation that way, you will get to a predictable innovation funnel and can report a project portfolio: How many projects are running with which degree of certainty and revenue/ cost-saving potential. If you do that for several years, you can calculate how many ideas need to be sourced and validated to be confident enough to hit the desired outcome in implemented projects. In my experience, if you validate 100 raw ideas, around 15-20 make it to a pilot/ Proof-of-concept phase and only 3-5 will ultimately be implemented. Question If you could give one single advice. What’s the best first step to accelerate corporate innovation? Answer Just get started! Too many companies spend too long on designing the perfect stage-gate process. Eventually, the process is only meant for the purpose. We learned during the years, that it does not matter too much if there are two or three gates. More importantly, have a holistic concept in place starting with creative marketing tactics to source ideas, an engaging and gamified way to let employees validate their ideas, combine a strong methodology with lean coaching, and have a platform to create visibility and measurability. Thank you Dave Hengartner for your insights and our partnership. PS: If you want to read about our most recent alumni of rready/Kickstart. Here you go: TrustRelay.

Das zentrale Thema des Jahresanlasses 2023 von Greater Zurich Area ist: Zukunftsfähigkeit durch Nachhaltigkeit. Ich durfte diesen mit einer Einleitung zu Zirkulärwirtschaft eröffnen. Im Kern geht es dabei, natürliche Ressourcen, welche zur Erbringung einer Dienstleistung oder zur Herstellung eines Produktes benötigt werden, zu schonen. Dies, indem sie in geringerer Menge eingesetzt werden (use less), länger genutzt werden (use longer), durch nachhaltigere Alternativen ersetzt (make clean) oder mehrfach genutzt werden (use again). Ergebnis davon ist eine geringere ökologische Belastung unseres Lebensraums oder -- in markigen Worten -- die Entwicklung unserer Gesellschaft von take/make/waste (lineare Wirtschaft) zu use/make/return (zirkuläre Wirtschaft). Grundlage für meine Aussagen ist die Studie «Circularity Gap Report Switzerland 2023», der feststellt, dass aktuell nur 6,9% unserer Wirtschaft zirkulär ausgestaltet ist. Unsere Ambition müsste doch deutlich höher sein?! Spannend an dem Ansatz ist, dass diese nachhaltigere Denkweise zahlreiche Chance für lokal angesiedelte Unternehmen und die Schweiz als "Ort für Qualität" bietet. Beispielsweise in der Form von Reparaturleistungen, Mietmodellen oder der Rücknahme eigener Produkte. Dabei geht es nicht nur um die Entwicklung des Geschäftsmodells aber auch im Ausbau der Kundenkontakte und damit hoffentlich auch der Loyalität der Kunden. Wer mehr dazu lesen will, dem empfehle ich die Ellen MacArthur Foundation und die Website von Circular Economy. Meine Präsentation gibt es hier zum Download:

Anne-Barbara Luft hat es in ihrem, in der Bilanz publizierten Artikel, exzellent auf den Punkt gebracht: Speeddating fürs Business. Unsere Arbeit – die Beschleunigung der Innovation bei Organisationen – basiert auf einer zentralen Überzeugung, dass Innovation im Alleingang nicht möglich ist. Deshalb bringen wir Firmen, Stiftungen und die öffentliche Hand mit erfolgversprechenden Start-ups zusammen. Drei Fallbeispiele werden in dem Artikel gezeigt: Die Zusammenarbeit von Health Yourself mit Sanitas, Kern Tech mit Coop (Case Study bei Coop) und Decentric mit Swisscom, Credit Suisse, Postfinance, Mobiliar und der Stadt Zürich. Hier runterladen und lesen: Wie Kickstart Firmen und Start-ups zusammenbringt [Bilanz 07-2023]:

MEDIA RELEASE 41 startups selected from over 1000 applications from 62 countries for 2023 innovation program One-third of the startups are from Switzerland Solutions connected to the circular economy increased to 41% this year Future topics: Digital workforce, renewable energy in underground spaces, marbled meat substitutes, cocoa-free chocolate, and quantum-based cybersecurity Zurich, 27 July 2023 – Following a marathon of pitches, 41 startups from 13 countries, including Germany, Austria, Singapore, USA, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Israel, Spain, and Estonia were selected for the 8th Kickstart Innovation program. Over 170 experts participated as jurors to select these startups out of 1000 applications coming from more than 60 countries in just six weeks.. These 41 finalists will work in Switzerland with companies, organizations, cities, foundations, and universities over the 11 week program to further advance partnerships and deep-tech and sustainable innovation. "A clearly emerging trend is the application of artificial intelligence and circular economy as a competitive advantage," explains Katka Letzing, CEO and Co-Founder of Kickstart, one of the largest open innovation platforms in Europe. "This includes, for example, the digital account manager from Swiss startup Aixa or Kloten-based Calvin Risk with the first platform for AI governance, risk management, and compliance." Leading organizations and companies such as AXA, Canton de Vaud, City of Zurich, Coop, la Mobilière, PostFinance, Sanitas, CSEM, MSD and others have been engaging in the Kickstart program to identify new trends and developments with a focus on technological innovation and the circular economy. "While established companies have many advantages over startups in terms of customer and process structure, there is also a risk of sleeping through new trends using AI and other technologies." reports Ralph Rimet, Head of strategic projects and innovation at la Mobiliére. "That's why we're joining the Kickstart program again this year to enter into collaborative innovation partnerships and commercial deals." Since 2016, Kickstart has supported more than 400 startups and delivered more than 270 deals in the form of pilots and commercial projects from over 80 countries, raising more than CHF 2.5 billion in investment to date, including Planted, Neustark, Unsupervised and AAAcell. Energy efficiency dominates Smart Cities In five verticals (New Work & Learning, Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail, Health & Wellbeing and Smart Cities), the startups presented their business models and ideas for the future. In the Food & Retail area, many ideas came from Israel, Portugal and Estonia, among others. The Swiss company Advection Engineering is working on techniques to produce whole, marbled meat substitutes for today's generation. The British company Nukoko is producing chocolate without cocoa to be more environmentally friendly and less harmful to health. With the increasing energy prices and the energy crisis, projects in the field of smart cities are focusing on energy efficiency. Enerdrape from Lausanne, for example, transforms underground spaces such as tunnels and underground garages into renewable energy sources for the heating and cooling needs of buildings. Urbio is a generative AI design software that accelerates the decarbonization of buildings. 20-40% of energy in buildings can be saved by creating connections through smart thermostats and incorporating learning information about the thermal behavior of buildings. In addition, AI is the dominant technology in New Work & Learning as well as in Health & Wellbeing solutions. The Austrian start-up Ada Growth supports companies in attracting, retaining and promoting female talent. For this purpose, a professional learning tool was developed specifically for women. Traditional corporate learning tools such as conferences and volume-oriented LMS offerings lack personalization. The future of learning lies in flexible, individualized microlearning apps that use an AI content production cycle to quickly scale to each member of the organization. For more information, please contact: press@kickstart-innovation.com About Kickstart Kickstart is one of Europe's largest zero equity, open innovation platforms. Our mission is to build innovation ecosystems with purpose, by fast-forwarding innovation. We bring together public and private organizations, startups, investors and experts, with the shared ambition to deliver next-generation products and services and have a meaningful impact at scale. Each year, Kickstart engages 100 entrepreneurs to collaborate with key players for proofs of concept, pilot and commercial projects and other innovation partnerships. Additionally, through the intrapreneurship program Kickstart helps established organizations to promote and accelerate internal innovation. Kickstart is a spin-off of Impact Hub Zurich and was launched in 2015 by digitalswitzerland. Since 2020, Kickstart has partnered with Impact Hub Switzerland, to launch the circular economy initiative. In 2023, Kickstart runs five verticals: New Work & Learning, Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail, Health & Wellbeing and Smart Cities together with partner organizations across industries: AXA, Coop, Swisscom, La Mobilière, PostFinance, ETH Zürich,CSEM, City of Zurich,Empa NEST, Sanitas, University Hospital Zurich,Panter, SATW, Impact Hub Switzerland, Canton de Vaud, Santenext, Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE, Swiss Healthcare Startups, Growpal, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Ringier,Google for Startups, MLL, South Pole, WECOCO, Day8, HealthTech Cluster Switzerland, DealStation, MAVA, SwissLEAP, EPFL,IMD, gfm, START Global and more.

Welcome to the first of our 5-part series on why you should choose Switzerland as a business location for your scale-up. In partnership with Switzerland Global Enterprise. Have you ever wondered how Switzerland’s pragmatic collaboration between science and industry can help your company expedite the journey of your products to market? In Switzerland, companies collaborate closely with research institutes and universities to address practical problems and innovate new products or processes. This mutual partnership benefits both sides, allowing research institutes to access the latest technologies and real-world challenges, leading to more relevant and impactful research programs. Such cooperation also ensures that research aligns with industry needs and facilitates practical applications of new discoveries. With this approach to R&D, Switzerland provides a fertile ground for innovation and growth – and your scale-up can benefit from it. Case study: Open Innovation at Switzerland Innovation Park by Japanese company Yokogawa Electric Corporation Yokogawa Electric Corporation, a leading Japanese company specializing in Industrial Automation and Test and Measurement solutions, made a strategic decision to expand its operations into the Life Sciences industry. Yokogawa evaluated potential locations for their new subsidiaries and found that Switzerland's approach to open innovation, its ability to facilitate collaborations with innovation parks, and its fast-to-market approach offered precisely what they sought. As a result, Yokogawa chose Switzerland as the best place to establish their new entity in the Life Sciences sector. Ready to internationalize your business? Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) is a partner of Kickstart Innovation. We help you in evaluating Switzerland for your business venture. We provide legal, tax, and administrative benchmarking data, organize site visits for your team to experience Switzerland for yourself, and facilitate contacts with industry-specific ecosystem players, and answer all your questions about Switzerland as a business location – free of charge! Contact SG-E at invest@s-ge.com. To learn more about Switzerland as a business location, visit Technology location| S-GE.

If you are looking for a way to source ideas, innovative people and build a community of innovators, this post is for you. Think about a “festival of ideas” that is organized around your topics and your people: Fast-paced, fun, and extremely productive. A hackathon allows for people from different backgrounds within your organization with a sense of enterprise to come together. Depending on your goals, a hackathon also allows for public participation which allows you to tap into open innovation and let you build a valuable community. The structure of a hackathon is quickly described since its execution is highly structured. The entry point (Pre-Hackathon or Outreach) is critical because you build a perception of the event and that’s when you motivate to right people to join. After the final pitches, the Hackathon seems finished, but in fact, the project starts. You might ask which project? The project of making the ideas fly (capturing value) and of building an innovators community. Back to why we love hackathons? The power of constraints All the tasks during a hackathon are time-boxed and fast-paced. In the beginning, this seems like a limitation, but it proves itself as an innovation accelerator to work within a very specific time frame with the resources that they have on hand. It not just fights procrastination and prevents multitasking, but it increases productivity by creating a contest. People quickly learn how much can be achieved in a short time and they are very likely to take this back to their daily lives and eliminates overhead. Identifying the people The people that apply to your hackathon are just the entrepreneurial people you were looking for. They don’t just identify themselves, but during the hackathon, you have a lot of opportunities to establish productive relationships. In addition, people with different backgrounds and from different organizational units gather around ideas in a working setting. This is the most motivating way to tear down organizational silos! Creating economic value The process guarantees to either surface ideas or makes them fail after a first validation. Both outcomes create economic value. Either by acceleration or by pivoting (or shutdown) of initiatives that fail during validation. The key to success is how you interact with the successful teams after the hackathon. In addition, most of the participants and ideas go back to their workplace empowered and thinking differently about problems and processes in their organization . Allow for open innovation I have to admit that we are very committed to open innovation (if you feel like reading our publications about it, click here). An impressive proof of its value was in the early months of the Covid-19 crisis when companies began to come together to work openly at an unprecedented level. The setup of your hackathon allows you to engage with different types of partners and selectively acquire ideas and resources from the external environment. It allows to widen the space for value creation, add complementary skills and unlock potential in relationships. So what are you waiting for 😉.

A corporate hackathon is a great instrument to develop an internal innovator’s community, source ideas and pass the first validation steps. Looking back at such events from 30 to more than 30’000 participants, we know how they boost motivation and we have great stories to tell. But let me talk about the tricky moment after the hackathon when your employees go back to their everyday work routine. Your goals? What were your goals in the first place? Very likely you wanted to accelerate innovation by sourcing internal ideas and to identify a community of people that are like-minded. Maybe you also have invited external contributors to capture value from them using an open innovation approach. So far so good: Ideas and community. Capturing value from ideas As we are all aware that it’s not about the idea itself, but about its execution. Successful startups are built around people and purpose, and ideas may pivot. The same applies to corporate innovation. Or in other words, the journey of the winning teams starts at the final pitch of the hackathon. It’s a beginning, but not an end. So here are my thoughts about how to proceed with the selected ideas: The (diverse) team is more important than the idea. Allow them to work together as a group independently of your organizational structure. The journey from idea to value is the magic sauce. Allocate a budget, that allows the people to work on it over a longer time. Many great ideas disrupt the existing structures. Be sure that an executive sponsor mentors the team in order to responsibly break existing rules. Define and enforce rigorous milestones. Don’t nourish “zombie projects”, but keep a sharp focus on the constant delivery of customer value. Building an innovator community As already mentioned, one of your goals was very likely to gather people, and the success of the hackathon was rooted in the exchange between them. Why not keep this up and build on it? Plan for an innovators community together with the initial hackathon, not just as a post-event task. Make the people (internal and external) your innovation ambassadors. They don’t expect much more than opportunities to exchange and contribute. Be attentive to cultural artifacts: Hackathons are interdisciplinary, communicative and fast-paced. This is what the community experienced and thus expects in the following time. A community tool might help you to keep up the process and (even more importantly): The wrong tool will kill the spirit you’ve just won during the hackathon. And your experiences? Because open innovation processes and events are our daily job, we are very interested in hearing your opinion. Or do you want to write a guest post? Please drop a message at academy@kickstart-innovation.com.

To inaugurate H18–Beaulieu Circulaire, Impact Hub Lausanne organized a week full of events. The new space is not just their “nouvelle maison d’Impact Hub Lausanne”, but also the first innovation space dedicated to Circular Economy and Inclusion in Switzerland. A fascinating location in the beautiful town of Lausanne. We attended the first day packed with pitches of the 23 startups from the Circular Economy Transition Incubator cohort 2023 followed by the official opening ceremony. The range of the pitches was extremely broad. From “simple” solutions that share unused materials in your cellar (Circular Lugano) or the reuse of children’s toys (Circle Toys) to optimizing the recycling process of car wrecks (Grensol) or a cement floor replacement made out of wood and soil (rematter). Just lay back and watch the pitches... Any personal favorite? Hard to say but producing Vodka (Ampuja) or Ice Cream from food waste (Glace Löööv) is hard to refuse – isn’t it? The second part of the day was dedicated to welcoming notes including Rebecca Ruiz (member of the council of state in the canton of Vaud), Raphael Conz (Head of Economic Promotion and Innovation in the canton of Vaud), Pierre-Antoine Hildbrand (city councilor of Lausanne) and Nicolas Gasztonyi (Managing Director Beaulieu SA). In addition, two round tables were held. One was about the challenges to transition towards a circular and sustainable economy and the second was about new participatory models to accelerate the transition including Kickstart Innovation. One takeaway from the panels was the closing wish of Julien Bucher: Find ways to include Swiss SMEs on this journey. Only in the canton de Vaud, there is a roughly estimated number of about 30’000 SMEs. Fifteen of which (!) participate in this years Environmental Action program. Way to go! Thank you ImpactHub for organizing such a day and such a space!

8th Kickstart innovation program launched with a continued focus on sustainability and circular economy with over 40 public and private players in Switzerland Press Release Over 100 innovation challenges were identified by corporates and public institutions Renowned companies invest in the future with a focus on the circular economy The application phase for startups begins today Zurich, 4th April, 2023 – “We have been a Global Partner of Kickstart since its founding in 2016. Together with our in-house experts, Kickstart defines relevant topics and looks for promising startups. We are able to promote open innovation, connect with startups, and enable new trends in the marketplace and contribute to Deeptech Nation as well as sustainability-driven solutions." explains Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Swisscom. Also participating in Kickstart's 8th innovation program with the aim of developing sustainable and innovative solutions within society are AXA, Canton de Vaud, City of Zurich, Coop, la Mobilière, PostFinance, Sanitas, CSEM and MSD. Over the past years, Kickstart has been able to attract some of the world's best startups, including well-known names such as Planted, Neustark, Unsupervised and AAAcell. Since 2016, Kickstart has supported over 400 startups from more than 80 countries, facilitating over 270 deals in the form of collaborations. To date, investments of more than CHF 2 billion have been raised in the process. "The program continues to grow in importance not only from an innovation perspective, but also in sustainability and circular economy," explains Katka Letzing, Co-Founder and CEO of Kickstart Innovation, one of the largest open innovation platforms in Europe. "The challenges for companies and organizations are becoming more complex and the competitive pressure is increasing. With us not working in silos and resulting in proofs-of-concept, both sides have the opportunity to progress significantly faster in their respective fields." The goal of the Kickstart program is to enable pilot projects or commercial collaborations between later-stage startups and established institutions. The aim is to bring new products and services to market on a larger scale, develop new revenue streams and invest in pioneering models and processes. Last year, over 50 deals were announced to collaborate on cutting-edge solutions for Switzerland and beyond. The ideas were diverse and ranged from a software platform for decarbonizing supply chains, to sustainable insulation packaging made from recycled waste paper, to solar thermal and photovoltaic collectors that achieve one of the world's highest energy densities. Five focus areas are being explored to identify the topics of the future: New Work & Learning, Health & Wellbeing, Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail and Smart Cities. Each vertical focuses on specific innovative trends and the needs of individual partners with acceleration in technology, sustainability and investments. Further information and a guide on how to apply can be found here. For more information, please contact: Alanna Murphy, Communications Manager (press@kickstart-innovation.com) About Kickstart Kickstart is one of Europe's largest zero equity, open innovation platforms. Our mission is to build innovation ecosystems with purpose, by fast forwarding innovation. We bring together public and private organizations, startups, investors and experts, with the shared ambition to deliver next-generation products and services and have a meaningful impact at scale. Each year, Kickstart engages 100 entrepreneurs to collaborate with key players for proofs of concept, pilot and commercial projects and other innovation partnerships. Additionally, through the intrapreneurship program Kickstart helps established organizations to promote and accelerate internal innovation. Kickstart is a spin-off of Impact Hub Zurich and was launched in 2015 by digitalswitzerland. In 2023, Kickstart runs five verticals: New Work & Learning, Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail, Health & Wellbeing and Smart Cities together with partner organizations across industries: AXA, Coop, Swisscom, La Mobilière, PostFinance, ETH Zürich,CSEM, City of Zurich,Empa NEST, Sanitas, University Hospital Zurich,Panter, SATW, Impact Hub Switzerland, Canton de Vaud, Santenext, Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE, Swiss Healthcare Startups, Growpal, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Ringier,Google for Startups, MLL, South Pole, WECOCO, Day8, HealthTech Cluster Switzerland, DealStation, MAVA, SwissLEAP, EPFL,IMD, gfm, START Global and more. Download our Press Releases here:

The Circularity Gap Report shows the huge potential of protecting the use of virgin materials to cover our societal needs. But what's next? The initiators of the report now form five work streams to design actions with the following goals. What’s in for the participants of the Circular Economy Roadmap? A seat at the big round table with other leaders and key-stakeholders of the roadmap Become fit for purpose in anticipation of the challenges of our times and of upcoming regulations Competitive advantage thanks to improved collaboration along the value chain, and possibly new circular business models Positive reputation (there will be communications all along the process) What do you have to put in during the Roadmap creation phase? Some dedicated time of yours and/or your staff (2-3 workshops, some additional online meetings) Your expertise, info, data related to the workstreams you are committed to is crucial Some financial contribution or access to funding (as appropriate) Willingness to collaborate along the process and to implement once the roadmap design has been agreed Are you interested? We warmly invite you to participate to the national multi-stakeholder process. Please talk to us or apply directly to Circular Economy Switzerland.

After more than a year of intensive collaboration, we launched the Circularity Gap Report Switzerland 2023. Based on a global methodology, the report allows us to understand and compare, how much of virgin materials are being reused in Switzerland economy. In theory, 93.1% is the potential to be reused, but this includes one-third of reserves and stocks which is infrastructure induced by our growth. But if we only look at non-circular inputs and biomass, we see an opportunity to become quickly much better. This is not only an environmental imperative, but also a business opportunity. Use longer (repair), use again (take back, rental) and make clean (move away from non-circular inputs) is something consumers appreciate. A fact that influences Switzerland's circularity massively is our high import-quota. With an import footprint of about 140 megatonnes, taming the supply chain is an extremely important task. Only looking at our geographic perimeter covers only a too small part of our doings. In an orchestrated effort of over a hundred partners and experts, we aim to reduce the swiss material footprint per capita by 60% (to maximum 8 tonnes per capita, which is considered within a sustainable and just level by leading research) and to reduce the Swiss carbon (CO2e) footprint by 90% (in line with the SBT’s Net-Zero Standard and the 1.5°C objective set by the UN-Paris agreement/COP26) by 2050. Do you want to learn more or even join one of the roadmaps to change? Start by reading the report.

Jorge Alvarado and Lukas Hohl, former Swisscom employees, founded the recently incorporated TrustRelay - a SaaS platform that enables corporates to collaborate on structured data in a privacy-preserving manner. TrustRelay is an alumnus of Kickstart's 2022 Intrapreneurship program via Swisscom, a Global Partner of Kickstart. In this interview conducted by Fritz Seidel, Intrapreneurship Academy Expert at Kickstart, Jorge and Lukas discussed their journey so far, their motivation behind the startup, and what’s in store for them and their clients. Firstly, congratulations on the incorporation of TrustRelay! To kick us off, can you give us some history on how the company came to be? Jorge Alvarado: Thank you so much! Well, it all started when we heard of the Intrapreneurship program, “Kickbox” within Swisscom. At the time, I was working on combining blockchain technology with IoT devices, and I had the idea of enabling a broker of data between them. [My co-founder] Lukas helped me establish some conversations with potential customers - after which we collectively realized that the problem was not the IoT technology, it was the data-sharing process. Once we started to approach it from this angle, we realized the problem was a lot bigger and the amount of governance companies put on the data that they share with others. Following internal discussions within Swisscom, we decided to take the opportunity to apply for the Kickstart Intrapreneurship program to determine the product-market fit of this idea. Lukas Hohl: We believe there is massive value in data - “the new oil”, as some claim. We truly believe that the importance of data and data collaboration will continue to increase, and we have to break up these data silos among companies so that these datasets can be combined to solve really complex problems, such as sustainability problems, etc. Essentially, it is the idea of democratizing B2B data sharing. Not only for large multinationals but also for startups, and the combination of the two working together. How do clients benefit from using TrustRelay’s solution? L: When it comes to data sharing, data collaboration beyond company borders has its challenges - one is legal challenges. Companies are not sure how data sharing works from a legal perspective. When data does start flowing across jurisdictions, this poses the second challenge - technical capabilities - such as interoperability and data formats. Right now, there is no platform, tool, or solution, which truly bridges the legal perspectives of data sharing into dataspace in a trusted, legally compliant manner. Organizations are realizing the internal complexity that comes with dealing with data, which is heightened again when they start working with external organizations. TrustRelay is approaching this exact problem. To put it bluntly, we want to become the Slack of data sharing going forward for startups and large corporates. We want data collaboration through dataspace technology to be as easy as communication via a Slack channel. Can you provide some further insight into the support of Swisscom & the Kickstart Intrapreneurship program throughout this journey? J: Swisscom was very supportive, even at the early stage where it was. Going through this process within Swisscom provided a great combination of reduced risk and flexibility to dedicate time to the idea - if we didn’t have this, it wouldn’t have happened due to the 8-5 corporate workday. Also, of course, providing us with the opportunity to join the Kickstart Intrapreneurship program. The content of the [Kickstart] program was very well structured and diverse, deep-diving into topics that employees from the corporate world wouldn’t typically have exposure to. The networking was key, by the way - we are still working with a number of contacts we made through the program (some of who even helped us with the incorporation - shout out to Gabriel from MLL) and introductions to business angels. As we were still in the validation phase, it was so beneficial to be constantly challenged, identifying our USP and the innovation within the solution we are providing. This helped us tremendously in shaping where we are today. This is just the beginning of the journey, but it was instrumental to go through that process. What would be your #1 tip for fellow employees when it comes to intrapreneurship? J: Work in an environment where people are striving for innovation. I was lucky enough to work in a unit within Swisscom that was all about innovation, so it was always at the forefront of what I did. I was also working in blockchain, which is an industry that connects all different parties, so it was like a melting pot. I’d also like to add - work with someone who is like-minded and complementary to what you bring in so you have trust in your business partner when you go to the market to test your solution. L: I agree - I seriously doubt that one person comes up with an idea, validates the idea at one point, and starts to scale it on his or her own. It's not going to happen. It's all about a team effort at the end of the day - it helps to hear different perspectives and be challenged from a different angle. Also, coming back to the Kickstart Intrapreneurship program, it was a great opportunity to start validating our idea, especially coming from the corporate world and needing mentorship, support, and guidance in the field. Can you share your overall vision? J: From my side, the vision is to be the brand that corporates, startups, or governments associate with modern, simple data sharing. As Lukas mentioned, we want to be the Slack of data-sharing for people that want to collaborate across company borders. L: Absolutely. One thing to add to the use case and pivoting exercise we're currently in, we definitely learned from previous experience that we definitely do not want to go technology-first. We understand technology is important, but that is not our go-to-market strategy. We have to speak to the right people in the organizations, in various industries to understand the exact problems they face, and how can we solve them. That is one of our key success factors in the next few months to really execute that approach. Finally, what’s next for TrustRelay? L: We have been working behind the scenes, establishing some partnerships with Swiss and international actors, and are setting up a workshop on data sharing and data reuse together with the University of New York on February 9th. We are also in the process of setting up a waiting list to enable sandboxes for people to test the solution in their own industry. Because data sharing is so general and industry-agnostic, we want to narrow down those industries to focus on those companies where data-sharing is part of their core business, and would benefit from the use of dataspaces to improve their operations. If this resonates with anyone, please feel free to get in touch!