Boston – June 15, 2011

As part of the official Swiss national start-up team, 20 high-tech entrepreneurs from Switzerland took the unique chance of travelling to Boston for the Venture Leaders start-up camp. Important parts of the program are building relationships with successful American start-ups, venture capitalists and experts as well as rethinking business plans. In addition, the Swiss entrepreneurs have a chance to attend a four-day entrepreneurship course at Babson College. The team learned to refine their executive summaries and deepened their understanding of finance, business planning, negotiation and marketing.

Jan-Mathieu Donnier, GlobalVision's VideoStreetView, is amazed, “so far, it looks very promising. We found a beautiful location with a dynamic and active community in the tech field. It looks like we get a lot of support from the Swiss Consulate which is pretty cool.”

And Michael Sauter, compliant concept GmbH, adds, “we got a lot of input in a short time. I am curious what‘s coming next, and how much we can profit from our boot camp here.”

Their schedule was tight, indeed. They met a lot of experts who advised them. Highlights of the many outstanding encounters include leadership coach and CEO John Sadowsky. Sadowsky showed them tricks on how to make their business pitches remarkable and memorable: the magic formula is emotions, “people often use slides instead of using their bodies to express their feelings - by doing that, they add an intermediate between themselves and their audience.” Today, it’s no longer about numbers, charts and statistics. Entrepreneurs need skills that go beyond the projector to solicit the support and funding they need to bring their ideas and innovations to fruition. Pitching, therefore, needs to involve authentic storytelling of experiences, daily life or possibilities. In this way, a connection that engages, captivates and, ultimately, persuades the audience.

Company visits like at SCVNGR, Parexel, cloudswitch or Fresh Tilled Soil and many more inspired the young talents: What do you need to keep in mind when choosing office space, creating a logo and implementing a corporate identity, hiring process and scaling/focusing the own company?

Heading from one meeting - to the next class - to the following expert workshop is exhausting. Therefore, the Venture Leaders changed their patent leather shoes to sneakers and played soccer at the inter-consular soccer tournament at MIT Campus. Maybe you also caught them exercising their morning aerobics and sit ups in front of the Cambridge Public Library. Once, they also put on their dancing shoes joining the TechStars Afterparty where hip hop gangsta rapper Coolio showcased his best pieces out of the 90ties.

How much these twenty bright, young entrepreneurs profited from the intense 10-day experience in Boston will be figured out at the Pitchfest 2011. We wish them good luck!