UPC ACCELERATOR 2.0

When it comes to setting up a new company, good preparation is essential. For only with the right advice on technology, finance and networks is it possible to draw up guidelines that detail how you need to proceed to found a correspondingly successful start-up and to establish this amongst the competition. What is required is a high-performance infrastructure as well as the innovative idea together with a degree of "acceleration", enabling your business to get established in line with your business plan and to position itself successfully on the market.

If, for example, there is a lack of finance, many options can be explored, such as for example venture capital companies, which often secure the services of co-founders from the start-up scene and help you with networking and your business idea, building this up accordingly and over time enabling to get to where you want to be. Perhaps even enabling you to be a (Tech) Valley start-up.

Things you need to think about before founding the company:

• What is my product, my target group and the market segment?
  
• What are the requirements of my target group?
  
• What advantage does my product offer over those of my competitors?
  
• How many competitors do I have, and how high is their market share/market potential?
  
• How do I reach my target group?
  
• How much money will I require for my facilities, operating equipment, wages and the product itself (financial planning)?
  
• Who can secure my funding for me?
  

Every company that is active in Switzerland receives a standard Enterprise Identification Number (UID) that is valid for the whole of Switzerland. These UIDs are kept in the UID Register by the Federal Statistical Office (Bundesamt für Statistik – BFS).

All companies and institutions that are recognised as a UID entity receive a UID. UID entities are not just all companies or firms active in Switzerland. In fact, UID entities also include all public administration "customers" that exhibit corporate characteristics. This means every public administration customer that is identified for statistical, administrative or legal purposes. The following list covers all types of UID entities:

• Commercial register entities
  
• Entities registered for value added tax
  
• Self-employed persons
  
• Persons listed in a cantonal register of lawyers/notaries
  
• Simple partnerships (e.g. group practices)
  
• Foreign companies based in Switzerland
  
• Farming and forestry enterprises
  
• Public administration entities
  
• Institutions entrusted with public law responsibilities
  
• Associations

It couldn't be easier! Download the form Application Form UID Entity, complete and sign this and then send it by e-mail to uid@bfs.admin.ch or by post to the following address: "Federal Statistical Office / Bundesamt für Statistik, Section BUR / UID, Espace de l’Europe 10, CH-2010 Neuchâtel“

Further information on the topic of the UID.

Most start-ups fail right from the outset and never achieve success. But don't let yourself be discouraged by such forecasts. Approximately 6000 new companies were founded in Switzerland during the first half of 2017. There are many reasons for failure. Sometimes this is simply because of the team, the funding, the venture capital companies or a co-founder. Founders do not have it easy, that much is clear.

But you can manage it, with the right partner at your side. With the Accelerator Programme, UPC Business offers you a strong partnership that helps you to build up your network, to find further partners and to exchange ideas as well as to create new business models. Everything is possible – with the right foundation stone and partners at your side.

The good thing about start-ups in the present day and age: there was nearly always someone else who had the same idea, and failed. But such failure is certainly not something negative, quite the contrary – you learn through your failures. Even if you find 1000 approaches that do not work, you will eventually find an approach that does work – that is the purpose of a start-up. This means you can also profit from the failure of others. Analyse the business model of other companies, and use these insights to improve your own business model until it works.

A common reason for failure is false assumptions – either about one's own product or service, the market, user behaviour or the price that is to be realised. And this is the first valuable tip for you and your business idea:

Be flexible. If your start-up does not work the way it is supposed to, then simply try doing a few things differently. Albert Einstein noted that you won't be successful if you keep thinking the same way you have always been thinking. Because this means you will keep acting the same way you have always been acting. And if you keep acting the same way you have always been acting, then you will achieve precisely that which you always achieved.

So a new approach is required. If one approach does not work? Then change or vary it!