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Re: startup: State of the Venture Capital in Switzerland

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Re: startup: State of the Venture Capital in Switzerland

From: Vladimir Bossicard <click for textversion of email address >
Date: 19 Jul 2001 15:58:13 -0700
X-Mailer: Web Mail 3.9.3.5

> I do agree mostly, but one must not forget that the market in Switzerland
> totally differs from the one here in the USA. People here tend to use the
> Internet in a different way than people in Switzerland.

How does the use of the internet differ in Switzerland and in the US? Do you
have some study?

The main problem of Europe is the broadband. In the US, more than 20% of the
users are connected via cable or dsl (heard that on CNet radio a couple of days
ago). That is not the case in Europe and in Switzerland. But as almost all
Swiss houses have cable tv things can change quickly.

An advantage of Switzerland (in comparaison with the US) is that the banking
system really works fine. People are used to pay their bills with the internet
and people trust the system.

> I remind there at funny pure Internet companies like registerthebride.com,

I really don't see the difference between using registerthebride.com and
calling Globus to reserve a gift from a wedding registry -> chances are good
that such a system can be successfully introduced in CH.

> Switzerland is probably not the right place for pure Internet companies.

the problem with pure Internet companies, is that they focuse on a certain
business. If you take weddings, you will do business between may and september
but you have to survive the whole year. That's what happened to eToy: 4 weeks
of rush (before XMas) but they had to pay for that infrastructure all year
long.

I don't think it's only a Swiss problem. I don't think that the US is the
promised land for pure Internet companies either (remember the bubble?).

-Vladimir

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Received on Thu Jul 19 2001 - 23:13:08 PDT

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