November 13th, 2024, posted in for_founders
by Adelina
“Start-up Starts” is a mini-interview series with some of the awesome start-ups we`ve worked with throughout the years and their inception. The first few months can make or break a project, so we wanted to dive deeper into these crucial moments for any start-up. We asked everyone the same three questions and … the rest is history. Literally.
SchedulR started out from the desire to help institutional investors and listed companies connect and build trust easier. And disrupt the traditional broker model of corporate access while doing so.
Through the cloud-based platform, investors and companies can schedule meetings and attend events such as roadshows, investor days or conferences. We wanted SchedulR to cover everything you need to set up a meeting, from choosing the participants and sending out invitations to selecting the venue. The platform also comes with a feedback tool for collecting investor opinions and assessing market perception and a CRM.
We were responsible for the entire technical solution, from project planning and management to frontend and backend development. After three product versions, we are currently doing continuous development to streamline the launch and deployment of new features and updates.
Kilian Maier, CEO and founder of Interaction Partners, the Swiss investor relations services & advisory firm behind SchedulR, walks us through the early beginnings.
1.) What sparked the idea for SchedulR?
Kilian: I was covering banks as an equity analyst at a broker and I observed:
(1) if brokers organize corporate access, there are inherent conflicts of interest that are not really being addressed.
(2) the processes applied by the banks/brokers were very old-school, manual and not digitalized (slow, high risk of mistakes, inconvenient, expensive).
(3) With MiFID2 there was a regulatory ‘trigger’ on the horizon and banks always underestimate the long-term impact of regulatory changes.
2.) Which were the first three steps you took to get things rolling?
Kilian: (1) Have a rough idea about financials (how much money do you need) and define the things you need to take into account in order to move ahead.
(2) Check if your family and partner support you (and if they are willing to share the pain).
(3) Resign from your cushy, well-paying corporate job :)
3.) Describe the biggest hurdle you had to overcome in the first 3 months.
Kilian: Everything is new. But the real hurdles are not visible in the first 3 months. They come later, plenty.
If you`re a start-up looking for a technical partner to be there along the ride, look no further. UPDIVISION specializes in helping start-ups validate, launch and refine their MVP, while staying true to their vision. In Eric Ries words, MVP is a process, not a product, and so is finding the right software development team.
