Building World Class Startups at VentureLab | Raffael Kellner on TechDrive Zürich

What turns brilliant Swiss research into a company the world actually wants? This episode of TechDrive Zürich is a driving conversation with Raffael Kellner, who has spent six years at VentureLab / Venture Kick - the programs behind roughly 80% of Switzerland's innovation-based startups.

Raffael shares his own path (business school → the startup scenes of Slovakia and Vienna → a failed app startup → consulting → VentureLab), then unpacks what he looks for when a scientist wants to commercialize their work. The recurring theme: mission comes first - "the key thing is to know that you want it" - and everything else can be taught.

In this episode:
• Why a PhD is surprisingly good preparation for startup life - "you've already learned how to suffer"
• The mindset flip from research perfectionism to startup "good enough, and easy to scale"
• Why you must validate demand before you build
• The data behind the method: an ~84% success rate for completed Venture Kick projects
• Switzerland's "unfair advantage" - world-class IP and an ecosystem that's international from day one
• The blind spot: the world's growth is shifting to Asia, and why founders should learn those markets
• A wow-moment from China's "dark factories," where robots - not cheap labour - build (self-driving) cars
• What Raffael would build if he started a startup today, and the values that would guide it

About the guest: Raffael Kellner works at VentureLab / Venture Kick, supporting Switzerland's most promising deep-tech and innovation-driven startups from first idea to global markets.

About the show: TechDrive Zürich is a series of candid, in-car conversations with the people building technology in and around Zürich - hosted by Justinas Mišeikis.

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▶ Watch the video version on YouTube: youtu.be/X6pt5X9Z0-M
🔗 VentureLab: venturelab.swiss • Venture Kick: venturekick.ch
🔗 Guest: linkedin.com/in/raffaelkellner