Our Insights

Open Innovation is often performative - too vague, too slow, and disconnected from strategy. Here’s how we ran two outcome-driven sprints with a mental health clinic and the University of St. Gallen that created insight, alignment, and momentum inside a regulated mental health business.

Before you build your next strategy, launch a new venture, or bring in outside advisors, ask this: Has your family actually aligned on where it wants to go? In this issue, we unpack the blind spot that derails even the smartest ideas - and why ownership strategy must come before company strategy in any legacy business.

Taking over a family business comes with one big question: should you modernize what’s there - or build something entirely new? In this post, I share the 3-phase loop every successor ends up navigating, from uncertainty to execution, and what it really takes to make the next chapter yours.

Everyone talks about innovation. Few actually build. In this piece, I break down what venture building really is - and why family businesses need it more than anyone. Because sometimes, the only thing standing between an idea and a new business… is structure.

What do you do when you’re fully booked, but still need to build for the future? In this issue, I break down how I landed three new projects and made my first hires, by building the simplest sales system possible. Whether you’re launching something new or repositioning an old business, the steps are the same: start small, stay personal, and scale what works.

What if the problem isn’t your idea, but the container you’re building it in? In this issue, I unpack why promising ventures often stall inside legacy structures, and what it takes to make them thrive. Featuring 3 Zurich-based spin-offs that broke the mold, plus a checklist to help you assess whether it’s time to go beyond the muffin tin.

What comes after paper? Faigle, a Swiss print leader, turned tech frustration into a new venture. From custom projects to scalable AI workflows—built on Microsoft Cloud, focused on finance and insurance. We helped shape the model, story, and sales.

Good ideas aren’t enough. A solid financial model shows you what’s viable, what’s fragile, and where you’ll run out of cash. This guide walks through the real purpose of modeling - not to predict the future, but to avoid stupid mistakes.

Not all business models are worth scaling. Before you invest more time, money, or energy - ask if your model is built for momentum or friction. In this issue, I share five criteria to test your model’s potential (plus a real-world case of what happened when the obvious path didn’t fit).

Your company’s life stage should shape how much you invest and what kind of innovation you pursue. In this issue, I break down Aswath Damodaran’s Corporate Life Cycle model and how to use it to design smarter, stage-specific innovation strategies. If you’ve ever wondered, “Are we investing in the right ideas?” - this one’s for you.

Before you innovate, you need to commit. Some wait for the “right time” to start innovating - when things calm down, when they have more capacity, when the idea is clearer. Others get stuck bouncing between ideas with no real motion. But the ones who move the needle? They build habits. They create structure. They show up, long before it’s urgent.