Startup Stories in Times of Crisis: How 2 founders recognized opportunities in critical times

The pandemic-related crisis period has left its mark on all of us – even on the Swiss startup scene. In this edition of our Startup Stories events, you’ll meet Verena and Severin. Both have used the last two years to kickstart and accelerate their startups. They will tell you about their challenges as startup founders – and also about the many highlights that happened during this time. Join them as they’ll share their personal success and failure stories and talk about their experiences building a startup.

The Speakers:

• Verena Ziegler, Co-Founder of BeAwear

Verena Ziegler is co-founder and CEO of BeAwear. She is the creative head in the team and developed the idea for BeAwear during her PhD studies. Instead of fitting individual bodies to standardized norms and rules (S-XL), the patented BeAwear software explores individuality, identity and the emergence of a new transient generation. Verena is a researcher and Lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Department of Interaction Design. She is a trained architect and textile designer. Verena participated in the Innosuisse Business Concept course of STARTUP CAMPUS with her business idea in spring 2021.

• Severin Candrian, Co-Founder of feey

“What, you’re selling plants?” – Severin has heard this question more than once. After finishing his interaction design studies at ZHdK, he worked as a UI and UX designer for the blockchain project VETRI. After that, he moved to Procivis AG as Head of Product Design on the digital identity for Swiss citizens. Completely digital and pretty much where you would expect an interaction designer to be. The decision to launch their own start-up in the e-commerce sector with feey and to fully focus on it seems a bit illogical at first. But feey is not just an online store for them, it is a brand, a lifestyle and maybe even a yardstick at some point. You may know them from the show “Die Höhle der Löwen”, where feey received a record investment of 1.2 million CHF.