Tips for Startups & Entrepreneurs

Startups.ch met with Isabel Bischof and Fabio Mätzler and asked them for practical advice for start-ups and entrepreneurs. Here are their answers.

How should you go about developing a product?

The most important point is: develop products based on real demand, not on assumptions. At Cohaga, the demand was there right from the start, and that’s exactly what we built on. Our offering has evolved step by step in line with the market – from initial data sets to various lists, later a configurator, then LeadHub and today ranQ. So we didn’t decide behind closed doors what to build – rather, the market dictated the direction. This principle ensures that a genuine product-market fit (PMF) emerges and that you don’t end up working on solutions that ultimately meet no need.

How should you grow?

Our approach was clear: grow organically and focus on sales first. Many start-ups build large organisations, complex websites or brands too early, before they even have any customers. Our recommendation: first acquire 5, then 10, then 20, then 50 customers and learn from that. Growth should be strongly sales-driven at the start, ideally by the founders themselves (‘sales-led growth’). The product develops in parallel with demand, not in isolation from it.

How important is simplicity at the start?

Very important. Keep complexity to a minimum for as long as possible. Don’t build unnecessary structures and don’t focus too early on things like branding or legal perfection when the business model hasn’t been proven yet. A business must work first; everything else comes afterwards.

How do you find your competitive advantage?

You need to clearly understand where you are better than the competition. Competition is normal – what matters is your own ‘competitive edge’. Why should a

customer choose you? What can you do better, faster or more efficiently? These answers must be clear and evident in the market.

How important is the founding team?

A strong, complementary founding team is crucial. Different skills and perspectives are an advantage.

At the same time, you need staying power. There will be phases when things get difficult. Then it is crucial that you support one another, don’t question everything, and hold fast to the shared vision. Good teams don’t jump on every trend, but remain focused and stable, even when the going gets tough.

How important are structure and working methods?

Extremely important. Entrepreneurship does not mean maximum freedom without structure. On the contrary: discipline is needed, especially at the start. We believe in working professionally from the outset – with clear structures, established working methods and an environment that enables productivity. Not ‘start-up romance’, but implementation.

What opportunities and risks does AI bring?

AI is both an opportunity and a challenge. The biggest advantage lies in speed: products, MVPs or landing pages can now be implemented much faster and more cost-effectively. This makes market entry easier and helps to check at an early stage whether there is a product-market fit (PMF).

The downside: competition is increasing massively. There are more providers, more offerings and more variants. Many lose focus as a result because there are too many possibilities. At the same time, competition has become global, not just local. In many sectors, the saying ‘the winner takes it all’ is increasingly true.

How do you view the SaaS market at present?

SaaS has long been the model for success for start-ups: recurring revenue, high scalability and relatively low barriers to entry. We are currently observing a significant shift: By early 2026, around 300 billion US dollars in market capitalisation among major software companies had evaporated within a short space of time. A key driver was the development of AI tools such as Claude Code, which make it much easier to create software yourself. This further lowers the barriers to entry and is changing the market permanently – for both new and existing SaaS companies.

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