#78 - Interview with Pierre Bi - serial entrepreneur and investor

00:00:07: Capricorn Connect.

00:00:09: People.

00:00:09: Potential.

00:00:10: Technology.

00:00:16: As a young student, he founded his first company, Aris CleanTech, and later successfully sold it for staggering

00:00:24: seventy-eight

00:00:25: million.

00:00:26: Now Pierre B is building up his next venture

00:00:30: and shift.

00:00:31: Pierre, thanks for being on the podcast.

00:00:33: How are you today?

00:00:34: It's a pleasure.

00:00:35: Thanks for having me.

00:00:37: Wonderful to be here.

00:00:38: Yeah, you have the very successful entrepreneurial journey.

00:00:42: So I would be interested in what was your motivation in setting up your own shop at such an early age.

00:00:52: It was actually My whole environment, the people that were around me from very beginning on, so it started with my father, who himself is an entrepreneur who built up a company after venturing out here to Switzerland from China.

00:01:11: And then it just continued.

00:01:13: The people that I met during my studies who all become successful entrepreneurs too and just motivated.

00:01:20: me to build something myself as well.

00:01:22: So you have a bit of an environment that impacted you, it's a bit in your DNA as well.

00:01:29: Yeah, one could say so.

00:01:31: And what are the challenges when scaling a company like from early stage to late stage?

00:01:37: Maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

00:01:39: All kinds of challenges.

00:01:42: If I could count them on one hand.

00:01:44: I wish I could.

00:01:47: But I think the main challenge at the very beginning is to convince talents.

00:01:55: co-founders and partners to start a company with you based on a very simple idea or an observation you have.

00:02:06: Getting them rallied and motivated to build that thing together with you with this slim chance of success that is promised.

00:02:20: And so that's the very big first challenge.

00:02:23: And I think that continues to be one of the main challenges when you build up a startup, right?

00:02:31: Like it's about the people.

00:02:34: Sure, you can have a great idea, but if you don't get people around you who can realize the potential of this idea, then I think... you'll have trouble scaling up, yes.

00:02:49: So creating a vision, convincing people of your vision and getting the right team together, that is important.

00:02:56: I think that's the most important part on this journey, or one of the most important

00:03:01: parts.

00:03:02: And you had a successful exit, so what was the process in... this exit?

00:03:07: when you look back where you actively approached and selling the company or maybe you can just talk a little bit about this journey.

00:03:18: We weren't looking for any exit at that time.

00:03:24: We were just really focused on scaling the business.

00:03:27: so we had just hit kind of an inflection point where We were moving from building and selling thousands of machines to tens of thousands of machines.

00:03:42: And so the focus was really on the operations, on building the business.

00:03:48: But it seems like at the time that people saw the potential that we had.

00:03:58: reached that inflection point and we reached out to us to discuss potential acquisition.

00:04:05: So we had a few offers on the table, a couple of interested parties talking to us, interestingly the vast majority coming out of the United States.

00:04:18: And we then went with a gut feeling of... who could be the ideal partner to take us to the next level.

00:04:26: So strategically speaking, who can help us continue building this business.

00:04:30: So we've been seeing this scaling up, the first initial scale up phase, and we knew we had to find a partner that would help us to... grow this business then from tens of thousands of units to millions of units.

00:04:48: and that's where we saw fit to partner up with a company like iRobot at the time.

00:04:55: Were you still actively involved after the exit in the company?

00:04:59: I was involved for roughly a year.

00:05:03: So ensuring that there was a good transition, that the team got accepted within the new structures, that they could unfold their potential and that the product was well accepted also by the end customers that are acquired ahead.

00:05:21: Very good.

00:05:22: And you achieved PR something that most entrepreneurs dream of, a successful exit.

00:05:31: Now you're working on your next venture, I mean diving into your next venture, trying to scale it up again.

00:05:37: Why don't you just sit back at a beach with a couple of cocktails in your hand and enjoy your life?

00:05:45: Well, first of all, I guess it's just not my nature.

00:05:51: build something so that I can go relax at the beach and just ride into the sunset and enjoy life.

00:06:02: I've enjoyed building things, right?

00:06:05: Like I've gained so much knowledge and fulfillment in what I've been doing at Eris at the time.

00:06:19: I just knew that I had to build something that, again, that would bring, I think, benefit to society.

00:06:29: And so that's why when I saw the gap for end shift, I really decided to, it was no question why, if I should start or not, right?

00:06:44: Like I just ventured into it again and, well, I guess, the beach will still be there in in thirty years.

00:06:56: Let's talk a little bit about end shift.

00:06:57: What do you guys exactly do there?

00:07:01: So I mentioned the gap that I saw.

00:07:03: After selling Aries, I was involved in a couple of real estate developments and I was also interacting a lot with real estate investors, professional investors, institutional real estate investors.

00:07:20: And what I realized was that it was very difficult for them to bring today's very low costs of renewable energies into their building.

00:07:32: So the process of transforming a building decarbonizing it and essentially bringing renewable energies into it is very fragmented today.

00:07:47: So you have all kinds of actors in the market that you have to work with and each one is really just focused on one step of the process.

00:08:00: Due to not having a coherent end-to-end provider, I think most outcomes that are generated are not to be initial planned concepts and strategies that were formulated and then SHIFT basically fills this gap and provides an end-to-end process that ensures that the financial outcome but also the ecological outcome follows what was predicted, projected and planned at the very beginning and we've basically so far been proven right that filling this gap will attract the right customers and clients.

00:08:45: And

00:08:45: you would like to grow Europe wide or globally?

00:08:50: Yes, we already started growing in the Dach region, so outside of Switzerland in Germany, in Austria, but also ventured out into France and Italy.

00:09:03: That was beginning of this year, end of last year.

00:09:06: We, as of today, have already successfully gained clients in all of these regions.

00:09:16: And we hope that we can replicate the same success, the same speed at which we're scaling in Switzerland in these other... countries as well.

00:09:25: Pierre would like to also talk about recruiting talent.

00:09:28: that's also our main topic at Swiss Capricorn.

00:09:32: You mentioned it's important especially at the early stage when you don't have a big brand name like Microsoft, Google or Apple convincing people to come to your company.

00:09:42: So what would you say are the challenges in recruiting the right talent?

00:09:50: They're the very obvious, simple ones.

00:09:53: We, for example, have our office in bar outside of the flashy city of Zurich.

00:10:01: And obviously that already demotivates some people to apply to our jobs.

00:10:10: However, we've noticed and we keep on seeing that I think the candidates that... care about these kind of aspects are not the right candidates for us, right?

00:10:22: We're focusing on a candid, true, transparent communication to our candidates as to what these jobs entail.

00:10:34: We're transparent about the hard work that goes into it.

00:10:44: enthusiasm, motivation that you have to put behind the work and that kind of naturally already filters out a big vast majority of people that apply so it makes the job even harder.

00:10:59: but at the same time we've seen that we've benefited from that because our goal is not to hire to have somebody just do the job but to excel, to become a leader for their responsibilities and grow the business with us, right, like stay for the long term.

00:11:24: And by being candid, transparent from the very beginning, I think we've been able to attract and find the right people that are there for the long term and there to really bring us to the next stage.

00:11:44: What's also important, I think, is to provide people enablements, right?

00:11:51: Like, we're not hiring to let them just do a specific job.

00:11:58: We basically look at the talents that or the, I think, focus and talent that the person brings.

00:12:08: and figure out in which space they can unfold this talent and let them fulfill their potential.

00:12:18: So that's been always our kind of approach to hiring and it's helped us I think Gain the right team team members from really early on

00:12:32: so honest transparent communication and an abled man and Abling the candidates so they can perform even better.

00:12:40: That's right

00:12:41: Pierre.

00:12:42: I also have another question concerning the candidate market like if you were a candidate What do you think you need to do to remain attractive for other?

00:12:51: Companies nowadays

00:12:53: mm-hmm.

00:12:54: That's a good question.

00:12:55: I think Obviously, today one would be focused on kind of, well, how do I compete with AI that is taking over the world?

00:13:11: How do I make sure that AI cannot take over my job and that I really am needed?

00:13:19: I believe that the truth is that The vast majority of jobs that exist today will not be replaced by AI.

00:13:37: It will be rather complemented by AI.

00:13:40: So we will accelerate things.

00:13:44: AI will help people do their job even better and faster.

00:13:52: And I think there comes kind of like... one of the focus or where I would put the focus if if I was for applying jobs, it's like we're for that specific job that I'm applying for the type of jobs that I'm applying for.

00:14:13: How can I already today find ways to work with AI to distinguish myself in this field?

00:14:24: So how can I use these AI tools that are out there?

00:14:28: to accelerate to distinguish the output that I generate and I think that's today in the job market that could be a very strong kind of opening if you go into the job interview and you tell them how you believe that you will do not only the job but you will do it ten times faster ten times better than any of the other candidates because you have mastered these new tools that enable you to achieve the speed and efficiency.

00:15:10: So applying the new technology and implementing it into your current job and becoming better therefore.

00:15:16: Yes.

00:15:17: Pierre, finally, I'll also have some personal questions for you if it's okay with you.

00:15:22: Sure.

00:15:23: Is there any superpower you would like to possess if you had, let's say, a wish free?

00:15:32: Prolonging my day, so making out of twenty four hours, forty eight, fifty, sixty hours.

00:15:41: Obviously, that would be a great superpower.

00:15:45: or multiplying myself and allowing me to be at different places, right?

00:15:51: But at the end of the day, I think the superpower is more in finding the people that have these superpowers or let's say talents that you don't have, right?

00:16:08: And then convincing them to join the journey on which you are, join the common vision, share the common vision.

00:16:19: and then bring together all these superpowers that you don't have to exactly speed up and achieve the success we're heading or we're asking for.

00:16:35: And if you were to pick an audio biography, which one would you pick?

00:16:42: That's a good question.

00:16:48: I think... I would focus on the autobiography of Nikola Tesla.

00:17:08: I would be quite interested in understanding how it seems to me that this one person has had such tremendous capabilities and intelligence that He's created the vast majority of modern day inventions and I would like to understand how he managed to think of all these things when they were just mere fiction or people lived basically in stone age when he invented.

00:17:50: modern-day technologies.

00:17:51: Absolutely.

00:17:52: Pierre, final question.

00:17:53: How will AI improve your life in two years?

00:17:57: How will AI improve me?

00:18:00: I think AI already today is improving my efficiency, so I can use unproductive time that I had before to be productive.

00:18:16: So I, for example, When I'm driving to work, I can use AI, the speech function, to already compile and build, for example, memos or documents that I need to... that I basically then send out as soon as I arrive at work.

00:18:44: I mean, these are very simple.

00:18:46: Small... AI enabled tasks that I couldn't do before but allow me now to be a lot more efficient to achieve a lot more within a short time and use time efficiently.

00:19:08: entrepreneur and founder of N-Shift.

00:19:10: It has been a true

00:19:12: pleasure talking to you.

00:19:13: I

00:19:13: wish you all the success and nothing less and looking forward to the next conversation.

00:19:18: Yeah, thanks for having me here.

00:19:20: It was a pleasure.

00:19:30: Capricorn Connect.

00:19:32: People.

00:19:33: Potential.

00:19:34: Technology.