When coaches give bullshit advice to software startups

One thing in advance: I owe it to you Venture Business Plan Competition a lot and was among the winners in 2012. That's why I gave a talk on the market launch of Internet startups at last year's event.

Swiss television is supporting this year's edition of Venture, which is very welcome and brings much-needed publicity to the local startup scene. The statements of Jeanette Wibmer, lawyer at Badertscher Rechtsanwälte and venture juror, im TV interview about software startups horrified me, to say the least. According to Ms. Wibmer, IT startups cannot be placed high among the winners because of the lack of entry barriers for competitors. Ms. Wibmer goes on to say that the “weak startups” in particular have no money to argue with those who “simply steal your idea.” This is why strong intellectual property rights are needed, which are not possible in the software sector.

Of course, Jeanette Wibmer is right - code is not patentable in Europe and is only protected by copyright in Switzerland, so it cannot be copied 1:1 by someone. However, replicating the product is possible without any problems. This means that internet startups are of course not particularly interesting for lawyers specializing in intellectual property law.

You often hear this argument from business angels - especially in Switzerland: "Your software cannot be protected, sooner or later a competitor will come along and then you have no chance!" Sure, I read that in the old textbooks when I was studying business administration, and it was probably really the case 25 years ago.

However, modern concepts teach that founders should under no circumstances develop a product in secret and protect it legally, but rather, on the contrary, launch it as early as possible in order to test whether there is even a market for it (see The Lean Startup). How Luzius Meisser on Facebook If you write correctly, complicated legal armor paralyzes a small, agile startup and makes it even more vulnerable.

Anyone can start their own online shop within a few minutes using open source software, or with BuddyPress launch your own social network. Are Amazon, Zalando and Facebook afraid of this? No, of course not: Because it's not about protection from potential competitors, but rather about completely different factors such as time to market, know-how, execution, network effects, quick analysis of customer behavior and the right learnings from it (and of course enough capital).

It is sad that such advice is still being given out in Switzerland in 2015. If all Swiss internet entrepreneurs adhered to this while the rest of the world built startups according to modern standards, the train would actually have left a long time ago.

By the way, if you're looking for a lawyer with startup blood running through your veins, I highly recommend him Dr. Karim Maizar from Kellerhal's lawyers.

Picture: Screenshot SRF.ch