World shaper of tomorrow: DeinDeal paves the way for Switzerland’s e-commerce sector

In spring 2010, Adrian Locher, Amir Suissa, Flavio Rump, and Lucas Vogelsang founded the group-buying platform DeinDeal. Within a year, the company was one of the fastest-growing Swiss startups. Eighteen months after the platform went live, DeinDeal was sold to Ringier. DeinDeal co-founder and former COO Adrian Locher tells us how an idea in a bar in Paris turned into a big deal for Swiss e-commerce.

With DeinDeal, the founding team around Adrian Locher built Switzerland’s market leader in the group-buying segment. “DeinDeal was quite the coincidence,” explained Adrian. In late 2009, during LeWeb, Adrian and Amir sat in a bar in Paris, talked about Groupon, and decided to bring group-buying to Switzerland. Three months later, the platform was built. Six months later, DeinDeal had 30 employees. After the first year, DeinDeal reached CHF 5 million in revenue—a number that 150 employees increased sixfold in the second year. “In our wildest dreams, we thought of building a company with 30 employees after two years. The success of DeinDeal went way beyond our own expectations,” declared Adrian.

Combining talent, team, and timing
So, what was the secret of DeinDeal? Adrian credits the success to the excellent execution team that tailored the product to the market, hired the right employees to build a strong company culture, and understood the market better than their competition did. And the competition was fierce. “Groupon even did promotions in front of our office, trying to lure our salespeople to come to them,” said Adrian. The DeinDeal team tried to focus on delivering a great product to its customers instead of fighting the competition. And on finding the right talent to ensure success: “DeinDeal was growing so fast; we had to give people a lot of ownership to make their own decisions and help us build the company and the culture,” said Adrian. “You cannot just hang posters about values and culture in the hallway. You don’t define a culture, you build it. The culture is shaped by whom you hire and how you lead people.”

Scouting future entrepreneurs 
DeinDeal was not just pioneering the Swiss e-commerce sector but also became an accelerator: The company’s Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) program selected future entrepreneurs to work on DeinDeal’s strategic and operational challenges. “EIRs got the jobs that no one else was able to do. We hired people who were crazy enough to do the impossible,” explained Adrian. Some of these “crazy people” went on to become the founders of wefox, MOVU, and Avrios.

“I’m really proud of how many people who are the movers and shakers of today’s ecosystem actually originated at DeinDeal.” – Adrian Locher

DeinDeal becomes Ringier’s deal  
With the company’s rapid growth came the search for partners. Just like everything in DeinDeal’s journey, this decision was made pretty quickly: “We were looking for strategic connections and talked to the two large media players in Switzerland. Ringier was trying to expand its business, including e-commerce. And it clicked, basically. It was just a great fit,” explained Adrian. In 2011, 60% of DeinDeal was bought by Ringier. In 2015, the media group took over 100% of DeinDeal.
 

“You want people who are very self-reflective, very smart and talented leaders.” – Adrian Locher

A serial entrepreneur with a knack for recruiting
After leaving DeinDeal in 2015, Adrian continued his entrepreneurial journey and founded Merantix Venture Studio, an incubation platform for machine learning companies. Hiring the right team members is still a priority: “You want people who are very self-reflective, very smart and talented leaders. They know what they are good at, and when they need help to achieve their goals,” said Adrian. “Saying no to smart and brilliant people who are not the right fit for your company culture is the hardest part of hiring.” Judging by his successful career, Adrian knows exactly what makes or breaks a deal.

 

About "World shapers of tomorrow: Startups building our future"

The TOP 100 book "World shapers of tomorrow: Startups building our future" shows the impact of the TOP 100 Swiss Startups over the last 10 years. On 100 pages, the publication features the facts and figures about the startup ecosystem in Switzerland, shows the sectors and geographic distribution, and lists the investors behind Swiss deeptech startups. The book also highlights disruptive companies that changed their industry: Beekeeper, Bestmile, Climeworks, Covagen, DeinDeal, Doodle, GetYourGuide, MindMaze, Scandit, and Piavita. The founders of these startups share anecdotes and discuss their successes, lessons learned, and visions for the future. A selection of 10 verticals illustrates how Swiss deeptech startups transform our lives and help us build a better and more sustainable future in relation to health, longevity, digitalization, and decentralization. Learn more and download your copy at www.top100startups.swiss/10years.

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