We were in Switzerland last week . We visited Pascal , Mark and Flavia from our team in Switzerland and made a few days of unsafe with you. The three have been looking since the middle of last year whether a betahaus in Zurich is feasible and have already brought some stones rolling.
Zurich is interesting, because at first glance one does not necessarily think about creative industries, but rather has an international financial center in mind. So you would have to build a betabank or coworking for financial analysts, I thought. As far as my personal prejudices, which have lasted exactly two hours.
Zurich is at least as full of freelancers, creative workers, coworkers, entrepreneurs, journalists, designers, etc. as Berlin, and if you look at the figures, the creative economy has a similar value as the financial sectors in value creation. And all need collaborative workplaces.
We have visited the citizen space of Jürg. Coworking on approximately 400 square meters including Fotostudio and until further notice. Marc kindly explained to us the basis-lager.ch with a round tour through the mobile container offices in Zurich Binz. Stefan Camenzind has shown us his Google Office . Nico from the sandboxers gave us a small start-up introduction for Zurich and took us to the Wuala office opening. We were at Smaboo coworken (a thousand thanks) and met extensively the Volkshaus , there a very good conversation with Andrew, Gesa and Michel from the Swiss Creative Industry Association , and met Ron Orp . Sure, we also took a few parties and exhibitions to talk about the betahaus and "spread the word". The next few months will show where and how we implement this in Switzerland, what we have learned in berlin.
All that was possible, is and will be by our really great team on site, which has done so far the main work. A second factor, however, should not be forgotten: no matter who we talked to, or what we looked at, from the city administration to the real estate company , it was clearly written in big imaginary letters: Zurich needs a betahaus! In the 10 days of Zurich, a feeling that feels almost as good as in early 2009 in Berlin has consolidated. Very many nice people, support and encouragement and lots of creatives, they want to move in immediately. We just have to unlock the door. (And find a suitable property)
So THANK YOU TO ALL !!! We will keep you up to date! ;)