“The Swiss still have no entrepreneurial mindset”

Mr Baldegger, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Switzerland does not do well in international comparison. The number of people with foundation intentions has fallen again compared with the previous year. Did that result surprise you?

Rico Baldegger: No, not really. The number has been fluctuating at the same level for years. After a slight upswing, it has now fallen back to the level of 2016.

This despite numerous programmes for founders and the growth of technology-based start-ups, which attract an increasing amount of investor money. How can the stagnation be explained?

GEM is not just about young high-tech companies and spin-off from universities, which comprise only a small share of newly founded companies, but about young companies in general. A lot has changed in recent years at the universities, but this change has not appeared in the general population.

How does this manifest itself?

You have to open your eyes a little and not look solely at high-tech start-ups. GEM asks how many people consider themselves capable of starting a business, and whether entrepreneurs enjoy a high social status. So it’s about entrepreneurship as the mindset of a population. And here the survey shows that Swiss people still do not have an entrepreneurial mindset. We are miles away from countries such as Israel – entrepreneurship is not seen in this country as a career option.

This may also have something to do with the attractive options.

Absolutely. For example, we see very low start-up activity straight after university, probably because graduates in Switzerland receive attractive job offers.

When the economy is going so well, no one wants to change it. How can you promote an entrepreneurial mindset in this environment?

There are many support programmes today – sometimes I get the impression that there are more than enough. But where I see a lot of catching up still to do is with young people who are considering their career choices for the first time. Here, one should draw attention to entrepreneurship as an opportunity and convey that it is not always necessary to have ‘studied’ in order to start a business.

However, such measures will not produce quick results.

That’s so. It’s about behavioural change and it takes years. But the start-up scene at Swiss universities shows that such a change is quite possible.