ZEMP: The Venture Leader Fintech enhancing retail payment solutions

29.11.2022 09:00, Morgane Ghilardi

The Swiss National Startup Team welcomes new members after our expert jury selected ten startups for the Venture Leaders Fintech 2022 program. In anticipation of the London roadshow at the end of November, we would like to introduce our community to each of the Venture Leaders. Meet Oliver Zemp, co-CEO and co-founder of ZEMP Business Solutions AG, who was chosen to be team captain at the roadshow kickoff event.

Name: Oliver Zemp
Location: Root 
Nationality: Swiss 
Graduated from: graduated in 1989 from KV Luzern
Job title: Co-CEO and Co-Founder 
Number of employees: 21 
Money raised: CHF 2.7 million 
First touchpoint with VentureLab: 2022 Venture Leaders 

What does your startup do and why?
ZEMP reinvents tired stationary retail by converging POS and PAY into one seamless intuitive retail solution for B2C or B2B. It’s available as a standalone app and can be integrated into any payment, banking, or service product.

How and where did you come up with the idea for your start-up?
Many moons ago, I decided to create my own dog food to supply our dog (SKYE) with the best possible nutrition. I noticed a common need, so decided to bulk produce and sell to other dog lovers out there. This led to my wife opening 'Doggy Kitchen Boutique' where she is addressing all needs a dog owner has. While she started this venture, and I was working in corporate tech, I noticed that her needs in POS and Payment were not addressed by the tools provided. Me being me, I decided after a long market scoop that no single option would be satisfying, so I started building my own. Now a few months into our launch, we support over 100 customers.

What do you expect from the Venture Leaders roadshow, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
To find investors for the actual seed round; to improve our cap and summary situation towards larger VCs; and, to build peer connections to drive Switzerland together.

Whom does your product help, and how?
Small to medium-sized retailers with the ambition to look beyond the walls of their business through mobility and connectivity. From food truckers to treatment service providers, from events to larger stadiums—we help our customers to get closer to theirs even in the most unexpected corners.
 

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"I need people around me who challenge me every day and love to see that throughout the business."

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What are you most excited about at work right now?
Currently, GENIE is getting into the hands of early customers, and it’s the most exciting and fearful moment of my professional journey. Every day, we learn what the perfect user experience is. We are entering the market with some established partners, like Sunrise—partners who realized rather fast that GENIE is the future of retail and want to join us on our journey to change this industry.

How did you build your team?
I learned rather early that success is not a solo project and leadership is not a one-way street. I need people around me who challenge me every day and love to see that throughout the business. First, I hired in the field where I lacked the greatest know-how and where there was the highest need (like a CTO & QA) through friends and contacts, such as a former CTO at DropBox and a founder of Bexio. Following that, our combined networks started to pay off, bringing talent on board who share the passion and can work remotely. The latter is a challenging component, but currently, we have managed to build a team that works independently while still being strongly connected. It’s rather impressive.

Which market are you addressing, and what is the potential of your startup?
Anyone with a need to sell and accept card payments, which, in Europe alone, means 23 million users—that is 23 million smartphones that could be turned into mobile business devices by installing GENIE. Our go-to-market strategy (GTM) has three phases: first, current Sharp and CASIO users who need/want to move into a digital point-of-sale (POS) environment; second, retailers with existing digital POS solutions that do not provide mobility; and third, events and stadiums who want to increase mobile location potential.
 

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"Giving our users seamless access to all our products (GENIE, OCTO, SKYE & PAY) is a unique way of approaching this type of SaaS technology."

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What are your key achievements to date?
Giving our users seamless access to all our products (GENIE, OCTO, SKYE & PAY) is a unique way of approaching this type of SaaS technology. It has been great to see the growth of our customer base by 50% quarter by quarter and learn every day about their use cases to optimize our products. The opportunity to work with and learn from global acquiring partners like Payone, Nets, Worldline, and Wallee is also meaningful, as was working with our Swiss GTM partner, Sunrise, and various onboarded resellers in the DACH area.

What is one thing not many people know about you?
Dogs are at the center of my life; I simply love dogs. ZEMP would not exist if it were not for that love. Any free time I have, I spend with Abby, our dog. She helps me relax and find my pace back in life. One day, I hope ZEMP will allow me to build a Pet Hospice to take in all forgotten animals.

What is your favorite podcast and why?
When I travel, I sometimes listen to the Payment & Banking Fintech Podcast. 

What is your favorite book and why?
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. This book is opening your mind to permanent habits, values, family, relationships, and communication.

What is the most challenging aspect of being a founder?
First, finding the best talents with not only the skills but also the attitude to function in our well-oiled team and remote environment. And second, recognizing signs of change in the industry/market rooted in environmental, political, or customer needs is vital to make sure we are ahead of the game and have enough manpower to get after these new unknowns.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a founder?
Happy users! Receiving feedback and appreciation from our customers and partners not only makes my heart glow but also makes our product and services better. It tells me that we are on the right track—putting the customer first and solving real needs.

What is your greatest professional failure, and what did you learn from it?
Perfectionism! I wanted to solve all the problems our users have in one go, in the best solution possible. This was my greatest failure as an entrepreneur and leader. I restricted users to use a product that could solve some of their problems already and restricted us from a massive learning curve at the same time. We missed initial revenue by not selling our MVP and still feel this aftermath. A true missed opportunity. Perfectionism is death.


The ZEMP team in action

The Venture Leaders Fintech roadshow in London is organized by Venturelab in partnership with Swissnex and supported by EPFL, ETH Zürich, and Walder Wyss.