The Resilient Entrepreneur, Edition #96
Hi there
I hope you had a great week!
Here are the topics in today's edition:
- Be Paranoid and Talk About It: How Leaders Prepare for Adversity
- Scarcity or Abundance? How a Student Enterprise Evolved Over 20 Years
Please reach out with comments, questions, or suggestions for articles!
Talk soon,
Tom
CRISIS MANAGEMENT FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Be Paranoid and Talk About It: How Leaders Prepare for Adversity
The best thing we can do to prepare for adversity is to talk about our paranoias. The more people hear it, the likelier they will prepare.
“How is business?”
“Great!”
That’s the typical starter conversation between any person and an entrepreneur. In small talk, almost all entrepreneurs say that their business is going great (including me).
However, if you look behind the facade, many businesses struggle. Not in a sense that they would almost go bankrupt, but struggling with the changing world.
War in Europe is back.
U.S. tariffs threaten European business.
China is on the rise.
AI is eating up job opportunities.
Elderly care costs explode as all the baby boomers retire.
Despite all, climate change is still a threat.
Be Paranoid
I admit it, I am a little paranoid. For both my company and my family, I am constantly thinking about worst-case plans. Not in a prepper way, but in a crisis management way:
What if your bank goes bust?
What if OpenAI stopped operating?
What if you were stuck in a power cut for 36 hours?
What if your fiber internet line were cut?
There are many more scenarios to think about. Or better, to prepare for. The world is not as rosy as it used to be in the quiet period between 1990 and 2019.
Because I’m a little paranoid, I realized that bad weather was coming a little earlier than in 2019. I invested in solar power, rainwater collection, and backup internet at a time when people still thought the world was a playground. They laughed at me and called me a prepper.
Until the flow of Russian gas into Europe came to an abrupt halt in the winter of 2022/2023. Now those people called me and asked me what they should do.
I said: “Nothing. Because you won’t get any solar panels right now.”
That’s the point of being paranoid. You start the crisis with what you have. You can’t buy relevant goods once the crisis has hit.
And Talk About it
In Switzerland, my home country, our Chief of Defense was publicly criticized for talking about the true state of our Armed Forces: For too long, we cut the defense budget by too much, resulting in not all our troops being fully equipped right now.
Again, you start the crisis with what you have. You can’t buy military kit and ammunition in large quantities when the war has already started, and everybody else needs the same scarce goods, too.
Even though it’s a simple truth that you start the crisis with what you have, many people still don’t understand this. That’s because many people in the West haven’t seen a real crisis in all those party years.
What can we do?
The best thing is to talk about our paranoias. The more people hear about what could go wrong, the higher the likelihood that at least some people start preparing for the upcoming bad weather.
INSPIRATION FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Scarcity or Abundance? How a Student Enterprise Evolved Over 20 Years
How the student enterprise I worked for evolved from scarcity to abundance in just one generation. No rant, no resentment, just observation.
I grew up in a middle-class family in the 1980s and 1990s. I had everything I needed, but my parents were clearly Cold War children. Eating up our plates, including the crumbs, was a standard. When we bought something not strictly necessary, my father would ask if prosperity had broken out.
With this background from home, I went to university and started my professional career in the early 2000s. Just after the dot-com bubble and 9/11, I joined ETH juniors, the student enterprise at my university. We provided technology consulting to enterprises, bringing fresh views and cutting-edge technology knowledge from university students to enterprise customers.
Now you might wonder, why do I write about my first career experience more than 20 years later? It all has to do with a newsletter I recently received from ETH juniors. But let’s throw back to the early 2000s first.
Student Enterprise Life In The Early 2000s
When I was at ETH juniors from 2002 to 2005, we were an eight-person team, and we generated revenues of around 500k. Winning a deal was hard work, and nothing came for free. Enterprises were still scared from the dot-com bubble burst and 9/11, so money for consulting services was not easily spent. Furthermore, founded in 1997, ETH juniors was still a very young organization, led by very young people. Winning the trust of enterprises was blood, sweat, and tears.
Because we weren’t shy to do any job ourselves, we still managed to make ends meet and grow every year.
When there was an occasion to celebrate, we went out for a nice team dinner and had the company pay for it. I remember when a colleague and I discussed after a team dinner how cool it was that we could afford nice team dinners as students and have the company pick up the bill.
It was those experiences that provided a guiding light for my own career as an entrepreneur and founder of Yonder, a B2B SaaS company: Do a lot with little, stay true to yourself, and celebrate wins modestly.
This has served me well so far.
Student Enterprise Life in 2025
Now back to that newsletter I received from ETH juniors a few weeks ago. They looked back on a successful year — revenues were almost 10x higher than they were in my time. The brand is now a recognized name, and operations are highly profitable. They also set up a startup fund, providing non-dilutive funding to their alumni who start their own companies. My company has also benefited from this startup fund when we started from humble beginnings almost 10 years ago.
So far, so good.
What irritated me in the newsletter was the review of their team activities in 2025: They did two team trips in a single year, one to New York and another one to Sri Lanka.
When I read that, I reflected on those humble team dinners we held more than 20 years ago.
Like my father some 30 years ago, my first thought was: Has prosperity broken out?
Conclusion
Is this a rant against today’s generation of young entrepreneurs?
Not at all.
But it’s a powerful reminder of how ever-rising prosperity has changed people’s priorities. I’m grateful to have grown up in a middle-class family marked by the Cold War era. It taught me how to do a lot with little, for which I’m eternally grateful in my daily struggle as an entrepreneur.
Looking into the future, we shall watch with intent which entrepreneurial qualities will prove decisive — scarcity or abundance.
About Me
Growing a company in uncertain times is like running a marathon — it demands grit, strategy, and resilience.
As a tech entrepreneur, active reserve officer, and father of three, I share practical insights and write about entrepreneurship, leadership, and crisis management — no AI bullshit, no promos, just my thoughts in plain text.
When I’m not solving problems, I recharge and find inspiration in the breathtaking mountains around Zermatt.
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