The Resilient Entrepreneur, Edition #99
Hi there
I hope you had a great week!
Here are the topics in today's edition:
- Berlin Power Cut: What Entrepreneurs Should Prepare For
- Mission, People, Organization: Why Yet Another Book on Leadership?
Please reach out with comments, questions, or suggestions for articles!
Talk soon,
Tom
TACTICS FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Berlin Power Cut: What Entrepreneurs Should Prepare For
Preparing your home and your family for crises is one thing, but what about preparing your business for something like the Berlin power cut?
Berlin is not Kyiv, but on 3rd January 2026, it felt similar: Electricity was gone in large parts of the city, with temperatures well below freezing point. Two things became clear very quickly: First, the power cut could be attributed to a coordinated attack by a violent left-wing group. And second, it became clear that it would take days until power would be fully restored.
Those who read my articles regularly know that I have a long history of preparing for power outages and other crises. My family and I also experienced a 36-hour blackout last year.
Now, preparing your home and your family for such crises is important, but what about preparing your business for a longer power cut? Here are some possibilities that help your business survive a few days without electricity.
1. Generators and Backup Internet
Although I am a big advocate of solar energy, most entrepreneurs can’t install rooftop solar because they rent their premises.
Here is a remarkably simple solution for entrepreneurs: A generator and a backup internet connection. In this way, entrepreneurs can power their computers and access the internet without grid electricity. That’s important for all those businesses that rely on electronic payments or do business globally – your customer in Singapore won’t even know that you’re suffering a widespread power cut in Berlin.
For generators, you can resort to traditional gasoline-powered generators, with the disadvantage that you have to run them outside the building. Power stations are an alternative: Put simply, they work like a big power bank, and they can also be recharged with an off-grid solar panel.
For backup internet, there is really only one affordable option: Starlink. Even if you dislike Elon Musk, Starlink gives you reliable broadband internet access when the electricity grid fails and the cellular network is down. Provided, of course, you keep a generator to power your Starlink dish.
2. No On-Premise Servers
It’s surprising how many small businesses still believe that on-premise servers or NAS systems give their files better availability and security than cloud storage. Hey, how would you access your cloud files during a power cut?
First, as described above, there are affordable options for a grid-independent backup internet connection.
Second, most cloud file storage systems allow automatic offline sync of all files. With today’s personal computers having 1GB+ storage capacity, you can configure all your cloud files to sync to your computer. If you do that before the power cut, you can continue to work offline, and all the changes will be synced back automatically once power is restored, just like when you work offline on a plane.
Third, most cloud servers use redundancy across different regions. This means that your data is mirrored in two different parts of the country, or even in two entirely different countries. The chances that both server locations are affected by a power cut at the same time are extremely low.
3. No Desktops
Recently, one of my employees who is based in Southeast Asia suffered a long power cut in her home, without having a backup internet connection. Instead of being unproductive the whole day, she packed up her laptop, traveled to a friend’s house, and dialed into the video calls from there. In this way, one hour of work was lost and one call was missed, instead of a full day’s work with several calls. All because she uses a laptop instead of a desktop.
My office is where my laptop is. I don’t have an external screen, so I have the same work setup wherever I am. In contrast, in surprisingly many work setups, we still see desktops , just because this is how we did things in the past. Replacing them with laptops with batteries adds resilience at very little cost.
4. Decentralize
In many companies, there is a huge debate about whether people should be ordered back into the office or whether remote work is here to stay.
At Yonder, the company I co-founded, we cherish a hybrid approach to work. Everyone based in Switzerland must come to the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and can work remotely for the other workdays. Everybody who isn’t based in Switzerland works remotely all the time by nature, but travels to Switzerland for a full work week twice a year.
Let’s not discuss the pros and cons of remote work here, but look at the resilience aspect of remote work. Being able to work remotely means that you can easily relocate to a different location in case of power outages or other crises. Having employees in multiple cities or even multiple countries means that in all likelihood, you’re not losing your entire workforce to a power cut at the same time.
Conclusion
Laugh at me, but power cuts are here to stay: Wars, hybrid attacks, violent groups, technical failures, or energy shortage. We’ve seen them all in the last 12 months.
The consequence for entrepreneurs is simple, yet a bit cumbersome: Better prepare than be sorry.
STRATEGIES FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Mission, People, Organization: Why Yet Another Book on Leadership?
Our practical book on leadership puts three aspects of leadership on the same level: The mission, the people, and the organization.
There are thousands of leadership books out there. Nevertheless, two colleagues and I co-authored yet another book on leadership.
Why then did the three of us think that the new book would meet a market need?
First of all, we wrote the book from our perspective as active reserve officers in the Swiss Armed Forces. Currently, the Swiss Armed Forces is reworking its leadership model. One of my colleagues is leading the discussion, as he is a lecturer at Switzerland’s military academy.
Second, as Switzerland maintains an active reserve army composed of many ordinary citizens, we wanted to make the book’s content understandable for everyone.
And third, we wanted to show that there isn’t such a thing as military or civilian leadership. There is just leadership, and you can learn it in different places, with the military being one of them. And if you learned leadership in the military, you can also apply it in your civilian life.
Who would be better suited to write this book than three active reserve officers who learned leadership in the military and pursued three completely different civilian careers?
The Model: Command — Leadership — Management
Let’s start with the reworked leadership model of the Swiss Armed Forces. It’s not fundamentally different from what it was before. It doesn’t require a new leadership style or a novel leadership theory. However, it put three aspects on the same level: The mission, the people, and the organization.
Whatever business you are in, you have to fulfill a mission. This can be a combat mission in the military, or adding value for your customers in business. Irrespective of the product you are offering, fulfilling a mission is easier said than done: That’s because the mission is not always clearly stated, so very often (but not always!) leaders have to define their own mission. If you are a leader and you define missions for your teams, that’s even harder than defining your own mission. Defining challenging but executable missions is a core component of what we call command.
A leader without a team cannot do anything. Leaders are generalists — they don’t know anything but can connect the dots between different areas of expertise. Leaders are completely lost without a network of people who can help them. So leadership requires putting people at the center stage. If you don’t, they won’t be able to accomplish their missions.
If you have a great team that is focused on its mission but acts without any coordination, you will never win the battle. Somebody needs to set the beat and make the rules for everyone to work efficiently. That’s what companies call management, and it also applies to the military.
So, what is a good leader in our view? It’s a person who puts his or her mission first and the people in his or her team at the center stage. All the time, no ifs and whens.
That was theoretical. That’s exactly the opposite of what we wanted. Yet every practical leadership book needs some theoretical foundation.
The Style: Practical, Persona-Based
To make the book practical and actionable, we introduced Lucas, a fictitious persona that guides the reader through the book.
Lucas is an IT guy by training, founded a startup a couple of years ago, shares a flat with his girlfriend, plays the guitar in a punk band, and is an active reserve officer in the Swiss Armed Forces.
Lucas could be called Patricia, he could be married and have kids, be a stand-up comedian instead of a punk guitarist, or operate a food truck instead of a tech startup. At the end, it doesn’t matter. Lucas is a symbol for all those people who aim to do great things for their countries and societies — and who sometimes struggle with all the problems life throws at them.
The different aspects of command, leadership, and management are illuminated in the book through a consecutive set of stories from Lucas’ busy life, and then underpinned by the leadership tools we originally learned in the Swiss Armed Forces, but have applied them in a wide field of civilian activities over the last 20 years.
Where Can I Get The Book?
Does this sound compelling to you? The book is available right now, both in paper form, as EPUB or PDF, and as a Kindle download.
But… only in German for the moment. We’re working on an English version — stay tuned!
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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