FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

According to Wikipedia:

A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. [...] Startup companies can come in all forms, including those that are simply life-style companies, but the phrase "startup company" is often associated with high growth, technology oriented companies.

Swiss Startup Chart is a discovery tool for for Switzerland (Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lausanne, Zug, etc.) based startups, entrepreneurs, VCs, meetups, conferences and coworking spaces. The site is based on twitter users and twitter lists.

The site is based on twitter lists curated by the editor - it lists, sorts, groups and ranks the twitter accounts of the members. Using sophisticated algorithms, we analyse the activity and influence of each member - this includes the number of followers, list memberships and other factors. This enables the software to rank the users and give them various titles.

If you are working with startups or seriously into them, and use twitter regularly, you should be on the list. You can be the one person in an one-person startup, a CEO, developer, ideas person, investor, or even a blogger who blogs about startups. (Startup journalists are okay too!)

If you're already using twitter, all you have to do is to contact us and your account will be added shortly. If you're not a twitter user yet, you should be! Time to start actively tweeting, it's always a good idea if you're a startups person.

The most influential people go to the top. But the whole thing is calculated by machines, and even machines can be wrong. If you're feeling you're not high enough on the list, time to start working on your twitter presence a bit.

If you tweet as a person, your account and name should by your name (or nickname). If it's a company account, name your twitter user your company name. If you tweet as a company, try to avoid personal topics - stick to tweets about your company and line of business.

Upload a profile picture. If you tweet as a person, it should be your recognisable face. If you tweet as a company, upload your company logo.

Fill in your Bio in your profile (in settings). When you tweet as a company: what is it doing, what's the one-line elevator pitch. If you think it's important, add your personal twitter account as well. If you tweet as a person: who are you, what's your line of business, where are you working and what other twitter accounts you're running.

Don't leave the ’Location’ field empty. Even entering "Switzerland" helps people putting you on the map.

These tips are very important in order to be discoverable. It may be obvious for you and mates what you do and how you look, but if someone else looks at your twitter profile: they need some clues. You can find all these settings in your twitter settings - profile page.

Twitter lets you create your own lists of accounts without actually following them. If you curate well, you can create some very interesting topical/niche lists. Similar to the main Timeline, your lists will show the tweets from all the added accounts. You can not only create your own twitter lists but follow other peoples lists as well - and vice versa. You can also create lists that are private - for your eyes only. Twitter profiles show public twitter list memberships: number of list memberships can indicate influence as well.

That's pretty simple: you should follow the people you find interesting / important. If it's getting a bit too noisy, you should consider creating a few twitter lists. Have a look at other people's lists and follow them if you like. You can also follow the Swiss Startups lists - just follow the subscriber link at the top of the boxes on the homepage.

If you set up your twitter profile correctly, it'll be a piece of cake to find you just by typing some relevant keywords into the search box on the homepage. Similarly, you can find other people: just type in keywords that are relevant to you. If you find someone interesting, you can easily follow them clicking the according button or message them using the tweet box - and you should!

On the profile pages you can see tags associated with people. These are generated automatically based on twitter list membership names. The more people call you, say, a video expert on twitter lists, the more likely you'll be tagged as 'video'. The more influential you are in one of the tags, the more 's you see next to the tags.

If you want to network more with Switzerland-based startups, also check out our Facebook page and this LinkedIn Group.

The Swiss Startup Chart is edited / curated by David Butler (@david_a_butler on Twitter) of Social Axle (@socialaxle) - you should contact @socialaxle if you feel something is missing from here. This is a StartupCharts chart - if you're intersted in creating a chart like this for your neck of the wood, check out StartupCharts.com.