Peter Vogel is a 25 year old Austrian‐American who grew up in Germany most of the time. In 2000, he developed his passion for entrepreneurship when he co-founded the lifestyle magazine re.flect for the lake of Constance region. Before moving to Zurich in 2004 for his engineering studies at the ETH Zurich, he travelled for a decent amount of time, getting to know wonderful places and people in this world. After 5 semesters in Zurich he went to the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. When he came back, he received the ETH Zurich Excellence Scholarship with which he partly financed his current company, Jobzippers Ltd. This project keeps him occupied until today.

Still, he decided to start a PhD in Entrepreneurship at the ETH Lausanne last May. Currently, he lives in both Lausanne and Zurich.
Find Peter on Facebook and Twitter. Jobzippers on Facebook.

Tell us the story of your latest project

Having two full-time jobs makes it difficult to pin-point the latest one. To form a big picture, combining my function in Jobzippers, that as a PhD student at the EPFL and the general approach I want to take, into one project which I want to call “making meaning”. I see this project as a continuing project which I have and always will make part of my life. To follow this path, I had to (at least temporarily) leave what I had actually studied and worked for, but I now know that it was the right decision. The nice thing: there are about 10 projects just waiting to be kicked-off, so once I find the time for it, there will be some new and exciting stuff taking place.

What are you doing and how did you get there?

As stated in the introduction, the mindset for “making meaning” began in 2000 where I decided that I wanted to do something that actually has an influence, not only on my own life, but rather on the lives of many. But this was the moment where something switched on my entrepreneurial mind rather than really making meaning yet. This journey continues with the foundation of Jobzippers Ltd in 2008 and then that of Stipendia (our European scholarship service) in 2010 (launch still to be announced).
In my PhD I am investigating programs offered by the US and many European countries to help unemployed transition into self-employment, as one mechanism to grow (in the current situation rather heal than grow) the economy. By collaborating with the national employment agencies we try to find out which programs work best, which people and industries should be supported in which way, thus providing insights for the individuals, economies as well as policymakers.

Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?

Let me start with failure, because without failure there cannot be any success which is also why I do not see failure as a real problem but just part of the game leading to new opportunities. There are several moments in my life when this statement was proven. Two examples are: (1) When I applied for a scholarship for Berkeley, my application was rejected. Totally ruining my day and week this was the worst that could happen. But 3 days after having received this notice, I received an email saying that Georgia Tech is among the top 3 universities in the US for Biomedical Engineering. The application window for Georgia Tech was later than that of Berkeley, so I applied for a scholarship there and received it.
(2) During my Masters studies it was always clear for me that I want to become a consultant. For more than 1 year I was considering only this career option (even though I had already founded Jobzippers and signs were good that it will become a success) and when I finally applied for jobs (last January probably was not the best time-point to do so) and went to the interviews, I failed (probably my inside knew that this is not the right time for me to become a consultant). So I started looking for alternatives and I ended up with my PhD in Entrepreneurship which, when looking back, was the much better option for me at that time-point.

When it comes to success: There are various nice things and achievements that have happened that make me happy and proud. But instead of naming various details, I think I am happy to gain traction and awareness in my project of “making meaning”. Three recent achievements are the acceptance to the St. Gallen Symposium 2010, the nomination for the WEF Technology Pioneer 2011 program, as well as my presentation (highly recommended by Sandbox to watch) at the St. Gallen Speakers Series. At the end of February 2010, I was presenting at the St. Gallen Speakers Series in front of several dozens of students as well as a video camera which not only recorded the talk, but also transmitted the video to the AutoUni in Wolfsburg where an additional set of people were sitting.
The main topic was on “Opportunities, Risks and Responsibilities of Running your Own Company”. With this talk I tried to highlight some of the problems that startups might have during the early phases but then also try to encourage students to go out and actually do something.

What do you want to achieve in the next week, the next year, the next 10 years?

Next week: Find a present for my 6 week old nephew, finish up an investment proposal for Jobzippers, finalize our CTI project application, sign contracts, some more contracts, and hopefully some more contracts…
Next year: Open our Lausanne office, raise enough capital to hire passionate and motivated people, expand to other European countries, continue with my PhD project and my “making meaning” project.

Next 10 years: Finish up my PhD, hopefully achieve an exit with Jobzippers, buy a sailing boat, sail around the world, climb Pik Lenin, Aconcagua and Mt McKinley, launch my startup consultancy to help governments around the world establish and improve their startup as well as unemployment support programs.

What was your most inspring moment during the last two weeks?

Leaving my desk last Thursday to go for a run down at the lake (the nice thing is that my desk is just about 300m away from the lake) feeling that Spring is coming back.

How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them?

With Sandbox being an amazing community of outstanding individuals, I am always happy to meet and network with its members. If I had to state things in which I would actually need help right now I would ask for support in the following:

- Help us find investors to accelerate the growth and European expansion of Jobzippers
- Help us find PHP software developers
- Help us find entrepreneurs that are potentially interested in becoming Jobzippers country managers in one or more of the European countries
- Keep me informed of events that could help me in my project of “making meaning”
- Join our Jobzippers mentoring program to help the “younger” generation become as visionary as you are (contact me for details on how to join).

Peter’s favourite:
- Book: Brave New World
- Movie: A Beautiful Mind
- Travel destination during last year: 3 months sailing from Marquesas to Vava’u
- Food: Wienerschnitzel
- Quote: Life is too short, don’t waste it…short and simple