Switching from business to tech, building Stacksync & joining YCombinator. Meet Ruben.
Ruben’s been selling since he was a kid. This led him to St. Gallen to study business. He then switched to Data Science at EPFL (🤯) and is now building an Enterprise System Integration start-up in YC
Studies MSc Data Science @ EPFL ‘23, Exchange @ NTU ‘20, Exchange @ SMU ‘19, BSc Business Administration @ St. Gallen ‘20
Start-up Stacksync (YC 24)
Experiences Data Scientist @ Crewmeister, Sales & Marketing @ Quod AI, IT Desk @ St.Gallen
Origin France/Italy
Links LinkedIn
Fyi - Stacksync is hiring right now! Go check out their role here: 👇
How selling snacks in high school led to studying Business at St. Gallen
Were you entrepreneurial from a young age?
I think in high school I was already a swimming teacher and participating in the young firefighters program for 5 years. And then I was always selling stuff, since I was a kid. When we would go to Italy to visit my mom’s family, I would buy products that were only available there and sell them to my schoolmates as snacks. I would arrive in the morning with a bag of stuff and leave in the evening with the bag empty and some cash. I was doing this from 15 to 17 years old.
And even before that, when I was a little kid, I would take stuff from the kitchen, put it in my room, and a few hours later I’d go to my mom like “Hey, do you want to buy this from me?”
I would do all sorts of stuff to make money, because I liked the idea of business - you do something and then you have a financial output. I really liked that. I was always a hustler, doing a lot of sports too. It shapes your mindset, you know.
So this entrepreneurial spirit led you to study business at St. Gallen?
Yes, I was always into business. I applied to Geneva, Lausanne, and I got accepted to a lot of places, but for me, St. Gallen was the best. And I believe it was a good choice.
What were you doing in St. Gallen besides studying?
I focused a lot on studies, but I also did a lot of sports, especially there. I even learned how to golf because I thought it would be important for business stuff later on.
I participated in student clubs like the St. Gallen Model United Nations, I was in the organizing committee of TEDxSt.Gallen, and I was in the sponsoring team of a sustainable fashion show called Catwalk. I also worked at the IT help desk at the university.
Do you think doing all these extracurriculars is more nature or nurture?
I think I was always busy with many associations, so that’s probably my nature. But doing so many things is probably also because of the environment. A lot of people were doing stuff, so I thought I should do at least that and more. My friends had similar profiles, they were doing a lot of stuff too. So I was pushed by my environment and I also pushed myself.
I think if you don’t engage in student associations, that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes of your studies.
You also did an exchange at SMU & NTU in Singapore? How was the experience and what was the biggest thing you learned?
I think that exchange transformed me in many ways. It was a culture shock and I didn’t know what to expect at all. When I landed, I was like, this is not what I expected to find. It was pretty crazy.
I really learned how to travel and adapt between different cultures and setups. Now, if I arrive in a new place like San Francisco, I know how to handle a change of country, a change of setup, distance from family and friends. Because I traveled to St. Gallen, then Singapore twice, then Germany, then Lausanne, then San Francisco. You start learning how to travel, how to move to a new place and stay.
Challenges switching from Business at St. Gallen to Data Science at EPFL
What made you decide to switch from business to tech?
So in St. Gallen, I did this data science fundamentals program in addition to the business track. And then when I went on exchange to Singapore, I realized like, hey, engineering is so cool. You build apps, you build stuff with data. So that’s where I started to go into data science.
When I came back from Singapore, I decided to take a gap year to improve my tech expertise before doing a technical master’s. I found a job at a startup in Germany called Crewmeister, where I really had the chance to work closely with the CEO and build every data infrastructure, pipeline, everything for the company from scratch. That’s where I learned almost everything I know about tech. It was a very big step.
How did you find Crewmeister and how did you land a technical role despite having a business background?
I was in Singapore, out of my time zone, and I knew I had to find something. So what I did was I went on AngelList, looked at all the startups which had a job similar to what I was searching for, and I just started applying. I was taking the founders' emails from AngelList and sending them a message directly.
I wrote a 7-liner that went something like: "Hey, my name is Ruben. I'm looking for an internship for one year. This is my skillset, this is my ambition, and this is how this internship is going to help me grow. Would you like to chat?" I'm a very intense person, so when I decide to do something, I really do it. For two weeks straight, I was sending out 50-70 applications a day. It was crazy - sometimes I'd have interviews back to back.
I got offers from Germany, France, UK, Spain, Singapore, and more. But Crewmeister was one of the most appealing to me because the founder was really cool. Since I started in business but wanted to transition into tech, I really resonated with the CEO who did a PhD in computer science and a PhD in business. He was that bridge - a guy who understands everything about both topics and is very talented in tech and business.
I think he really saw something in me - this very big determination. And the ‘St. Gallen’ tag (which is very well-known in Germany) probably helped too, it was a good tag. But more than that, it was really about this deep motivation he saw in me to learn.
How did you learn to code and break down tech while at Crewmeister?
At Crewmeister, I did my first API call there. It took me a week to make the first API endpoint, which was a very easy Jira API. You just put an API token into a curl request, that’s it, data is there. Now I could probably do it in 20 minutes and deploy it to production.
How was the transition to EPFL for your master’s in computer science?
I needed to learn and deep dive into my data science and computer science expertise, and also improve my real-life credibility. Now people see me as a technical person. The diploma really plays a role.
EPFL helped me gain some knowledge and learn how to think in a different way, but in terms of concrete knowledge that I can activate in real life, very little. EPFL doesn’t help me do my job on a daily basis, but it helps me make better decisions. It’s more of a mindset - it helps me think but doesn’t help me implement anything, which is probably the goal of university anyway. Nobody claims university should teach you something useful for a job, but it teaches you how to think independently.
Building Stacksync and what it’s like to found a start-up
What does your start-up Stacksync do?
Stacksync does data sync and two-way sync between CRMs and databases. We help engineers ship CRM integrations in days, not months. Clients like Hyperline use Stacksync to ship customer-facing integrations without the engineering time, in days. Robust integration date.
What made you keep pursuing Stacksync over the years?
I really do believe that this is the future of the data movement industry. It’s hard to find customers for any company. You’re not gonna launch and then have to put up a waitlist or cut down signups. That doesn’t happen, except maybe for OpenAI.
Building a company is hard. It seems like it’s just building the product, but then you also have the legal side, the accounting, every problem falls on you as the CEO. People think the CEO has a cool job, but the reality is you do everything people don’t want to do - the trash jobs like booking flights, doing accounting, dealing with people who don’t understand. You have to get customers and supervise the technology at the same time.
As a developer, you have a button, you make something visual, it’s fulfilling. But as a founder, you might be grinding for years and still see no results, not a single penny in the bank account. You’re gonna have a lot of expenses and no revenue for a long time. And when you start talking to people about a really strong idea like Stacksync, they just don’t get what you’re doing at all. You start getting discouraged, but you have to keep grinding.
How do you deal with the ups and downs?
You have way more lows than highs. But it’s a question of mindset. If you discourage yourself, it means you don’t understand that having a low is actually an opportunity to grow and learn. Because if you knew everything, you wouldn’t have this low.
Every challenge, every problem is an opportunity to grow. You should look at it like “Oh yeah, there’s one more problem we can solve.” And if you do this at scale and do it fast, you’re gonna make your way through. But sometimes as a founder, you need to be a bit blind. You can’t see all these hurdles that come at you, you just have to continue no matter what.
How is it different working alone vs in a team?
Having a team is easier because you can hold each other accountable. You share the problems, you share the successes. It makes you stronger and less vulnerable. When you’re alone, it’s easy to say “I’m going to give up and nobody’s going to care.”
The problem is, if you have a team, you’re more marketable and that’s good. Keep talking about your project and don’t try to fake it like “Yeah we’re killing it” all the time. Being able to tell people your problems openly, to share success and failures openly, failing and succeeding in public, is something that really helps you figure out your way better. It makes you comfortable with your current state.
Getting accepted into Y Combinator W24 batch
How does the environment at YC compare to EPFL?
It’s completely different. At YC, you live in the here and now. People give feedback on your product and within hours or even minutes, founders come back and say “Hey, I fixed it.” You refresh and it’s done. There’s no planning, it’s just build, make something people want.
You talk to your users, you get disappointed, you record it, and you start building again. You do this over and over until you find product-market fit and become a billion-dollar company. The answer is always “Go talk to your users.” I have a problem, I don’t know how to build a feature - go ask your users.
What strikes me at YC is the truth. The truth is you have no clients and your business is not doing well. That’s the truth. You take the punch. People tell their stories and they tell you they’re doing poorly. And you can relate so much because you’re doing the same thing.
Being vulnerable is a very big strength in the end. The more honest, the more educated, the more experienced people are, the more truth they’re going to tell you. Because there is no incentive to lie in entrepreneurship. The first person you lie to is yourself, and that’s not going to help you. Actual acknowledgment of a problem is the first step to solving it. If you can’t acknowledge a problem, you can’t solve it.
What does your day-to-day look like?
Now it’s hyper-focus. You’re operative at 6am, so by noon you already have 6 hours of work done. You do sports, connect with people, do socials, build networking. You are vulnerable, you talk honestly, no bullshit. Meetings last 15-30 minutes max. It’s very efficient.
More thoughts and advice for students
You regularly do lots of sports - how important is exercise to you?
It’s very important to exercise, otherwise you can’t cope between physical activity and brain activity. I think it’s also good for productivity. It’s very important to do at least an hour of sports every two days.
What do you see yourself doing in 5-10 years?
Building something people want. Be it this company or another company, being a builder.
What advice would you give to students at Swiss universities?
My best advice is don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. You’ll be surprised how people are actually keen to help.
Last time we were at a hotel and the sauna was for-pay. It was cold outside and we were in flip flops. We just went up and said “Hey, we came all the way here, can we just try the sauna for 20 minutes for free instead of paying $50 for the day?” And they let us in. They said “Okay, you guys are bold for asking, that’s really crazy.” People are just happy to help.
Another example - at the end of every meeting, ask “Who do you think is the next person I should talk to?” Most people are happy to help, in general.
Closing notes
Hey - Arnie here!
Stacksync was actually one of my first internships and had a great time there. What really struck me the most was just how perseverant, energetic and hard-working Ruben was - that’s why I thought he’d be a great guest to feature here.
Switching from business to tech, and building a start-up while learning tech (at EPFL, from a non-technical background!!) is absolutely mind-blowing. It takes a huge amount of work, dedication and fearlessness, and it’s really no surprise Ruben got into YC.
Stacksync is currently hiring and I really suggest you take a look at what they’re doing + roles they have open 👇 What makes them so special is the founders (and Ruben’s deep business and tech skills)
As always, let me know what you think of this blog!