A new BrainStore product

In April 2013 Markus Mettler, BrainStore's founder, decided to launch the Innovation Champ training program. Every first Monday and Tuesday of the month (from 10am to 5pm on both days) participants of the training can learn about the DNA of Innovation and experience the Idea Machine in action. The training has taken place in NYC, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, South Africa and South Korea.
Every workshop has been an inspiring experience for the participants and trainers.

Mid October 2011 BrainStore changed the business model to the Pay-What-You-Wish model. Why?

The creation of value is at the center of the activities.
We gain time by avoiding long negotiations and complex proposals.
We can get to know each other in an easy way.
The work over several cycles allows us to adjust process, information and tools during the collaboration.

The model has been applied ever since and we'd never would want to revert.

The consequences

From here...

The supplier and customer negotiate the price before work starts. The customer pays an upfront invoice and an invoice after completion.

The interests of customer and suppliers can be quite conflicting

To here...

The customer defines the price after reviewing the results - after every significant process cycle which created value (defined by the supplier)

The creation of value is the main goal, for both sides
Any customer can order BrainStore services
A customer needs to be ready, willing and able to appreciate value

The Pay-What-You-Wish model immediately was accepted by customers and brought numerous additional benefits to the company.

25 years of condensed innovation R&D: the DNA of Innovation. The 34 building blocks in six categories show the essentials of successful innovation work.

In November 1997 the first shop opened that sells fresh ideas over the counter in the Swiss city of Biel/Bienne. People thought we were mad. From day 1 on we had customers walking into the shop and buying fresh ideas.

In 1997 BrainStore hat deciphered the DNA of innovation, assembled the building blocks and built the Idea Machine. The Idea Machine has continuously evolved and has been applied over 1,000 times so far.

Dactis Ltd was founded in 1989 by Markus. Nadja Schnetzler, Markus' partner, joined shortly after the company was founded and played a key role in the company's development.

The business idea of Dactis was to provide a service to teachers, allowing them to order newspapers and magazines to enrich school life. After an unsuccessful trial phase Dactis decided to start working directly with students (mostly high school level) and offer them two main forms of support: access to an advertising pool (which would provide funding for school newspapers) and training.

This services grew and Dactis evolved into into a business with about 15 employees.

Dactis was pooling and servicing - at peak times - up to 150 school newspapers. Revenues were generated through the commission earned.

The Dactis team rapidly realized that many advertisements conceived by professional advertises for school newspapers were - from the content standpoint - inadequate for school newspapers. Too boring, to phoney.
In an experiment in 1991 - initiated by the cR advertising agency in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Health Agency, Dactis brought together leading editors of school newspapers, advertising staff and representatives of the agency to create ideas for a new AIDS awareness campaign.

The result: an amazing campaign ran in about 100 Swiss student newspapers and created a very large echo.